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(OPINION) Anyone who says that U.S. evangelical churches don’t have a conspiracy theory problem is living in denial. While some evangelical leaders may have us believe that QAnon conspiracy theories are a “fringe problem” within the Church, the data tells us that this problem is actually more pervasive than many of us realize - across racial lines.

According to a recent study by Conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, 27% of White evangelicals, 15% of White mainline Protestants, 18% of White Catholics, 11% of Hispanic Catholics and 7% of Black Protestants admit to believing some or all of QAnon election conspiracy theories.

As people who claim to have the truth, it should deeply concern us that around 1 in 4 White evangelical brothers and sisters believe in widely debunked lies and conspiracy theories. It should also concern us that around 1 in 10 Hispanic Catholic and Black Protestant brothers and sisters buy into the lies of QAnon.

There can be no doubt in our minds — purging this cancer from our churches has to be a top priority. Jesus often warned us about “the leaven of the Pharisees” — false, legalistic teaching that often added to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Think of Christians you know who have said, “You cannot be a Christian and vote for ____.”

Jesus was clear — if we don’t deal swiftly with false teaching, it will quickly spread and devour us.

So how can churches take on these lies and purge them from our midst? I’d like to propose three practical steps.

Step 1: Tell Of A More Beautiful Conspiracy

How do we get our people to forget a bad conspiracy theory? We replace it with a more beautiful story. 

And we have a more beautiful story — a loving Father who loved his rebellious creation so much that he’d give his one and only Son to redeem and restore everything that has been destroyed by this rebellious creation. The story gets crazier — this Son, despite living a perfect earthly life, voluntarily chose to do this by laying down his divine rights and suffering a tortured criminal’s death — only to be raised back to life by the Father (through a mysterious Spirit) three days later — only to ascend back into heaven.

And if that isn’t crazy enough — we also believe that this Son will return from the clouds at an unknown time in full glory as a King, riding on a white horse.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the most beautiful, nail-biting, suspense-ridden conspiracy on earth. Or in the words of Jonathan Edwards:

“Is anything more inspiring, more exciting, more lovable and desirable in heaven or earth than the gospel of Jesus Christ?… The gospel story is designed to affect us emotionally — and our emotions are designed to be affected by its beauty and glory. It touches our hearts at their tenderest parts, shaking us deeply to the core. We should be utterly humbled that we are not more emotionally affected than we are. 

Step 2: Disciple Your People In This Beautiful Divine Conspiracy

Make no mistake — if we don’t disciple our people in the Word, the World will disciple them in its own false gospels — whether that’s Marxism, Socialism, Capitalism, White Supremacy or Christian Nationalism.

Believe it or not — at this very moment, thousands of our fellow church-goers are being discipled in the conspiracies of man by Fox News, CNN, YouTube, TikTok and other forms of media.

If the gospel is the most beautiful conspiracy ever revealed to man, and if Scripture tells us everything we need to know about this most true and beautiful conspiracy, let’s do everything we can to get our people to fall in love with this divine conspiracy. Don’t just expect your people to be in the Word — equip them with Bible reading plans and communities that journey through Scripture together. Let’s do everything we humanly can to put our people in front of the most beautiful conspiracy ever revealed to man! 

Step 3: Expose Your People To How This Divine Conspiracy Is Currently Transforming The World

For many of our people — seeing is believing. So let’s invite them to come, see and behold how God is already building his kingdom on earth through the Global Church.

We have brothers and sisters who are faithfully laboring for the advancement of this divine conspiracy in very tangible ways around the globe! At this very moment, there are hundreds of thousands of churches around the world who are sponsoring refugee families, building aftercare homes for survivors of trafficking, transforming broken public justice systems to work for the poor, leading disaster and emergency relief efforts, running food pantries, establishing homeless shelters, advocating for more compassionate refugee policies and planting churches that do all of the above.

Expose your church members to how God is building his kingdom through organizations like International Justice Mission, World Relief, Send Relief, World Vision, etc., and invite them to invest their own time, talent and treasure in advancing this beautiful divine conspiracy.

Believe it or not, the North American church has a unique opportunity in front of us — we can either live in denial and do nothing to confront these lies or we can rise to the moment and do everything we can to captivate the hearts of our people with the gospel of Jesus Christ — the most beautiful divine conspiracy ever revealed to man.

Joash Thomas leads Advocacy & Mobilization in the U.S. Southeast for the world’s largest global anti-trafficking organization, International Justice Mission (IJM). Views expressed by the author are personal. A Public Theologian at heart, Joash has a Bachelor’s degree from Georgia State University, a Master’s degree in Political Management from The George Washington University and is currently pursuing a ThM in Systematic Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary. He lives in Atlanta, Ga. with his wife, Valentina. You can connect with Joash on Twitter or Instagram at @JoashPThomas.