“Crazy Conspiracy Theory to Be Confirmed as Fact Six Weeks from Now”
– Babylon Bee Jan 10, 2022 headline
The Latin roots to the word conspire are “spirare” and “com” which mean “to breathe together.” Conspiracies happen any time two or more people secretly plot together to commit something wicked.
And conspiracies do indeed happen. You only have to go to the Bible to find David complaining to God of those scheming and plotting against him, and then find David conspiring himself, with Joab, to kill Uriah the Hittite, Bathsheba’s husband (2 Samuel 11).
Conspiracy theories exist when trust doesn’t. These compete with the official account, seeking to explain not only why it is wrong, but why it is a deliberate lie being pulled on the public. Interestingly, there is a conspiracy theory about the term “conspiracy theory” – that it was invented by the CIA as a way to discredit truth-seekers who weren’t buying its lies. But the term has roots that originated long before the CIA began.
So the popularity of conspiracy theories coincides with any drop in the public’s trust. The most recent drop can be attributed to COVID, which got a whole bunch of people skeptical. Required to stay indoors for two weeks going on two years. Didn’t need to wear masks but then we did. Had to stay 6 feet apart but that was a number pulled out of the air. Couldn’t go to church, but might be able to go to a bowling alley. Oh, and it was just a conspiracy theory to think that it might have escaped from a lab … until the CIA listed that as a possibility.
I have a good friend who has now grown so incredulous that he’s open to the idea that we might be living on a flat earth. He doesn’t insist we are. He just doesn’t know that we’re not. And the reason he’s not sure one way or the other is because he’s lost all trust in the authorities.
If that level of distrust strikes you as silly, have you considered the level of craziness your government expects you to swallow? That a guy thinking he is a girl makes him so? That an unborn baby isn’t a precious human being through any of those nine months? That it could be compassionate to kill a sick, elderly, or even suicidal person? Those lies have led to one in every twenty deaths of those already born being via euthanasia. And if you haven’t been born it’s worse still: for every four live births, one child is murdered before they ever got a chance to breathe.
Those are the authorities, put in place by God to restrain evil and promote good, who are instead calling evil good and expecting us to believe that it is so. There’s a very good reason our trust is minimal.
(Apollo 11 photos provided by Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center)
But to flat earth levels? That is a problem.
So, how then can Christians avoid naive gullibility but also runaway skepticism? How should we deal with it when a friend shares an account of what might be, but also might not be? Is there a way to sift conspiracy fact from conspiracy theory? And what are the dangers that conspiracy theories pose for Christians?
Here’s 9 tips to help Christians deal with conspiracy theories.
1. Be biblical
If we want to be wise, then there’s no better direction to head than to go to God. As Solomon shares in Proverbs 4:7a, “The beginning of wisdom is this: get wisdom.” Does that sound circular? It means, if you want it, go after it. Don’t waste your time watching yet another YouTube short filled with could-be’s, and maybe’s, and might-have-beens, and instead learn how to be wise by diving into Proverbs and the whole of God’s Word.
2. Don’t be naïve
Some Christians act as if all conspiracy theories are ridiculous. But God doesn’t want us dismissing them out of hand, so He’s shared accounts of real conspiracies throughout Scripture.
In the New Testament, in Acts 23:21-35, we read of the Jews who conspired to kill Paul, making an oath not to eat or drink until they did it (and bad news for them, Paul got away). Back in the Old Testament we find Joseph’s brothers conspiring together to sell him off to slavers (Gen. 37:18-28). And as mentioned, David had to deal with conspirators (2 Sam. 15, Ps. 31:13) and also perpetuated a conspiracy of his own (2 Sam. 11:14-17).
Most notably the Bible tells us about a grand world-wide conspiracy with a very real shadowy figure behind it all – Christians mustn’t forget that the Devil is real, that he hates God’s people, and that he is out to rob God of the glory that is His due.
Knowing conspiracies do happen, it means we should demand transparency wherever possible – evil hates the light (John 3:20). So, for example, Canada’s federal electoral system has historically had scrutineers from each major federal party double-checking every ballot counted. That’s allowed us to know for certain that an election was legitimate. No trust needed. Compare that with conspiracy allegations common in US elections in part because their votes are tabulated by electronic counting machines and the electorate is asked to just believe that the result are as the government says they are.
3. Be humble
One of the signatures of any good conspiracy theory is that it will fit with the facts as they are known.
But what about those other facts, the missing ones you might not know you are missing? And then there are those other missing facts, the ones you don’t even know you don’t know. As Donald Rumsfeld once put it:
“…there are known knowns: there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns: that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
My wife works at our school in Educational Support doing one-on-one time with students across the grades. During one period just before lunch, she was heading to a classroom to help a boy, only to discover that the teacher had arranged for a visit by a snake expert. So when my wife looked through the doorway, she saw all the fascinated kids looking at an enormous snake. She caught the eye of the teacher, who nodded – the boy my wife was going to help was having a great time holding the snake, and it would have been a shame to pull him out right then. So, instead, my wife headed home. She only worked part-time, and this was the last student she was going to help that day, so she got into her car and drove away.
