Chaos and Conspiracy Theories

by Ben Howard 

4% of your fellow citizens believe the United States government is run by “lizard people.”

For those of you who are curious about the validity of this number, it comes from a poll conducted by Public Policy Polling last April and the margin of error was 2.8%. That’s right, not only does this poll say 4% of Americans believe lizard people are running the government, it’s also within the margin of error thus making it a statistically significant portion of the population. I always knew that democracy was a bad idea.

Now, I don’t really think this number is accurate. I would be shocked to find out that 1 out of every 25 people really believe that advanced lizard people have taken control of the government in order to…well, I don’t really know what they’re doing. It strikes me as far more likely that approximately 2% of the population likes to mess around with the heads of their friendly neighborhood pollsters, and that another 2% of respondents don’t understand how polls work.

But maybe a few of the people who said, “Yes, I do think Barack Obama is a reptile” really meant it, and though I may believe these people are delusional, I also envy them. I envy them in the same way that I envy the 28% of Americans who believe in the New World Order, or the 7% that believe the moon landing was faked, or even the 51% who believe that JFK was killed in a conspiracy.

I envy them because they live in a world where things make sense, where there are always people in control, and where chaos does not direct the major movements of life.

Even if all these conspiracy theories point to a kind of dystopian society, it’s still an appealing idea. While it may be a bit disheartening to think that the government deceived us all by faking the moon-landing, at least you believe in a government that has the capacity to perform to the highest level when the occasion calls for it. And while it’s a bit depressing to believe that the world is run by a secret international cabal of financiers (led by Beyonce of course), at least it means the world is manageable.

We fear chaos. We are afraid of the uncontrollable, the untamable, and the unpredictable.

It makes me wonder if we believe in God for the same reasons that some believe in conspiracy theories. It’s certainly part of the story of how God interacts with his people. In Genesis, God binds in the chaos of the waters, in Exodus she controls nature, and in Israel he directs the rise and fall of an empire. In Jesus, we see God conquering the chaos and destruction of diseases, even death. Paul tells us that Christ’s resurrection overcomes the chaos of sin.

So is God a conspiracy theory? Is God a way in which we comfort ourselves that though things seem unmanageable, there is someone with the power to control, someone to whom things make sense, someone directing the major movements of life so that chaos will not overcome us?

Or perhaps God is the chaos. When we attribute a natural disaster to the hand of God, are we just trying to make sense of of the senseless? Maybe the stories we tell about God, or more specifically, the stories we tell about humanity and God, are our way of rationalizing something that we can’t possibly hope to understand, the interaction with the divine.

What if the stories we tell ourselves, the faith we pass along, the narratives we read, the religion we profess, the Bible, the miracles, the theology, what if all of that is the conspiracy? What if it’s all an attempt to manage and reckon with the chaos of a God who will not be confined, will not be managed, and will not be tamed?

What if all the constructs of religion and faith that we’ve built are simply an attempt to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense?

What if this chaos is what we call holy? 

Ben Howard is an accidental iconoclast and generally curious individual living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87. 

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Image Credits:
Image #1 via Roy Niswanger 
Image #2 via Jingjing Cheng 
Image #3 via Cody Cox 
  

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The Election Chronicles: Love Drives Out Fear

by Ben Howard

One of my tasks at work includes responding to emails that come in to our general inbox. I've only been in this particular job for about two months, so I only began responding to these emails about a month ago. This inbox has become one of the highlights of my day and it's not because of the conversations with customers.

Apparently, someone, once upon a time, signed our general work email account up for Tea Party email blasts and they are AMAZING!

Not only have they taught me about Barack Obama's numerous secret identities (did you know he was born in Kenya?!?), I also learned that he's a card carrying member of the Communist party!!! I didn't even know they made cards for that anymore!

But let me save the best for last, apparently, if Barack HUSSEIN Obama doesn't win this election, he's planning a military coup to overthrow the government!!! Granted, if you have the ability to mount a military coup then I'm not sure why you'd go through the grueling process of a campaign, but....exclamation points!!!

Clearly, I'm being entirely facetious. At least I hope it was clear because most of that was taken verbatim from the emails I'm referencing.

I've never been a fan of conspiracy theories. I think we landed on the moon. I think the JFK assassination was weird, but there was only one gunman. I'm confident 9/11 was not an inside job. I would say that banks did not commit fraud during the financial collapse of 2008, but they certainly committed stupidity. And yes, I'm convinced that Barack Obama was born in the United States, assuming convinced is the correct word for something I never questioned for a moment.


It's really hard to lie that big without people finding out. Ask Richard Nixon.

So why do these stories persist? Easy. We don't trust each other. At all. In fact, you can probably say that we're terrified of each other.


A couple weeks ago Peter Enns wrote a great article entitled "Dear Christian: If the Thought of Either Romney or Obama Getting Elected Make You Fearful, Angry, or Depressed, You Have What We Call a Theological Problem."

He goes on to talk about how politics have become a rival eschatology to Christianity and how hope in politics has replaced hope in an authentic salvation that politicians and governments can never fully supply.

I think he's right, but I also think we need to remember the call to love our neighbor and remember that "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear."

This is what I was getting at yesterday when I said that I want to know what you're for, and not what you're against. I want to know what you love, and I want that love, that hope, that anticipation for something better to drive out the fear that infects us all so deeply.

Will a person be able to provide this? No. Will an election take us closer to the world as it was intended to be? I can't say that it's likely. But we can still hope. We can still try.

We are not called by God to recreate and redeem his world on our own, we are called to work alongside him as he reclaims and redeems his creation.

Maybe politics can help in this redemption, and maybe it can't, but either way let us remember that the person on the other side of the aisle is just as much God's creation as we are. They are our neighbors. 

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are our neighbors. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are our neighbors. The members of the Tea Party are our neighbors. The Occupy Movement are our neighbors. So are the Israelis and the Palestinians, the Iraqis, the Iranians, the Muslim Brotherhood, the English, the French, the Germans and anybody and everybody else across this planet. They are all God's creation and let us remember that we love them, no matter what.

Peace,
Ben

You can follow Ben on Twitter @BenHoward87 or email him at benjamin.howard87 [at] gmail.com.

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