Poll: 5,625 U.S. adults. Margin of error for full survey: ±1.5%. (Graphic: PRRI)
QAnon conspiracy theories have burrowed so deeply into American churches that pastors are expressing alarm — and a new poll shows the bogus teachings have become as widespread as some denominations.
*Why it matters: The problem with misinformation and disinformation is that people — lots of people — believe it. And they do not believe reality coming from the media and even their ministers.
Dr. Russell Moore, one of America’s most respected evangelical Christian thinkers, told me he is “talking literally every day to pastors, of virtually every denomination, who are exhausted by these theories blowing through their churches or communities.”
*”Several pastors told me that they once had to talk to parents dismayed about the un-Christian beliefs of their grown children,” Moore added. But now, the tables have turned.
That stunning window into the country’s congregations came when I asked Moore for his response to a major poll, out last week:
*15% of Americans, the poll found, agree with the QAnon contention that “the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.”
The online poll was taken by Ipsos in March for the Public Religion Research Institute and Interfaith Youth Core.
*”For those who hope that the events of January 6 are in our past, I think this data gives little in the way of assurance,” said Kristin Du Mez, a Calvin University historian of gender, faith and politics, and author of “Jesus and John Wayne.”
The poll found that Hispanic Protestants (26%) and white evangelical Protestants (25%) were more likely to agree with the QAnon philosophies than other groups. (Black Protestants were 15%, white Catholics were 11% and white mainline Protestants were 10%.)
*As a New York Times headline put it: “QAnon Now as Popular in U.S. as Some Major Religions, Poll Suggests.”
Catch up quick: QAnon is more a movement than an organization — there is no HQ or public leader. The conspiracies were spread by followers of President Trump, and “Q” signifiers were common at Trump rallies.