But that’s not what her student thought. What he saw was my wife peeking in, seeing an enormous snake, then leaving quickly, never to be seen again that entire day. He came to the very logical conclusion that my wife must be terrified of snakes! It seemed true – it fit with all the facts he had on hand. But it wasn’t true. It turned out there were other facts, facts that he didn’t know about. And that he didn’t even know he didn’t know.
So yes, a conspiracy theory might seem to sync up well with what you know, but there might be a lot you don’t know. A Christian needs to humbly remember that only God knows the whole picture.
4. Don’t be a slanderer
Conspiracies happen – the Bible tells us so. But that’s not all God has to say on the matter. He also doesn’t want us spreading “false reports” (Ex. 23:1). And He warns Isaiah not to be like erring Israel (Is. 8:12):
“Do not call conspiracy
everything this people calls a conspiracy:
do not fear what they fear,
and do not dread it.
The LORD Almighty is the one you should regard as holy,
He is the one you are to fear,
He is the one you are to dread.”
Conspiracies do happen, but people talking nonsense happens even more. God hates gossip (Prov. 17:4, 1 Tim. 5:13) and lies, so we need to steer clear.
5. Be biblical (instead of bouncing)
As noted, there’s a good reason for a healthy dose of skepticism when considering the authorities’ official account. But skepticism unrestrained will leave a person with their feet planted firmly in mid-air. When you can’t trust anyone, what can you really know? And when the skeptic eventually lands – he’ll have to, because you can’t live out your day-to-day doubting everything – his position will be determined, not by discernment, but more likely by what he bounced off last. He concludes the moon landing was fake because he can’t be sure to trust those who said it was real. Or he thinks Candace Owens is right about Charlie Kirk’s assassination being an inside job because he doesn’t trust the authorities who were slow with releasing the details. Or he knows that the World Trade Center’s Building 7 was taken down by secretly-placed demolitions because what other explanation could there be?
The problem is, those conclusions are based on questions, not evidence. Even deceptive authorities can’t be counted on to lie with consistency, so you can’t get to the truth by simply presuming the opposite of whatever they’ve said. You can’t get to the truth by bouncing off lies because while there’s only one truth, there’s an absolutely unlimited number of falsehoods, errors, and mistakes. It’s easy to bounce off one lie right into the next.
So, to seek truth, you need to start by firmly grounding your feet on the only firm foundation there is: God’s Word.
Practically speaking, that’d mean Christians shouldn’t believe that the earth is flat, because we have the word of many more than two credible witnesses (a principle found in Deut. 17:6, 19:15, Matthew 18:16) – God-loving, Christian brothers who have gone up into space and come back down to testify to the roundness they’ve seen.
6. Don’t tarnish your witness
We worship a God who became human and then as a man died and rose again. That’s quite the amazing story. And if we’re going to speak as credible witnesses to that incredible tale, we shouldn’t get caught talking nonsense about all sorts of conspiracies that may or may not be. The Devil would love us to come off all crazy to our next-door neighbor. He’d love it if we got all caught up in the mysterious circumstances of Jeffrey Epstein’s death and came up with our own theories and explanations. He wants us wasting our time and undermining our own credibility.
7. Be precise
Misguided conspiracy theories are all about generalizing, lacking the specificity that could let them be pinned down and either verified or rebutted. So, if you don’t want to sound like just a conspiracist then you need to talk with precision. Don’t talk about “the Jews” – talk about the Israeli-American lobby’s influence in Washington. Or was it the Israeli government you meant? Then say so.
8. Don’t have a (public) opinion about everything
We can all have our own thoughts, but that doesn’t mean we need to share them all. There is no shortage of verses in Proverbs that speak to how the wise restrain their lips (Prov. 10:19) but that fools just love letting everyone know what they’ve got to say (Prov. 18:2).
9. Be biblical (and understand the real battle)
It does sometimes seem like there are forces who are working together to undermine whatever is true and good and lovely. Just think of Bill C-4, that threatens pastors with up to 5 years of jail time for counseling someone out of homosexuality, but doesn’t have penalties of any kind for counseling someone out of heterosexuality. Why do ideologies and organizations that seem to have little in common – global warming catastrophists, sexual hedonists, the public school system, overpopulation proponents, evolutionists, Big Tech and Big Government – all seem united against us?
The truth is, they are united in their rebellion against God. As the psalmist says:
Why are the nations restless
And the peoples plotting in vain?
The kings of the earth take their stand
And the rulers conspire together
Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,
“Let’s tear their shackles apart
And throw their ropes away from us!”
Ps. 2:1-3
This is the most vital point for Christians to understand. We are involved in a spiritual battle, and we cannot play our part in it – the part God has called on us to play – by obsessing about the lies all around. There is no end to the lies, and you could waste lifetimes trying to expose them all.
But there is one truth. Only one Truth. And our part, as God’s privileged people, is to proclaim that one and only Truth to a world that so desperately needs to hear all about Him.
The featured photo to this article proves – or so the classic conspiracy theory goes – that the moon landing was faked. How so? The flag is waving in an airless environment! How can there be wind when there isn’t even air?
The real explanation? The flag, crinkled from being packed away, is held upright with a crossbar.