Opinion | The Evangelicals Who Are Taking On QAnon

QAnon began with an October 2017 post on the far-right message board 4chan, thought to be the first time the anonymous poster “Q” issued a conspiratorial missive, known as a “drop,” to the world. The Atlantic’s Adrienne LaFrance, who wrote a definitive investigation of QAnon, told NPR, “I never got to the point where I was confident enough in Q’s identity to say with certainty who it is.”

But one thing we can say about Q is that he, she or they are highly unoriginal, mining conspiracy theories as ancient as the anti-Semitic blood libel. If you’ve been around the corners of evangelical America as I have, it’s apparent that Q is at least a student of, and perhaps an adherent of, the conspiracies that have long permeated conservative evangelical culture.

Many QAnon posts and merchandise feature a Bible verse that is popular among white evangelicals, 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

In the evangelical world, this verse means that God will heal America of abortion and human trafficking, which is often described as “modern-day slavery.” In the QAnon world, it means God will free America of the satanic denizens of the “deep state” who are running a global child sex trafficking ring. In both worlds, Mr. Trump is under siege. And online, the two worlds are converging.

There are also connections between QAnon and end-times prophecies. In the most common version of this scenario, before Jesus returns, believers will be raptured to heaven and will be spared a period of tribulation, during which the Antichrist will attempt to rule via a “one world government” and force people to adopt the “mark of the beast.” Over the decades, many technological and governmental innovations, like grocery store bar codes, Social Security numbers and vaccines (including a potential coronavirus vaccine), have been suspected of being such “marks of the beast.” The United Nations and the European Union have been decried as precursors of that “one-world government.”

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