Today we observe Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent, the time in the Christian calendar that commemorates the 40 days Jesus spent being tempted by Satan in the desert. The ashes sprinkled on our foreheads remind us that we are mortal: we are dust, and to dust we shall return. As Pope Francis explained last year, though, “we are dust loved by God,” and the ashes are:
a reminder of the direction of our existence: a passage from dust to life. We are dust, earth, clay, but if we allow ourselves to be shaped by the hands of God, we become something wondrous. More often than not, though, especially at times of difficulty and loneliness, we only see our dust! But the Lord encourages us: in his eyes, our littleness is of infinite value. So let us take heart: we were born to be loved; we were born to be children of God. [Lent is thus] a time of grace, a time for letting God gaze upon us with love and in this way change our lives. We were put in this world to go from ashes to life. So let us not turn our hopes and God’s dream for us into powder and ashes. . . . Ashes are sprinkled on our heads so that the fire of love can be kindled in our hearts. . . . Our earthly possessions will prove useless, dust that scatters, but the love we share – in our families, at work, in the Church and in the world – will save us, for it will endure forever.
This year, it may seem like the last thing we need is a reminder of our mortality. Life’s fragility has probably not been far from any of our thoughts since the pandemic upended our world one year ago. The temptation to feign blissful ignorance of our mortality may sound pretty refreshing right about now. And it’s a temptation that may be within sight as vaccines roll out and something closer to "normalcy" looms over the horizon.
But, as Ash Wednesday reminds us, disregard of our mortality is not so blissful, and it is not without cost. As vaccinations become more widespread, I hope I don’t trade anxiety about my at-risk loved ones for complacency about each day’s significance. Pre-pandemic, I was adept at distracting myself from big questions with a never-ending blur of activities. While Ash Wednesday is not intended as an impetus to wallow in the stark fact of life’s brevity, it is an invitation to reflect: in light of my mortality, how shall I then live?
We do not achieve significance through impressive accomplishments; we honor our significance by living as though we truly believe that the “littleness” of each person we encounter is “of infinite value.” As we enter Lent, what would it look like for “the fire of love” to “be kindled in our hearts?” And what is the “something wondrous” we were called – indeed created – to become?
(This is an op-ed published by Religion News Service.)
One unfortunate aspect of the American culture war is the tendency to weaponize words in ways that stretch them beyond any semblance of their original meanings. Terms such as “woke,” “PC” and “cancel culture” are now deployed to signal that something is bad without shedding meaningful light on the reasons why it’s bad.
The latest term to meet this fate may be “Christian nationalism.” Since the attack on the U.S. Capitol, it’s showing signs of becoming an all-purpose condemnation of any effort to integrate Christian beliefs with civic engagement, even perfectly peaceful ones.
So what is Christian nationalism, and what is it not?
Paul Miller, a Georgetown University professor and author of a forthcoming book on Christian nationalism, explains that Christian nationalism is a political ideology that holds that “the American nation is defined by Christianity and that the government should take steps to keep it that way to sustain and maintain our Christian heritage.”
If America was founded for a unique purpose by God, then the Constitution was divinely inspired, and displaying the American flag in church sanctuaries is not a blurring of American and Christian identity but a natural marker of faith. In the rhetoric of Christian nationalism, power is emphasized over principle.
Why is Christian nationalism so dangerous?
Put simply, when we merge our religious identity with our political identity, we will do anything to ensure that our political tribe prevails. We are no longer debating ideas about which reasonable people can disagree; we are defending Christianity against its enemies.
It’s why Eric Metaxas said, in reference to his claims of a stolen election, that it’s “God’s will” for America to keep spreading liberty around the world, and so, “Who cares what I can prove in the court?” Regardless of what the courts say about election fraud, “we need to fight to the death, to the last drop of blood because it’s worth it.”
When a particular political outcome becomes a tenet of my Christian faith, there’s nothing left to argue about. And when there’s nothing left to argue about, that’s a very dangerous place for democracy to find itself.
So there you have the broad outlines of what Christian nationalism is. What is it not?
Christian nationalism is not Christian patriotism. Love of country is a healthy aspect of being human, a reflection that the particularity of place matters to our identity and values. Patriotism becomes unhealthy when we reimagine our national identity as an expression of divine will, elevating our nation above others on some sort of God-ordained hierarchy.
