Way too many churches have never been all that effective, when it comes to helping the faithful deal with the challenges of daily life in the modern world — especially those linked to technology and mass media.
Back when I was teaching at Denver Seminary, in the early 1990s, we were struggling to help future pastors and church leaders cope with cable television all of those TV screens in the typical family home.
Frankly, many people couldn’t grasp how this was linked to pastoral ministry and preaching. I kept asking: How do your people spend their time? Spend their money? Make their decisions? These questions are at the heart of discipleship and they point to the powerful role that mass media play in modern life.
Now there is the Internet. Those TVs still exist, but they are surrounded by dozens of other screens that serve as doors into cyberspace.
It appears that we may have a topic that has some — repeat “some” — church leaders concerned about all of those screens. They are beginning to hear from pastors who are concerned, scared even, about the rising presence of QAnon dogma in their pews. Many saw the important essay in The Atlantic that ran with this headline: “The Prophecies of Q — American conspiracy theories are entering a dangerous new phase.”
In an “On Religion” column about QAnon, I stressed that church leaders need to wake up and realize the role that mainstream and alternative news sources are playing in dividing their people — period.
The bottom line: Many newsrooms are producing slanted, advocacy journalism that millions of consumers consider a kind of “fake news.” This is pushing readers away from mainstream news and deep into online niches packed with folks pushing QAnon and other conspiracy theories. Thus, I wrote:
The question, as pandemic-weary Americans stagger into the 2020 elections, is how many believers in this voting bloc have allowed their anger about "fake news" to push them toward fringe conspiracy theories about the future of their nation.
Some of these theories involve billionaire Bill Gates and global coronavirus vaccine projects, the Antichrist's plans for 5G towers, Democrats in pedophile rings or all those mysterious "QAnon" messages. "Q" is an anonymous scribe whose disciples think is a retired U.S. intelligence leader or maybe even President Donald Trump.
The bitter online arguments sound like this: Are these conspiracies mere "fake news" or is an increasingly politicized American press — especially on politics and religion — hiding dangerous truths behind its own brand of "fake news"?
"A reflexive disregard of what are legitimate news sources can feed a penchant for conspiracy theories," said Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College.
A few lines later, Stetzer added: