Good Morning!
Here are some thoughts about conspiracy theories and the conspiracy theorist in all of us.
Have a wonderful day - let’s build tables, not walls! ❤️🤙🏻✌🏻🙏🏻
Glenn || PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE
Whenever I see a "conspiracy theory" come across my Social Media pages in 2021, it's typically from my Evangelical friends.
You know the kind I'm talking about ...
"Masks are useless. Watch this video. They are just trying to muzzle us, control us."
"The COVID-19 vaccine is the government's attempt to force us into submission."
"COVID-19 is a hoax, all a ploy by the government."
"They put in stay at home orders to keep us from going to church!"
QAnon.
Voter fraud.
Global Warming.
"Critical Race Theory shouldn't be taught in school, they're trying to brainwash our kids!"
... All of these theories typically have one thing in common and that is that at the root of them, "bad people are out to stalk our wellbeing and our happiness and so someone needs to pay".
Right?
The conspiracy theorist spins their story in an effort to make sense of the heartbreak and turmoil in the world and rather than either taking partial blame for things like global warming (aren't we all to blame for this in some way?) or realizing that because of the nature of the world there are diseases that take life and require us to take precautions like wear a mask or consider getting a vaccine ... the conspiracy theorist would rather adopt a story (no matter how far out there it may be) to pin the blame on someone, force someone to pay, and make sense of why the world is in turmoil.
"It's the government's fault."
"It's the current administrations fault."
"It's the previous administrations fault."
"It's the medical community's fault."
"It's science's fault."
"It's the gay's fault."
... It's always someone's fault.
It makes sense that Evangelical's get sucked into this web, because their whole faith system is built on pinning the blame on someone. Right? I mean, we can say it isn't all we want, but it is ...
"We are born with a sin nature BECAUSE OF ADAM AND EVE; and Adam and Eve disobeyed God and committed that original sin BECAUSE they listened to THE DEVIL who took on the form of a snake in the Garden of Eden. And today evil is running rampant in the world BECAUSE of DEVIL and his demons who are all around us trying to take us down and infiltrate the church and the world, using BAD, WORLDLY PEOPLE as their vessels. The world is full of sin and someone needs to pay, thank God for JESUS who took it all upon his shoulders so that if we believe in him we can go to heaven when we die instead of hell and finally escape all the bad people and demons that are out to get us. And one day THEY will all pay - God's judgement is coming ... but I'll be in heaven."
... After spending so many years of my life being fed these narratives I'm coming to see them for what they are - they are stories that pin the blame onto Adam and Eve, the Devil, bad people, and ultimately onto Jesus in an effort to help us make sense of the heartbreaking turmoil in the world and give us a solution or a way out in the end.
This morning while drinking my coffee I was thinking about all of the problems in the world and MY OWN tendency to want to pin the blame on "bad men who live to stalk my happiness" (I do this too - WE ALL DO in some way, shape, or form) and the Spirit reminded me that when I seek to pin blame on other human beings I'm doing little more than shrinking the table that Jesus came to build while raising the walls that Jesus came to tear down.
Pinning blame builds walls, not tables. And if we really want to be Christ-minded people, we need to accept the fact that ...
Bad things happen sometimes because of evil people, YES.
And sometimes the tables of those evil people need to be flipped over, YES.
... but ultimately bad things happen because life is hard and that's just the way it is.
The Good News, however, is that Christ has promised to never leave us nor forsake us in the midst of it all and so rather than thanking God that "one day I'll get to spend eternity in heaven and I'll be out of this fallen world!" ... I thank God that I'm not alone in this world and ask for help in doing my part (however small it may be) to make it more like heaven.
Much love.
❤️🙏🏻✌🏻🤙🏻