Christian nationalism is not Christian political engagement. We are not a “Christian nation” in the sense that Christian nationalists mean. We are a nation in which our political discourse has long been shaped by Christian values, on both the left and the right. The civil rights movement was infused with Christian images and principles. The progressive push for immigration reform prominently features Christ’s admonition about welcoming the stranger.
Christian ideas should only be an entry point to a broader conversation with Americans of any (or no) faith tradition, not as a sledgehammer to stop their contribution to the debate. On the issue that’s been the most contentious over the past half-century, abortion, the most effective pro-life voices have been steeped in Christian principles. But the core of their arguments has been grounded in observations about fetal development and articulations of life’s value in terms that are accessible beyond Christianity.
On both sides of the political spectrum, the most effective advocates convey the public relevance of Christian values in terms that are wide open to rational disagreement.
The dangers of Christian nationalism are real, but let’s not let tribal posturing confuse those dangers in ways that marginalize the values-based arguments that have been — and hopefully will continue to be — central to American democracy.
What does Catholic social teaching have to say about America’s collapsing levels of social trust, which underlie the rise of conspiracy theories, the rejection of expertise, and the hollowing out of the political center? Put differently, if we read David Brooks’ recent essay on our nation’s moral convulsion through the lens of CST, what insights might we gain? (Last year, [non-Catholic] Brooks called CST “the most coherent philosophy that opposes a philosophy of rampant individualism,” but I don’t think he’s addressed this topic at any length.) We often invoke elements of CST in debates about particular policy issues, but what light might CST shed on a prudent path forward through this cultural moment?
Two questions might be helpful conversation-starters. First, while solidarity compels us to care about and for others, what does it tell us about the primacy of trusting -- and of being trustworthy -- as a necessary condition of such care? As we know, solidarity “is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress” at others’ misfortunes, but rather “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.” (Sollicitudo rei socialis ¶ 38) What is needed is “a commitment to the good of one’s neighbor with the readiness, in the gospel sense, to ‘lose oneself’ for the sake of the other instead of exploiting him, and to ‘serve him’ instead of oppressing him for one’s advantage.” (Id.) The freedom made possible by solidarity is not “achieved in total self-sufficiency and an absence of relationships,” but only “where reciprocal bonds, governed by truth and justice, link people to one another.” (CDF, Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation ¶ 26) The freedom made possible by solidarity “can be articulated only as a claim of truth.” (Id.) Do we need to talk more about solidarity and social trust?
Second, does subsidiarity require us to pay attention to expertise as part of identifying the appropriate level of society at which problems should be addressed? The importance of the free, meaningful, and efficacious operation of mediating institutions presents the “most weighty principle” of subsidiarity:
Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy or absorb them.
(Quadragesimo anno ¶ 79) What does this mean, if anything, for a rising tide of anti-expert populism?
I'm just starting to think about the answers, and I welcome suggestions of helpful resources (rkvischer [at] stthomas.edu). These and related questions will be a significant component of CST's relevance to American life for the foreseeable future. As Brooks observes,
The cultural shifts we are witnessing offer more safety to the individual at the cost of clannishness within society. People are embedded more in communities and groups, but in an age of distrust, groups look at each other warily, angrily, viciously. The shift toward a more communal viewpoint is potentially a wonderful thing, but it leads to cold civil war unless there is a renaissance of trust. There’s no avoiding the core problem. Unless we can find a way to rebuild trust, the nation does not function.
I believe that Catholic social teaching will provide important insights as we navigate these painful cultural shifts. We need to discern and articulate those insights, and convene conversations that give the insights broad visibility and optimal opportunities to gain traction in the debates to come. This could and should be a years-long project.
On Tuesday night, the San Francisco Board of Education voted to remove the names of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and other prominent figures from 44 public schools over concerns that the figures had “direct or broad ties to slavery, oppression, racism or the ‘subjugation’ of human beings.” It’s tempting simply to roll our eyes and dismiss this as San Francisco playing up to its caricature, but these renaming debates will continue to swirl in cities across the country. Is there an intellectually coherent and morally prudent path to follow?
Yes. In the simplest terms, the renaming debate should explore whether a school's name causes reasonable observers to question the school’s commitment to the core values of its educational mission, not whether the historical figure’s behavior aligned with those values in every single respect. We need to avoid the extreme positions on both sides.
