“It’s Going to be Biblical,” QAnon, or, a Christian reckoning
by Nina Howe-Goldstein (SC ‘25)
It’s tempting to take on a removed, outsider view of conspiracy theories — they can be too outlandish for our worldview to countenance. To ignore Q, though, is to ignore not only its proliferation but the societal structures and stressors that led us to this point. Much like the ongoing pandemic, it would be far too easy to prematurely declare victory over the “disease” while huge swaths of the population, misled by their leaders, continue to reject all truth and reality and those same leaders go unpunished.
On the evening of December 4th, 2016, I was putting on my choir robes at my upper-northwest D.C. church when I got a strange text from another chorister. She wasn’t going to make it to the service: she said that she was stuck in traffic outside of local favorite Comet Pizza, and that police had blocked off the street. We would later learn that a gunman had walked into Comet, firing several shots from his semi-automatic as he sought to rescue children that he thought were being trafficked through Comet’s (non-existent) basement. He believed in the conspiracy theory known as “Pizzagate,” which theorized that leaked emails from a Clinton staffer contained coded messages about a child sex trafficking ring.
That’s a fringe ideology if there ever was one… right?? Not quite so, unfortunately. “Pizzagate” was only the beginning. Exacerbated by societal stressors and a longtime alliance between white evangelical Christians and conservative politics, a number of right-wing conspiracy theories have emerged in the past several years, chief among them the loose amalgamation of beliefs known as “QAnon.” Relying on biblical language and themes to gain traction in white evangelical circles, QAnon has taken root with terrifying ease. It feeds on the worst of both evangelicalism and modern conservative politics: fervent nationalism, white supremacist ideologies, and xenophobia in order to fundamentally shift American Christianity away from the Bible’s message of radical love.
QAnon rose to prominence in the leadup to the 2020 election, riding a wave of political fervor amplified by the stressors of the pandemic. Its basic tenet is simple: an anonymous 8chan poster known as “Q” (denoting the highest level of security clearance at the Department of Energy) would make cryptic “drops” (posts) on 8chan, hinting at a secret battle between the newly-elected Donald Trump and the satanist pedophile cabal of the Democratic elite. (Everything else is a sort of “choose-your-own-adventure” conspiracy, with ideas like Pizzagate being grandfathered into the “big tent” of QAnon.)
Where does that appeal come from? The heavy use of Christian imagery in the QAnon lore has often been cited in its popularity among Trump’s white evangelical base, itself a product of a longtime alliance between white evangelical Christians and conservative politics. Terms like “the Storm” — the predicted triumphant moment where the evil liberal cabal would be rounded up and executed, resulting in an American utopia — explicitly reference the Genesis flood narrative. “The Storm” also evokes millenarian themes popular in evangelical narratives, where a Revelation-style separation of the good and evil peoples would occur, subsequently creating a paradise. Similarly, the covert battle between Trump and the evil cabal has resonance with the Christian concept of a spiritual battle between heaven and hell. (Established Christian teaching, however, says this war is already won.) Q, of course, is the prophet heralding the apocalyptic event. Trump is a deeply imperfect messiah — the kind that gasses peaceful protesters for a photo op in front of a church — whose persona is meant to be relatable to a white evangelical identity of persecution: both are separated from the secular, liberal mainstream (fake news!) which perpetuates falsehoods.
The theory’s themes have gained traction with white evangelical Christians, and have then spread through their social groups. Researchers have suggested that changes in behavioral patterns caused by the pandemic — particularly churches’ switch to online services — first drove people online, and the subsequent increase in both societal stress and misinformation made QAnon especially appealing. (A new subculture called “pastel QAnon” targeted towards women has also sprung up, theorized to have gained traction because of the particular stress and loss of control felt by women during the pandemic.) QAnon has infiltrated established churches too: many pastors have embraced QAnon, but many more have felt pressure to embrace conspiracies by their newly-radicalized congregation. Whether Q is being espoused from the pulpit or the pews, though, its rhetoric has dug in: multiple studies in early 2021 suggest that 3 in 10 Republicans believe the central tenets of QAnon.
It’s tempting to take on a removed, outsider view of conspiracy theories — they can be too outlandish for our worldview to countenance. Many of the tenets of QAnon are at direct odds with Christian faith: not in the least, Jesus’s message against false prophets rebukes the violence-focused rhetoric spread by Trump and the alt-right. To ignore Q, though, is to ignore not only its proliferation but the societal structures and stressors that led us to this point. Much like the ongoing pandemic, it would be far too easy to prematurely declare victory over the “disease” while huge swaths of the population, misled by their leaders, continue to reject all truth and reality and those same leaders go unpunished.
On the day of the January 6th insurrection, my brother and I had decided to take the dogs to Starbucks. (The attack on the Capitol was well underway, our mother was glued to the TV, and as we left she warned us to be careful — fear had taken root in even our distant corner of the District.) As we trudged through the cold, we encountered a trio of flag- and Q-merch-adorned wannabe rioters, wandering aimlessly under the gloomy skies.
“Cute dog,” one of them tried to say. Another asked if we could point their group towards the Metro. We passed them in sharp silence, but over hot chocolate would laugh at their audacity: they wanted the uber-liberal Washingtonians to point them towards the fighting? They wanted to get on the Metro when it had already been shut down??
I think about those men often, because something felt so vulnerable about our encounter. Removed from a mob, stranded in a wealthy blue enclave of the city with a scant chance of joining the action, their power was stripped away. Ours, in turn, had grown: we were just teenagers, but now they were on our turf.
This was not a divide that could be bridged by engaging them in that moment, because between us we were only five people and two dogs, and the unchristian machinery which had brought us there was tens of decades and millions of dollars in the making. That’s why it’s so important not to blame individual adherents for the failings of the movements’ figureheads: both spiritual and political leaders (though the two are often one and the same) have pushed an unnecessary distrust of science and the “secular” world, and that leadership’s failure to end the pandemic has furthered isolation and division. The cure, conversely, lies in the prioritization of peoples’ physical and mental health over corporate and elite interests, good and humble leadership, the absence of which has so far led us astray. (I would be remiss not to add that these traits are all espoused in the New Testament’s vision for early Christian communities.) The emergent QAnon ideology has exposed the toxic underpinnings of so much of our society — now we just have to fix it.
