“The term Christian Nationalism, in and of itself, is ironic because there’s nothing Christian about nationalism. I hope that it will be looked at like an extreme portion of our faith. Not our faith as a whole,” Duford said. “I think what you’re finding from a lot of these people who are hardcore QAnon believers [is], this is somewhere where they fit in,” she said.
Pastors Attempting to Stop QAnon’s Evangelical Spread
Pastor James Kendall of Grace Community Church in Madera, California, and Pastor Ben Marsh of First Alliance Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, are stepping up to battle QAnon conspiracy theories in their churches.
Kendall called QAnon a false prophet that his church needs to be warned about. The pastor said, “The Biblical worldview is that there’s a God who’s in control of the whole world. And one day Jesus is going to come back, he’s going to judge the wicked. There is a Q that knows everything, and Donald Trump is going to come back and judge the wicked, set up his rule, and his followers are going to live in their little Utopia… It’s easier for Christians who already have that belief system to make that jump over into believing [QAnon].”
“I get an hour with people every week, versus the 167 hours that they have out on their own to do other things,” Kendall shared and explained the misinformation people are getting “fights against” what he is biblically teaching. Kendall said that he tries to have conversations about misleading QAnon conspiracy theories with church members, but conversations don’t get far because adherents often don’t want to hear his understanding of things.
“My job as a pastor is protect the sheep from the wolves, and to not just point them to the truth, but to warn them when these false teachers come in and try to take people away.” – Pastor Kendall
Marsh, who is on the other side of the country from Kendall, told CNN Business that the posts he sees online are troubling. “I have seen where people, most often unwittingly, shared misinformation that came from a QAnon or a Q-adjacent source,” he said. Speaking to his congregation regarding the Capitol riots Marsh said, “Pastors had lied to [the rioters].” Marsh went on to call out those pastors who encourage and engage in QAnon conspiracy theories.