At one extreme, it is a mistake to dismiss these debates categorically as examples of political correctness run amok. Our decisions to honor particular individuals – and to ask families to entrust their children to schools that reflect those decisions – have real impact on well-being. For example, a Native American friend of mine explained that the abuse children of her community experienced in the assimilationist white boarding schools they were forced to attend created a distrust of schools that has extended across generations. As a result, academic success was not celebrated or encouraged when she was growing up.
So imagine being a Native American student asked to attend Ramsey Middle School in Minneapolis, named after the Minnesota governor who called for the extermination of the Dakota and persecuted the tribe in various ways. What message would you absorb every day walking into a building emblazoned with Ramsey’s name?
While my daughter was a student at Ramsey, the students successfully advocated to change the school’s name to honor Alan Page, the first African-American justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court. The students delved into history, evaluated the pros and cons, and persuaded the school board. I fully supported that decision.
At the other extreme, moral purity cannot be the standard for honoring historical figures. One of my personal heroes is Martin Luther King Jr., and he had some pretty significant moral failings; nevertheless, we honor him because the legacy of his public witness was transformational for our nation. Or consider Abraham Lincoln. We are ignoring history if we insist that his primary legacy was his failure to change the U.S. government’s relationship with Indian tribes, rather than courageous action to end slavery and preserve the Union.
Historical analysis requires us to evaluate the entire arc of a person’s life and work. We need to demonstrate empathy – the Ramsey name didn’t bother me until I took time to listen to the experiences of Native Americans in Minnesota – but we also need to exercise reason. If we’re incapable of recognizing that Abraham Lincoln is worthy of honor because of his positive contributions to the American story, we are on a very troubling path. If your feelings about Lincoln are just as valid as the historical facts about Lincoln, we’re not far from the post-truth world of QAnon.
If every interpretation of a contested social symbol is equally valid, there’s really nothing to talk about. History becomes another battlefield in our never-ending culture war. We still have to settle the contest, of course, and we’ll do it through raw power. That’s not a recipe for social cohesion, robust pluralism, or a historically literate citizenry. It’s a recipe for chaos.
Like many Americans, I'm concerned about the power Big Tech wields over our economy, over the ways we obtain (and are influenced by) information, and over our personal data. That said, Amazon’s termination of Parler from its web-hosting service after the attack on the U.S. Capitol appears to have been sensible and legal. Yesterday a federal district court judge rejected Parler’s request for a preliminary injunction, and it may be helpful to summarize the judge’s decision before the legal merits get spun beyond recognition in the never-ending tumult of our culture wars.
The facts: starting in mid-November, Amazon began notifying Parler of problematic content on its platform. (I won't offer examples of the many posts encouraging violence against specific individuals, but you can see for yourself if you search for Amazon's response brief to Parler.) After the U.S. Capitol attack on January 6, content encouraging violence continued to grow on Parler. The Parler CEO acknowledged a backlog of 26,000 posts that violated its community standards yet remained on its service. On January 9, Amazon announced that it would suspend Parler’s account, and Parler sued.
Note that this case has nothing to do with the First Amendment, which applies only against the government, not against a private company like Amazon. Parler did not even allege a First Amendment violation. So what did Parler claim?
First, Parler alleged that Amazon’s termination of service violated the Sherman Act because it was “designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market to the benefit of Twitter.” To prove a violation of the relevant portion of the Sherman Act, Parler needed to show 1) the existence of an agreement; and 2) that the agreement was an unreasonable restraint of trade. Unfortunately for Parler, there was no evidence of an agreement between Amazon and Twitter to harm Parler in order to help Twitter. Contrary to Parler’s allegation, Amazon does not currently provide online hosting services to Twitter. According to the court, Parler has provided “only faint and factually inaccurate speculation.”
Second, Parler alleged that Amazon breached their contract by failing to give Parler 30 days’ notice before terminating services. Parler did not deny that content on its platform violated Amazon’s Acceptable Use Policy, and Parler failed to note that the contract permits Amazon to terminate immediately in the event of a breach.
Third, Parler alleged that Amazon intentionally interfered with its business expectancy, which requires evidence of interference with its business “for an improper purpose or [using] improper means.” The court ruled that Parler raised no “more than the scantest speculation” of improper purpose, and the evidence suggests that Amazon’s action “was in response to Parler’s material breach.”
The court concluded that “the likelihood of Parler prevailing on its claims is not a close call,” as Parler’s allegations “are both inaccurate and unsupported.” Further, the court “rejects any suggestion that the public interest favors requiring [Amazon] to host the incendiary speech that the record shows some of Parler’s users have engaged in.” Parler’s motion for a preliminary injunction was accordingly denied.
We need to sort through difficult issues regarding the power that a few large technology companies have accumulated, and we need to try to do so without reflexively grabbing for the familiar lenses provided by our highly partisan political environment. Catholic legal theory should have something to say about all this. Amazon's decision to stop hosting Parler is not the proper vehicle for that conversation – based on the evidence offered, the decision appears to have been morally prudent and legally justified.
Whether today’s inauguration causes you to feel more hopeful about our nation’s future or more anxious, I hope Christians can pause for a moment to reflect on the role that our faith plays in our political engagement. If we’re not happy with the voices that loudly proclaim direct knowledge of God’s will for American politics (often arising on the right), and we’re not ready to agree with the voices that insist faith has only a marginal role to play in our political discourse (often arising on the left), what’s the path forward?
My favorite line from Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address – delivered near the end of a brutal and bloody war – was his observation that both sides “read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other.” It was a simple recognition of our shared humanity and shared faith, even at a time when we were killing each other in a conflict over the deeply immoral practice of slavery. Lincoln did not accuse those fighting for the Confederacy of not being “real Christians,” he did not claim that God had personally assured him that the Union’s cause was just, and he did not assert that God's plan for civilization hinged on the outcome of the conflict. Instead, he recognized that those on the other side were just as sincere in their faith as he was.
Did that humility weaken his resolve to win the war and end slavery? Not at all. Did his empathy for those supporting the Confederacy lead him to look the other way and ignore their support of a deeply unjust institution? Hardly. Humility and empathy shaped the way he engaged his opponents, not his commitment to the moral claims underlying the conflict.
The answer today is not, as some insist, to exclude commitments grounded in faith from our political discourse. The answer is to articulate the public relevance of our faith commitments in terms that reflect humility and empathy. Three helpful questions emerge from the powerful example provided by Martin Luther King Jr.
First, is faith being invoked as a conversation-stopper? Dr. King’s faith was inseparable from his public witness. Faith was not out of bounds for him, but his faith was not invoked to shut down dissent or signal an us-versus-them worldview. His opposition to segregation was grounded in his belief that “a just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God.” However, he went on to explain that “an unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself.” King did not ask his listeners to embrace the religious foundations of his truth-telling (though many did); he asked them to embrace the resulting moral claims, regardless of how one arrived at them. He brought his faith into the public square without a trace of embarrassment, but it was the beginning of the conversation, not the end of it.
Second, is faith being invoked as a rationale for self-righteousness? Dr. King’s practice of Christian love did not always make even his own followers comfortable. He challenged his followers to overcome their fears and refused the easy path of telling them what they wanted to hear. Even within the black community of his own city, Dr. King showed that love is not passive – it pushes, it stretches. Dr. King worked to motivate the community to organize and persist in the Montgomery bus boycott, and he encountered significant resistance to his efforts initially. In loving others – friend or foe, black or white – Dr. King did the work that allowed him to see the world through others’ eyes, but he insisted that they expand their view to encompass a truer, less isolated vision of their own well-being.
Third, is faith being invoked in ways that foster hatred of our opponents? Dr. King preached and practiced love for his enemies. Loving the white man, according to King, was in part a response to the white man’s needs, for the white man’s personhood was greatly distorted by segregation, and “his soul greatly scarred.” Dr. King’s advocacy was always a call to restore the relationships that were only possible when black Americans and white Americans stood equal before the law. His invocation of faith made clear that even white segregationists were worthy of the beloved community.
If we seek to build the beloved community over the next four years, how should Christian faith shape our political engagement? If we aspire to follow the examples of Lincoln and Dr. King, we cannot accept the reflexive demonization that increasingly seems to shape Americans’ struggle for justice. Political conflict is inescapable, but authentically Christian engagement must recognize that justice is not ultimately about power – it’s about relationship.
Today are we willing to celebrate the Martin Luther King Jr. of 1966, or are we unwilling to walk with him past 1964?
