‘A true believer:’ we must welcome followers from cults such as QAnon back to reality with open hearts | Opinion

• Jack Wallace has written stories for many years about growing up in the “Christ haunted” South and has one published novel.

If you’ve driven in the area of Harding Road and White Bridge Road in Nashville with some regularity over the past few months, you’ve probably seen him standing in the traffic island. He holds a big sign on a pole that shouts in large letters: “The Vatican is the Seat of Satan.” “Pope Francis is the Beast 666.” He wears a sign that says: “Most Churches and All TV Ministries are Fraudulent.”

I, like probably most, found his views offensive.  

As I waited at the traffic light, I studied the white-haired man holding the sign.

What motivated him to stand on this corner and deliver this message of hate and condemnation?

His sign listed a phone number and said Let’s Talk. So, I took him up on his invitation. We talked for over an hour. 

He told me his name was Ron, and he first came to his beliefs in the mid-70’s when he joined up with the Children of God, a religious cult that started in Huntington Beach in 1968.  

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“I left the Children of God in 1977,” he said. “My wife and I moved to Hawaii. I could not jump back into the world of making money, so I started preaching on the streets.” 

That’s when he first started carrying signs. His journey as a street preacher and evangelist took him to a community in Minnesota, then as a missionary on the Mexican border.

Ron spent several years with his growing family on a farm in rural Tennessee, but after local backlash of his homeschooling and anti-vaxxer views, he sold his farm and moved his family to South America, where they joined a group doing mission work in Bolivia. He lived there for 21 years before moving back to Tennessee a few years ago to be near his daughter. His wife still lives in Bolivia.  

“We live in dire times,” he said, “I have to be responsible for what God has shown me in understanding His truth.” I listened to his story and told him I disagreed with his theology and methods, but I appreciated his zeal. After the call, I felt I understood him as a fellow traveler through this world. 

Empathizing with the cult followers

When I was a student at the University of Tennessee in the mid-seventies, members of several religious cults hung around the edges of campus, including the Children of God.

Occasionally I stopped to listen as they preached and panhandled, intrigued by their hippy brand of evangelism. I later learned that they, like most cults, preyed on the vulnerable, those susceptible to a message of “trust me, I alone know the truth.”  

The late sixties and early seventies were tumultuous times of social unrest, fertile ground for charismatic leaders to find followers and form cults. Their followers clung to the belief that they were a part of an inside group who really knew the truth. They followed Jim Jones to their poisonous death in the jungle of Guyana. They fought the government alongside David Koresh at Waco until their own flames consumed them.  

I find disturbing parallels today with cult-like groups such as Q-Anon. Leaders of these groups spout that they have special insight. Their followers often seem to discard any fact or reality that does not align with their narrow view of the world.

They’ve found a new community in the alternative reality of conspiracy beliefs where they feel connected to something important that other people don’t yet understand. All cults provide this feeling of being special. 

My hope is that most of these suggestible followers have not abandoned all reason. Slowly, reluctantly, these once true believers will find their way back to a world view based on accepted norms and facts, back to a society where the vulnerable are protected, not exploited. And when they do, we must restore them and welcome them back, for that is what a genuine community does.   

And for those who stubbornly cling to an alternate view of the world, we must listen to them. Underneath their sign-waving and doomsday prophecy, their hateful message, often lies a soul that longs for real community.

Look for that soul. You might find a brother or a sister. 

Jack Wallace has written stories for many years about growing up in the “Christ haunted” South and has one published novel.  He spent most of his career in the social service and early childhood education fields. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee. 

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