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<\/p>\nWe live in an era when we have become accustomed to information about the contents of foods, movies, CDs, and other things to be on the packaging. I\u2019ve blogged before about what warning labels it might be deemed appropriate to put on Bibles. Compare these two, which you can find online along with a number of others, which I\u2019ve set side by side here to contrast them more effectively:<\/p>\n
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The question I want to tackle here is whether one of these is a \u201cside effect\u201d and the other is what this medicine is supposed to do.<\/p>\n
I suspect that most people whose experiences of religion have not been extreme and unusual would acknowledge, if they are honest, that there are benefits and downsides. Community, encouragement, hope, motivation, introspection, humility. Dogmatism, inflexibility, divisiveness, hate. How can these same results come from the same religious tradition? Part of it may be the classic fact that (as the saying goes) \u201cyour mileage\/experience may vary.\u201d Part of it is that the same substance may be used in very different ways, as remedy in moderation or as destructive addiction when abused. There may be a variety of high-quality products that are safe but cheap imitations that are dangerous. When it comes to religion in general, any or all of the above applies at times. However some doctrines<\/a>, denominations, pastors, priests, and texts provide ample evidence of being simply dangerous, detrimental to wellbeing even in moderation. Unlike medicine, there is no government oversight or regulation of religion that might attach warning labels. The most dangerous forms, ironically, are the ones that offer the most warnings\u00a0about the supposed dangers of everyone else\u00a0<\/em>besides themselves. Simply looking into the matter online or by talking to people you know won\u2019t be a safe guide unless one has<\/a> well-honed<\/a> information literacy<\/a> skills<\/a>. Just as with matters of politics and medicine, so too with religion, people are happy to draw broad conclusions based on insufficient evidence, whether in the form of internet search results or anecdotal experience.<\/p>\n Danny Anderson wrote an extremely insightful piece recently called \u201cConspiracy Theory as Evangelical Liturgy\u201d<\/a> that I highly recommend everyone read. This excerpt sums up its main point, but it is the details that make the case:<\/p>\n The rise of conspiratorial thinking in Evangelical churches is not a bug, but a feature.<\/p>\n The same mainstream, reasonable Christian culture which is now publicly embarrassed by the flock\u2019s enthusiasm for Q have, for the last 50 years at least, not only tolerated, but actively encouraged conspiratorial thinking every bit as ridiculous as that of the Satanic, pedophile-hunting, Deep State-battling Q narrative.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The \u201cQ\u201d being referred to is of course QAnon and not the Two-Source Hypothesis as solution to the Synoptic Problem. Conservative Christianity has trained people to think in particular ways, and thus the spread of political misinformation in those communities should not seem unexpected.\u00a0To connect that to the theme of this post, embrace of a conspiracy theory mode of thinking is not a side effect but the intended effect of the \u201cmedicine\u201d of conservative Christian teaching and culture. Embracing specific political conspiracy theories may be a side effect, but that is a direct result of what this \u201cmedicine\u201d is designed to do, much as taking a sleep aid impairs driving. That isn\u2019t a happenstance side effect that one tolerates because of something else the medication does. That is because the medication is doing precisely what it has been developed to. You cannot train people to reject mainstream scientists, journalism, scholarship, and ethics and then be genuinely surprised when they do precisely that.\u00a0That you did not want or intend them to do so when you trained them to think in these ways is your mistake, an error of judgment for which you are culpable if you played a part in fostering this mindset<\/a>. Rejection of authority is a genie that religious and political leaders regularly let out of its bottle, thinking that they can control it. But conspiracy theory thinking is highly addictive and turns out to also be contagious. It is less like mainstream medicine, and more like the kind of thing that conspiracy theorists falsely claim about the COVID-19 vaccines that have been developed. Conspiracy thinking doesn\u2019t rewrite your DNA any more than any vaccine does outside of the realm of science fiction. But conspiracy thinking does train you to be vulnerable to being misled in more than one way, and on more than one occasion. Once you\u2019ve started, you\u2019re unlikely to stop unless you recognize there is a problem and seek a cure.<\/p>\n\n