Dr. King offers powerful lessons for today, but those lessons may recede from view as we gradually construct a tamer, less offensive vision of him. Since his assassination, he has become almost universally admired in American society as a model of courage and dignity. Not coincidentally, he is now seen as much less threatening and disruptive to the status quo than he was in reality. We tend to focus on the Dr. King of 1964 rather than the Dr. King of 1966. By way of illustration, I’ll share a personal story.
I went to college in the south, and my roommate was from a small town in Louisiana. With the self-righteousness of an 18-year-old who had grown up in the “enlightened” north, I once started to lecture him about racial injustice in his state. He listened for a while, then he asked how many black students were in my graduating class at a large public high school in Chicago’s suburbs. I was able to count them on one hand. I knew that black people lived on the south side of Chicago, not in my suburb. So? That’s just the way it is. Now let’s get back to talking about racism in the south.
My own obliviousness to the full legacy of American racism reflects the reality that also limited the long-term impact of Dr. King’s work. As with many areas of moral judgment, we’re much quicker to point fingers than we are to engage in deep soul-searching and corrective action. Indeed, when the critical gaze turns to us, we push back powerfully.
Witness the changing public reaction to King himself. From August 1964 to August 1966, Gallup surveys showed that the percentage of Americans who viewed King unfavorably jumped from 38% to 63%.
In the years leading up to 1964, King had led the Montgomery bus boycott, spoke at the funerals of the girls killed in the Birmingham church bombing, wrote his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, brought worldwide attention to Bull Connor’s regime attacking peaceful protestors with police dogs and firehoses, and gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in which he envisioned a day when his children would one day be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, and called out in particular the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.
So what happened between 1964 and 1966? King publicly opposed the Vietnam War for the first time, which could explain part of the shift in public opinion against him. I think the bigger change, though, was that King shifted his gaze to northern cities. He moved to Chicago and launched his first civil rights campaign outside the deep south. I grew up hearing quite a bit about the civil rights struggle in Selma, Birmingham, Montgomery, and other southern cities.
I was an adult before I learned about the marches King led in Chicago, where he encountered what he described as the most hostile crowds of his life. Rather than target a southern society that advertised its segregation policies for all to see, he now protested deeply embedded real estate practices, such as steering and redlining, that kept blacks locked in northern ghettos. In 1965, he predicted, “If we can break the system in Chicago, it can be broken any place in the country.” He didn’t break the system, and we still haven’t broken the system.
It’s easier to like King when he helps me feel morally righteous and confident in my place on the right side of history. I would never refuse service to someone based on the color of their skin. I would never turn the dogs loose on peaceful protesters.
We’re less comfortable with King – I’m less comfortable with King – when he starts asking what I’m doing about the inequality in my own community.
I encourage us to reflect on Dr. King’s most powerfully persistent question: How will we use our gifts to help bind our nation’s wounds and build the beloved community?
As we reflect on the life and ministry of Martin Luther King Jr., my friend Yohuru Williams and I have published an op-edin today's St. Paul Pioneer-Press about how insights from our experience teaching "Race, Law & U.S. History" may help guide difficult conversations in the days ahead. An excerpt:
When we portray progress on racial justice as a simplistic good-versus-evil battle, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. Progress requires us to recognize the scourge of racism, but it also requires our best thinking to discern what will prove most effective in addressing it in a complicated world. Cartoonish renderings of complex issues only serve to further divide rather than create the opportunity for constructive engagement around important issues that deserve not only our full attention but the best of our energies.
The most frequent objection I’ve seen to expressions of concern about last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol is some version of, “Why weren’t you so outraged about all the riots last summer?” The insinuation is that those who were upset by last week’s events don’t want to talk about the riots because they are associated with a cause they support (racial justice), while the U.S. Capitol attack is associated with a cause they dislike (Donald Trump). It’s a fair question – here’s my answer.
To begin, I would not endorse a blanket assertion that the U.S. Capitol attack was “worse” or “more harmful” than last summer’s riots. If you are an immigrant who had worked for years to build a small business on Lake Street in Minneapolis, only to see it destroyed in one night by arsonists, and you then come to learn that insurance won’t come anywhere close to covering the cost of rebuilding, the U.S. Capitol attack sure doesn’t feel worse. In the Twin Cities, more than 1,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed after George Floyd’s death. The bulk of these losses occurred in neighborhoods inhabited by working-class people of color and recent immigrants. Many residents who do not own cars were left without easy access to grocery stores and pharmacies. Rioting and property destruction are wrong and should be condemned, period.
