Why Do Snooty Evangelicals Hate Conspiracy Theories So Much? Let Me Explain...

You might have noticed that the more intellectual and Christian claims to be, the more instinctually dismissive of conspiracy theories they are. There's a spiritual reason for this.

Occam's Razor is a principle often summarized as "the simplest explanation is usually the correct one." It’s named after William of Ockham, a 14th-century English philosopher and theologian, though the idea predates him. Essentially, it suggests that when you’re faced with multiple explanations for something, the one with the fewest assumptions or complications is more likely to be true—unless there’s evidence suggesting otherwise.

This principle would suggest that the simplest explanation for Christ’s empty tomb is that he arose from the dead, just as He said He would. This requires no plan to hijack his body, employ a half-dozen co-conspirators to push away the stone, a bribe to the Roman guards, or an elaborate ruse to present to the 500 witnesses a disguised imposter. And because Christ’s bodily resurrection is the simplest explanation for the empty tomb, it’s the most likely one.

And yet, the Roman government claimed that Christ was not raised from the dead, and instead accused the disciples and witnesses of a grand conspiracy theory. They insisted that they had somehow bewitched the guards, moved the stone, took his body in the dead of night, concocted detailed accounts from 8 people attesting to having seen and conversed with Jesus a few days within his resurrection, and then somehow got 500 witnesses at a singular event a few weeks later to believe they saw him.

As the disciples testified to having seen Jesus with their own eyes, conversed with him, and watched him eat (proving he was not a ghost or aberration) before ascending into Heaven 40 days later, the government accused them of pulling off a far-fetched scheme. In other words, the Roman government sent out their fact-checkers, who labeled their tale as false.

Roughly two-thousand years ago, the world’s most prominent religion was born out of accusations of a conspiracy theory. The establishment brought forth their best experts, who testified that the multitudes were making it all up. And then they attempted to censor them and, if not, imprison or kill them.

But as God would have it, what the government labeled a conspiracy theory, turned out to be true. What the fact-checkers labeled as false, indeed had happened.

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THE AVERSION TO CONSPIRACY

A discerning Christian makes a habit of noticing things, and especially patterns of behavior and the association of ideas. When you begin this exercise, and take it on as a daily discipline, you’ll begin to see connections that seem be nothing but coincidental correlations. But over time, you’ll eventually figure out that the same false teachers take the same positions on important but seemingly unconnected issues, although there’s not a clear, discernible reason why. But when this happens, keep observing; sooner or later, you’ll figure it out.

One of the correlations between members of Evangelicalism’s left wing and the mind-melding influence of Big Eva’s borg, is their instinctual, primordial detestation of what they call “conspiracy theories.” These types, who I used to call the “Evangelical Intelligentsia” before “Big Eva” caught on with everyone else, absolutely detest the very notion of conspiracy. And I mean they really hate it, like about as much as I hate skinny jeans and mustaches on women. It’s more loathing than mere hatred.

Several Christian leaders have addressed the issue of conspiracy theories, particularly in recent years as these ideas have gained traction in some Christian circles. They’ve written about why Christians should be cautious or outright avoid believing in them, often grounding their arguments in biblical principles like truth, love, and discernment. Here’s a look at a few notable figures and their perspectives:

Ed Stetzer, an evangelical scholar and executive director of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center, has been vocal on this topic. In a 2017 piece for Christianity Today, he argued that Christians spreading conspiracy theories—especially unverified ones like the Seth Rich story—violate the biblical command against bearing false witness (Exodus 20:16). He emphasized that chasing these narratives harms the church’s credibility and distracts from its mission. Stetzer called for repentance, urging believers to prioritize truth over sensationalism, especially in the age of viral misinformation.

John Piper, a well-known pastor and founder of Desiring God, tackled this in a 2021 Ask Pastor John episode. Responding to a listener about Christians obsessed with “spiritual conspiracy theories” (like vaccines being the mark of the beast), he suggested that such fixation often reflects a spiritual restlessness. He argued that believers should focus on the “great, central, glorious realities” of faith—like Christ’s death and resurrection—rather than getting lost in speculative fringes. Piper didn’t outright deny conspiracies exist but warned against the distraction they pose to a grounded Christian life.

Russell Moore, a prominent theologian and former leader of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, has written about this in broader terms. In his 2021 book The Courage to Stand and various articles for Christianity Today, he’s critiqued how conspiracy theories like QAnon exploit evangelical fears. He contends they replace trust in God’s sovereignty with a paranoid worldview, undermining the call to love neighbors (Matthew 22:39). Moore sees them as a form of idolatry, where faith shifts from God to human schemes.

J.D. Greer, a pastor and former Southern Baptist Convention president, addressed this in a 2020 blog post on his website. He warned that conspiracy theories can fuel division and fear, contradicting the peace Christians are called to embody (John 16:33). He encouraged discernment—testing everything against Scripture (1 Thessalonians 5:21)—and cautioned against letting unproven theories hijack one’s witness or mental energy.

Erik Erickson is among the worst at this. For example, in a 2020 column about COVID-19 death tolls, Erickson pushed back against claims that the numbers were wildly exaggerated. He argued that the idea of a massive conspiracy—say, tens of thousands of deaths being faked—lacked evidence and defied reason. He suggested that people cling to such theories because they’d rather believe in a grand plot than accept a messy reality.

Erickson’s critique often ties to his Christian perspective. He’s argued that conspiracy theories can pull believers away from faith in God’s sovereignty and toward a paranoid obsession with human schemes. In a 2022 piece for The Daily Wire, he wrote about how people craft elaborate stories—modern myths, really—to explain the world, and many of these turn into conspiracy theories that collapse under scrutiny.

Of course, the “conspiracy theories” opposed by Stetzer, Moore, Piper, Greear, and Erickson all proved be true. Seth Rich’s death is definitely a cover-up (the leaks slowly coming out about this are incredible), vaccines were indeed a test-run for the Mark of the Beast (or at the least, a test to see how far Citizens could be pushed to engage in commerce or travel), and Covid death tolls were wildly exaggerated (along with the supposed efficacy of vaccines and masking).

For these men, it doesn’t matter how small or insignificant the alleged “conspiracy theory” is. Erickson is just as prone to rail in attack against (verified and substantiated) claims of fluoride’s negative health consequences or rant about the (supposed) harmless effects of seed oils, as something as significant as a stolen election.

WHY DOES THE EVANGELICAL INTELLIGENTSIA HATE CONSPIRACY THEORIES SO MUCH?

Largely, there are two reasons men like Stetzer, Piper, