They also worship the golden calf, Cheeto Jesus, the deplorables have turned heathen! Not just the republicans are going through shit and division, their religious lunatic branch is in upheaval too, good job Donald.
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Pastors quit after watching churchgoers become radicalized by QAnon (businessinsider.com)
Pastors are leaving their congregation after losing their churchgoers to QAnon
- Pastors are trying to fight conspiracy theories and misinformation that have gripped churches.
- Insider spoke to two pastors who left their congregation after watching members become radicalized.
- More than a quarter of white evangelicals believe in the QAnon conspiracy theory, research shows.
On the morning of the
Capitol riot, Vern Swieringa told his wife during a walk with their dogs: "Something is going to happen today. I don't know what, but something's going to happen today."
The Christian Reformed Church pastor from Michigan had been watching for months as some members of his congregation grew
captivated by videos about the QAnon conspiracy theory on social media, openly discussing sex trafficking and Satan-worshipping pedophiles.
He had watched as other spiritual advisors, including the self-proclaimed
"Trump Prophet" Mark Taylor, incorporated wild and dangerous QAnon beliefs into their sermons on YouTube, and as organizers of the Christian Jericho March gathered in Washington, DC, days before the insurrection, urging followers to "pray, march, fast, and rally for election integrity."
So when hundreds of President Donald Trump's supporters
stormed the Capitol hours after his premonition, Swieringa was shocked, but not surprised.
"I think some of the signs had been there all along and it just all came to a perfect storm," Swieringa told Insider.
The pastor said he had been worried about so-called "
Christian nationalism" since Trump was elected into office in 2016. (Neither Swieringa nor any of the other pastors interviewed for this story say who they voted for in 2016 or 2020.)
He became even more concerned when, in 2018, some elderly members in his own congregation started sending him "disturbing" QAnon videos. When Swieringa brought these to the attention of his superiors, they were mostly dismissive, telling him they didn't know what QAnon was.
But when the
coronavirus pandemic hit last year, the problem got worse, and a lot more personal.
Swieringa felt increasingly uncomfortable when a large part of his congregation said they believed the pandemic was a hoax.
The 61-year-old pastor had been taking the pandemic very seriously, partly because his wife was considered at risk. A bout of pneumonia in 2019 had left her with
permanent scarring in the lungs.
"It was at that point when I put my foot down and said, 'I'm not going to preach in front of a congregation that wants to sing and not wear masks,'" Swieringa said. "But they still wanted me to preach in front of them without wearing a mask."
He said the church offered to him a plexiglass barrier to preach behind, but he felt it wouldn't make much of a difference in an enclosed space.
"We agreed to separate at that point, and so it felt pretty cordial at the time. But I found out later that there were really hard feelings amongst the congregation, and many of them felt like I abandoned them," Swieringa said. "It was heartbreaking."
Swieringa left the church in December 2020 after eight years of service.
He now works part-time at the Kibbie Christian Reformed Church in South Haven, 30 miles away from his original job. His new church has a mandatory mask rule.
One in four white evangelicals believe in QAnon
Swieringa is not the only pastor who has struggled with the rapid spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation in his congregation.
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