That said, the attack on the U.S. Capitol was dramatically worse in one important respect: it was the culmination of a weeks-long challenge to the rule of law by the President of the United States. I reach this conclusion for four reasons:
First, no one is above the law. The rule of law prohibits arbitrary power, which means that the lawgiver also must be subject to the law. That’s why the peaceful transfer of power is so important: by willingly stepping down from power and cooperating in the transition to his successor, the President honors the duly enacted procedure for deciding elections, thereby showing that he is also subject to the law. Yes, it’s fine to challenge the election in court, but President Trump did more than that, working to discredit our institutions in the eyes of the public in order to benefit himself. Months before the election, President Trump was already signaling that he was not going to give up power without a fight. To the surprise of no one, he is not going to concede the election or attend the inauguration. That’s not just bad manners – it’s in significant tension with the rule of law.
Second, we cannot change laws retroactively in order to maintain power. The rule of law requires that laws are prospective and consistent, which allows laws to guide conduct. (E.g., the legislature can’t punish you by passing a law criminalizing something you did two weeks after you did it.) Many of the President’s “stolen election” claims challenged practices that had been explicitly authorized by state legislatures and election commissions in order to facilitate voting during the pandemic, long before November 3. As courts pointed out, the Trump campaign had plenty of time to challenge those procedures before the election but chose to wait until after he lost. Trying to change the election rules after the results are known is not just being a poor sport, it’s violating a fundamental premise of the rule of law.
Third, words matter. The rule of law’s viability is never guaranteed; it requires the support of each generation of Americans. As such, symbolism and rhetoric matter a great deal. President Trump and his team have been claiming that our election system is corrupt, that everyone who disagrees with his fraud claims is either a coward or dishonest, and that true patriots will “fight” to keep him in office. Rallying his supporters as Congress was (literally) engaged in the peaceful transfer of power, and telling the crowd to march to the Capitol to continue the fight, that “we will never concede,” and that if they give up, the “country will be destroyed,” is dangerously irresponsible rhetoric for a leader tasked with stewarding the rule of law.
Finally, the rule of law will not last long in a country where willful ignorance is a successful political strategy. Since November 3, President Trump has let loose with a steady stream of falsehoods about the election. The “stump speech” he developed about election fraud was filled with claims that had already been disproven repeatedly. Even at the January 6 rally, he criticized Vice President Pence for not rejecting the electoral votes from several swing states. The Vice President does not have that power, and no reasonable person who understands the Constitution believes he does. Even Pence recognized that he did not have that authority (which then led people at the Capitol to chant, “Hang Mike Pence!”). If we care about the rule of law, we have to care enough to spend time learning about our system of government. The ease with which our President misled his followers is deeply concerning.
And the riots in Minneapolis this summer? Yes, they did horrendous damage to our city and the livelihoods of many residents. They did not threaten the rule of law. Our elected leaders repeatedly condemned the rioters. Hundreds of people were arrested. Law enforcement officials have spent thousands of hours scouring surveillance video, and serious charges for arson and destruction of property are still being filed. The criticism of our leaders in Minnesota is that they waited too long before intervening with significant force (criticism that I find reasonable), not that they encouraged – much less invited – the rioting.
So.
Last summer’s riots were heartbreaking, especially to the extent that they distracted Americans’ attention from the hundreds of totally peaceful protests that urged us to take racial injustice seriously.
Last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol was heartbreaking, especially to the extent that it is a harbinger of dark days to come for a country that may not recognize the rule of law's fragility.
It may be lost in the tumult over a second impeachment, but don’t miss this news item: a new poll shows that 30% of Republicans have a favorable view of QAnon. This is a serious problem. In fact, last week’s insurrection would almost certainly not have happened absent the rise of QAnon. It's an easy punch line, but it’s no joke – we have to talk about QAnon.
QAnon is an internet-driven movement that traffics in wild conspiracy theories, centered on a belief that Donald Trump is working to bring down a global pedophile ring run by Hollywood stars, Democratic politicians, and government officials. The pedophile ring has been trying to undermine Trump with the help of media and “the deep state,” and QAnon followers view Trump as a messianic figure who might be the “Q” figure responsible for the anonymous information drops that drive the group. A wave of arrests to bring the pedophile ring down and reveal a massive trove of secrets – i.e., “the storm” – is always predicted to be just around the corner, but it never arrives. None of Q’s predictions have come true. (If you’re aware of one that has, please let me know.)
