I don’t know much of anything about Jack Reacher. But the other day I came across this quote from the book. And Anglican priest says this about the book of Revelation:
Most of the original is lost, of course. It was written in ancient Hebrew or Aramaic, and copied by hand many times, and then translated into Koine Greek, and copied by hand many times, and then translated into Latin, and copied by hand many times, and then translated into Elizabethan English and printed, with opportunities for error and confusion at every single stage. Now it reads like a bad acid trip. I suspect it always did. (Child, 434-35)
I stumbled upon this quote not by reading Child but by reading a great book on textual criticism (Myths and Mistakes). But it got me thinking about the way we often react to conspiracy theories and fake news.
Read that priest’s argument about the book of Revelation one more time. What are you feeling? What are you thinking? What’s happening in your mind as you read through that?
If you’re like me, then you immediately start poking holes in his argument. And you might even have a little bit of anger and passion. And that happens because what he’s doing here is kicking my core narrative right in the groin. The Bible is trustworthy. It’s the Word of God and not a “bad acid trip”. My life is centered upon the veracity of God’s Word. To accept what this priest is saying I’d need to fundamentally change my core narrative.
Hold that thought for a moment.
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Did you know that during the Obama administration he changed the red, white, and blue decor from the Oval Office and replaced it with a Muslim prayer curtain?
You can see the picture for yourself. I’ll post one but I’m sure it’ll get deleted so you’d better screenshot it. Notice the American flag behind previous presidents. Then notice the golden curtain with Arabic symbols on it behind Obama.
Now if you’re a conservative evangelical (as I’d consider myself) what is happening in your mind and heart in this moment? There is still passion. It’s maybe even white hot anger. Maybe even a little fear. But are any caution lights flashing in your mind?
Maybe not. And that’s why you’d share this. It fits within your core narrative. It doesn’t matter if this is true. It seems true. And even if these particular facts aren’t 100% accurate it still throws shade on President Obama and pushes back darkness.
Of course all this ignores the fact that you can find pictures with a golden curtain behind every president from Nixon to Trump.
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Organizations talk about having a core narrative. A core narrative dictates how you organize beliefs, facts, and truth to tell your story. It’s who you are—or at least who you say you are.
For an evangelical, at least historically, the key part of our core narrative is that God saves sinners. The gospel is the core. David Bebbington has done a fair job of identifying four evangelical distinctives. Evangelicals believe that one must be born again, we believe the Bible is our authority, Christ’s death was for us, and we’re called to share this gospel. This is what Bebbington calls “conversionism, biblicism, crucicentrism, and activism”.
That has been our core narrative. But our core belief of conversionism and activism means that we’re always going to have an uncomfortable relationship with the world. We’re always going to be prone to develop an us vs. them mentality.
So what happens, then, when you live in a culture of outrage? What happens when the cultural tide shifts and in response we exchange parts of our core narrative for something else? What happens when nationalism subtly replaces biblicism? When evangelicals consume more conservative talk radio than Scripture our core narrative has slowly transformed into something else.
When evangelical activism loses one of it’s legs it begins to totter. And rather than strengthening our biblical resolve it seems to me that we’ve propped it up with things like conspiracy theories and faux outrage. Suddenly our activism is no longer about gospel mission but it’s about preserving a certain way of life. Our activism then morphs into having a core narrative that could actually be threatened by a President with a Muslim prayer curtain. The core of evangelical Christianity isn’t threatened by pagan rulers.
I only use that Muslim prayer curtain as an example. My point here isn’t about that conspiracy theory. My point is about conspiracy theories altogether and how they’ve become especially attractive to evangelicals. It’s deadly to the evangelical mind and and to the evangel itself. As I heard another person say, “I don’t think we realize what we’re doing when our Facebook wall is covered with conspiracy theories and simultaneously the declaration that He is Risen”.
If you want to find a conspiracy theory it’s that the god of this age has conspired to fool many believers into fighting the wrong battle. They’ll use gifts of discernment, meant to guard love, strengthen faith, and infuse hope, for the sake of preserving a kingdom that’ll perish. We’ve been duped into thinking that truth and ethics matter less than winning a culture war. The darkest of cabals is scheming to convince believers that they have more investment in unbelieving political pundits than a third-world brother in Christ meeting in a dank shelter. And his greatest conspiracy of all might be to convince us that truth is nothing more than fake news.
Part of my own core narrative is that truth matters. And ethics matter. I absolutely refuse to compromise on this. I am still an evangelical but I will not allow conspiracy theories to become part of my core narrative. And because of this, I fear that to many, I will look increasingly less and less evangelical. Sadly, I’ll also look less biblically conservative, even though my view on the inerrancy of Scripture has not changed. And soon enough I’ll be another one of those pastors canceled and consumed by this vast conspiracy. But I refuse to budge.
God saves sinners.
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