The Public Religion Research Institute is a non-profit organization that conducts research on religion in American life. They did a high quality poll based on a sample of households derived from post office addresses, in which they asked straight up whether people agreed with the statement that “the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.”
Now I suppose a few people might have said "yes" just for yucks. On the other hand some people may have said "no" out of paranoia that the cabal was coming after believers. Whatever the fact of that may be, 15% of all respondents said yes, and 23% of Republicans did. No big surprise, white evangelical protestants were more likely to agree, but it might be a surprise that Hispanic protestants were as well. I have seen anecdotal reports that this is at least one reason why Joe Biden didn't do as well among Latino voters as Democrats have previously.
You can always find some people who believe really wacky stuff, to be sure. Extraterrestrial reptiloid shape-shifters actually run the world , or the international Jewish conspiracy; the Covid-19 vaccines contain microchips that track your movements. (I've got news for you folks: you already have a device in your pocket that tracks your movements.) The reptiloid conspiracy theory is pretty harmless as far as I can tell. The international Jewish conspiracy theory is obviously harmful in may ways. Although I don't think it has as many adherents as Q-anon, they appear to overlap. Note Marjorie Taylor Greene entertaining the idea that the California wildfires were started by an orbiting laser controlled by Jewish financiers. The theories also have considerable similarity. It was a common slander of the medieval church that Jews consort with Satan and consume the blood of children.
But Q-anon also has much in common with the biblical book Revelation. From ch. 17:
3 Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. 4 The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. 5 The name written on her forehead was a mystery:
babylon the great
the mother of prostitutes
and of the abominations of the earth.
6 I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God’s holy people, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus. . . .
15 Then the angel said to me, “The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages. 16 The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire. 17 For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to hand over to the beast their royal authority, until God’s words are fulfilled. 18 The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.”
The international Jewish conspiracy theory does not equate the evil cabal with the prominent leaders and supporters of one of the major political parties; and it does not envision a coming apocalyptic moment in which the evil will be swept away and the faithful will rise up; and it does not equate one living person with the Messiah. But Q-anon does all of that. Where this may lead I don't want to imagine.
2 comments:
I know some really good people who are Christians, and I know of some really bad ones, too. All in all, and I don’t say this lightly, I hope humanity survives long enough for the religion known as Christianity to vanish from the earth forever.
Don: These people can't properly be called christians. The White Church of America is pure blood-and-soil paganism. As I've said here before, if this country lasts another 200 years they'll be hailing Washington as the Allfather, begetting Jefferson, Franklin, and Hamilton. Their bibles will be inscribed with an eagle clutching an M-16. I'm not joking. But that doesn't matter; religion follows culture, not the other way around.
This calls the question, estemado Cervantes, of why do they believe this? Why do people fall into wild-ass conspiracy theories such as this? I submit it to you that this is the inevitable result of inhabiting a political economy which makes zero sense and over which you have zero control. It's likely that some degree of narcissism and psychopathy are prerequisites for success in this society, but that's a deeply unsatisfying answer for many. Liturgically, most of our ruling class (political and corporate) are clearly demons, and that's clearly a much easier pill to swallow.
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