There are times, when reading the sprawling “Shadowland” package at The Atlantic, when one is tempted to think that the goal was to weave a massive liberal conspiracy theory about the role that conservative conspiracy theories play in Donald Trump’s America.
At the center of this drama — of course — is evangelical Christianity. After all, evangelical Christians are to blame for Trump’s victory, even if they didn’t swing all those crucial states in the Catholic-labor Rust Belt.
It’s almost as if evangelicals are playing, for some strategic minds on the left, the same sick, oversized role in American life that some evangelicals assign to Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Bill Gates and all those liberal Southern Baptist intellectuals who love Johnny Cash and Jane Austen.
Let’s focus on this piece: “The Prophecies of Q.” Toward the end, a fervent supporter of Trump and the mysterious QAnon offers her credo. It’s clear that she speaks for, you know, millions of people hiding like terrorist sleeper cells in ordinary pews from coast to coast.
This had been something she was reluctant to speak about at first. Now, she said, “I feel God led me to Q. I really feel like God pushed me in this direction. I feel like if it was deceitful, in my spirit, God would be telling me, ‘Enough’s enough.’ But I don’t feel that. I pray about it. I’ve said, ‘Father, should I be wasting my time on this?’ … And I don’t feel that feeling of I should stop.”
Well, “GOD WINS” and all that.
This leads us to an update on “The Late Great Planet Earth” and legions of similar end-of-the-world classics, only this time the man on great white horse (or whatever) is Trump:
Arthur Jones, the director of the documentary film Feels Good Man … told me that QAnon reminds him of his childhood growing up in an evangelical-Christian family in the Ozarks. He said that many people he knew then, and many people he meets now in the most devout parts of the country, are deeply interested in the Book of Revelation, and in trying to unpack “all of its pretty-hard-to-decipher prophecies.” Jones went on: “I think the same kind of person would all of a sudden start pulling at the threads of Q and start feeling like everything is starting to fall into place and make sense. If you are an evangelical and you look at Donald Trump on face value, he lies, he steals, he cheats, he’s been married multiple times, he’s clearly a sinner. But you are trying to find a way that he is somehow part of God’s plan.”
Author Adrienne LaFrance does note that conspiracy theories exist on the cultural and political left (maybe, kind of), as well as the theological and political right. But it’s clear evangelical Protestantism is the X factor in this growing threat to America and the world.
Oh, and we’re not talking about SOME evangelicals — digital prophets in a dark corner of the complex world of evangelicalism. We aren’t talking about evangelical heretics, people whose views appall the vast majority of evangelical denominational leaders, seminary faculty members and legal activists.
We’re talking about a new sect that is defined by its evangelical hopes and dreams, since the “language of evangelical Christianity has come to define the Q movement.” In fact, this could turn into a new movement — like the Seventh-day Adventists or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Thus, here is the end of the piece, with a litany of QAnon prophecy:
People are expressing their faith through devoted study of Q drops as installments of a foundational text, through the development of Q-worshipping groups, and through sweeping expressions of gratitude for what Q has brought to their lives. Does it matter that we do not know who Q is? The divine is always a mystery. Does it matter that basic aspects of Q’s teachings cannot be confirmed? The basic tenets of Christianity cannot be confirmed. Among the people of QAnon, faith remains absolute. True believers describe a feeling of rebirth, an irreversible arousal to existential knowledge. They are certain that a Great Awakening is coming. They’ll wait as long as they must for deliverance.
Trust the plan. Enjoy the show. Nothing can stop what is coming.
The bottom line: Am I saying that the QAnon influence in corners of evangelicalism is unimportant?
Of course not. There are all kinds of pastors and evangelical laypeople who have never heard of this stuff. They need to read this Atlantic package and see if any of it sounds familiar. As with the alt-right in general, it’s clear that some evangelicals have linked elements of their faith with a larger QAnon vision that has nothing to do with the basics of 2,000 years of Christian doctrine.
However, this Atlantic piece comes really close to saying that small-o orthodox people who believe in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ are on their way to QAnon land.
There’s more. Worried that there are forms of “fake news” that plague the mainstream left as well as the Russian-bot fueled right? You could be QAnon bound.
Worried that The New York Times, NPR, Hollywood, Yale Law School and lots of other powerful institutions tend to speak with one voice on matters of religion, morality and culture? That could be QAnon.
Watch a show or two on Fox News? That could be QAnon.
Sympathetic to many of the worries and fears of angry voters in flyover country? That could be QAnon.
Is your pastor worried about future U.S. Supreme Court cases that could redefine the First Amendment and parental rights? That could be QAnon adjacent.
Does it matter that the mysterious Q — believers think he is a former intelligence official — keeps using evangelical language? Of course it does. Rush Limbaugh has always done the same thing. Ditto for Citizen Donald Trump. They are looking for followers who feel disenfranchised almost every time they turn on their televisions or click to open elite news websites.
Here’s a key passage that let’s you know what Q is all about, in terms of political paranoia and religious imagery.
On March 9, Q himself issued a triptych of ominous posts that seemed definitive: The coronavirus is real, but welcome, and followers should not be afraid. The first post shared Trump’s tweet from the night before and repeated, “Nothing Can Stop What Is Coming.” The second said: “The Great Awakening is Worldwide.” The third was simple: “GOD WINS.”
A month later, on April 8, Q went on a posting spree, dropping nine posts over the span of six hours and touching on several of his favorite topics — God, Pizzagate, and the wickedness of the elites. “They will stop at nothing to regain power,” he wrote in one scathing post that alleged a coordinated propaganda effort by Democrats, Hollywood, and the media. Another accused Democrats of promoting “mass hysteria” about the coronavirus for political gain: “What is the primary benefit to keep public in mass-hysteria re: COVID‑19? Think voting. Are you awake yet? Q.” And he shared these verses from Ephesians: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.”
Let me conclude with one other key quote from this long piece, which is, as I said, part of a larger Atlantic package.
This is the passage that I agree with the most in this piece — sort of.
QAnon is emblematic of modern America’s susceptibility to conspiracy theories, and its enthusiasm for them. But it is also already much more than a loose collection of conspiracy-minded chat-room inhabitants. It is a movement united in mass rejection of reason, objectivity, and other Enlightenment values. And we are likely closer to the beginning of its story than the end. The group harnesses paranoia to fervent hope and a deep sense of belonging. The way it breathes life into an ancient preoccupation with end-times is also radically new. To look at QAnon is to see not just a conspiracy theory but the birth of a new religion.
The key there is the word “new” in “new religion.”
There is something new happening in dark corners of the World Wide Web and, yes, this includes some conservative Christians (and lots of people who say they are Christians). This Atlantic piece is important reading, because this is a serious magazine that speaks for and to serious people.
But where, in all of this, are the voices of traditional Christians — including mainstream evangelicals — who think all of this QAnon stuff is postmodern heresy on digital steroids?
I fear that some readers will dismiss this discussion as mere ravings by the Principalities and Powers of the Acela Zone. There is a real story here. But there needs to be more to it than scribes at The Atlantic getting to draw an oh-so-familiar red line between what they consider Enlightened religion and all of that bad, dangerous evangelical faith lurking out in the heartland.