Short Take#1 : Re-examining the Topic of Christians and Conspiracy Theories

Here is another short take from the Christian Worldview with David Wheaton. Christians should have evidence and eyewitnesses and not be passing along falsehoods.

That's absolutely true. But I think the assumption was he was talking about the issue of election fraud, and I'm not really sure that's what he was doing. What he actually referred to was Christians passing along conspiracy theories. I looked at the definition of what a conspiracy theory actually is. I think there's an assumption out there that a conspiracy theory is necessarily false.

But that's not what the definition is. The definition is a theory that rejects the standard explanation for an event and instead credits a covert group or organization with carrying out a secret plot. Another definition is the idea that many important political events or economic and social trends are the products of deceptive plots that are largely unknown to the general public. In those definitions, it does not imply that conspiracy theories are necessarily true or false, although I think they are mostly assumed to be mostly false. There might be kernels of truth that people believe, and therefore they believe the bigger narrative of the conspiracy theory, which is false.

My own definition, as I think of a conspiracy theory, would be an alternate perspective to the mainstream view or a majority accepted view of something that happened. Now, Tom Pennington didn't specify that election fraud was the conspiracy theory he was talking about. Now, earlier in this message, he had talked about the Capitol riot and what led to the Capitol riot.

And here's that sound bite, which I think gives some context. But at the same time, it's important for us to acknowledge that it is not just those who entered the Capitol who are responsible for this national tragedy. Their actions were fueled by reckless, divisive rhetoric. Public officials on both sides of the aisle, including our president, and millions of our citizens who have posted and reposted angry incendiary accusations on social media for years, all of them share a like responsibility for what transpired. And they bear responsibility for the fruit of their words. We understand that legally, as well as biblically, if you walk into a building and cry fire, you are responsible for the outcome of those words. Okay, so the context of what he said about conspiracy theories probably was not related to election fraud, but maybe more the theories around why the Capitol riots, the riot at the Capitol took place.

Now, this is where I diverge from the point he made here. I don't believe that it is fair to say that all sides share in what happened at the Capitol. People are responsible for their own actions.

The people responsible for the riots are the ones who rioted, not other rally goers who came there peaceably, not people who even post strong views on social media. There's a reason that incitement is a legal definition. The essence of the law of incitement, legal definition here is that a person, the insider, urges another person or persons to commit a criminal offense.

You say to someone, let's go to the Capitol, let's breach through and let's take over government. That's incitement. You could say that social media posts, of course, in our divided country lead to division in our country, leads to an anger and so forth. But incitement is a completely different story. That is prosecutable. We have talked about previously that President Trump did lay out his viewpoint for voting fraud in this past election in that speech of the Capitol, but he never incited anyone to commit a crime over it. We won't go over that again. He said peacefully and patriotically walk or march to the Capitol. Some people, a group of people, did what they had decided to do and they created a criminal offense by breaching the Capitol. I'm not sure exactly what conspiracy theory Tom Pennington is referring to, but I'm going to guess, in light of what he said in this recent soundbite, which I didn't play last week, that it's the general left versus right battles that you see taking place online all the time, whether on Facebook or Twitter and elsewhere. This has been a short take from The Christian Worldview with David Wheaton. To find out more about The Christian Worldview, order resources, make a donation, become a monthly partner or contact us, visit thechristianworldview.org. You can also call us at toll-free 1-888-646-8255 or write to us at Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. That's Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota 55331.