Given how widespread it has become, QAnon has a shockingly short history. In a 2016 precursor, a man was arrested with a gun inside a Washington D.C. pizza place that was the center of an online conspiracy theory known as Pizzagate – the restaurant was supposed to be the site of a child-abuse ring run by Hillary Clinton. (Turns out it wasn’t.) QAnon itself originated the following year on the anonymous message board platform 4chan.
After a few years on the political margins, QAnon burst into the mainstream this year. During the pandemic, the popularity of its websites and social media accounts exploded. The conspiracy theories expanded beyond the global pedophile ring to encompass conspiracies about COVID, vaccines, election fraud, and anti-Semitic accusations regarding government control.
Several GOP candidates openly embraced QAnon during their campaigns, and two were elected to Congress. Q signs were popular at Trump rallies this fall, and among those who attacked the U.S. Capitol last week. The two women who died during the attack were QAnon followers. The man who led rioters into the Senate wore a shirt with a giant red, white and blue Q. As the Washington Post reports today, “the fervent online organizing seen ahead of last week's assault has begun building again,” and a “QAnon group on Gab has grown by more than 40,000 members since the failed insurrection.“
If you’re a Republican, the rise of QAnon is a serious problem. There is nothing remotely conservative about the conspiracy theories espoused by the group, and they discredit the party, much to the chagrin of rational Republicans. Many GOP stalwarts have tried to discredit the movement. After President Trump refused to criticize QAnon, Senator Ben Sasse said, “QAnon is nuts.” Jeb Bush suggested that “nut jobs” should have “no place in either party.” George W. Bush’s press secretary and Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer called QAnon supporters “a bunch of wackadoodles.”
If you’re a Democrat, the rise of QAnon is a serious problem. Even though only 5% of Democrats have a favorable view of QAnon, now is not the time for those on the left to feel self-righteous. In all likelihood, Republicans are more prone to the lure of QAnon because they feel marginalized from an increasingly left-leaning American elite (including corporations, entertainment, media, and academia), and conspiracy theories help us feel significant and in control. There is nothing to prevent similar dynamics from developing on the left in the future. This is a human problem, not a partisan one.
If you’re a Christian, the rise of QAnon is a serious problem. Though many Christian organizations such as the Gospel Coalition have denounced QAnon, calling it “a satanic movement infiltrating our churches,” the infiltration continues. A few days ago, a friend sent me a video of the pastor at an evangelical church in Minnesota talking publicly about the fact that President Trump will declare martial law this week, and that the pastor will be ready to join the coming war against Antifa, rifle at the ready. This is pure Q Anon conspiracy craziness. What struck me was the pastor's comfort spouting this nonsense in a publicly accessible video -- no effort to hide, to be anonymous; just a pastor purporting to guide his flock about what the Christian life entails. Though statistics are hard to come by, anecdotal evidence abounds that many Christians are being sucked into QAnon, which represents a betrayal of our faith’s commitment to minister to the world as it is, not as it exists in conspiracy fantasies.
If you’re an American, the rise of QAnon is a serious problem. The fact that a significant number of us have embraced conspiracy fantasies that are a stark disconnect from reality poses challenges on (at least) two fronts.
First, the most pressing issues we face in this world not only require collaboration across political boundaries, they also require a deep understanding of, and willingness to confront, reality. If many Americans are willing to believe that Tom Hanks is helping lead a global pedophile ring, we’re going to be hard-pressed to convince them that climate change or global pandemics are real.
Second, QAnon accelerates our growing tendency to view political disagreement in apocalyptic terms. Through the QAnon lens, our opponents do not simply disagree with us on tax rates or immigration policy – they are sexually abusing and selling children, then murdering witnesses to hide their crimes! What lengths would you go to in order to protect young children from being raped? As QAnon ratchets up the stakes of our good-versus-evil political battles, we will do anything to stop our enemies. That was painfully obvious last week at the Capitol.
QAnon is built on lies. It has and will continue to ruin lives. For it to have taken root in America does not speak well of our capacity for critical thinking. For Christians to be playing a central role in its rise is shameful. This is a challenge that will continue long past the Trump presidency, and we have to meet the challenge with clear vision and an unshakeable commitment to reality.
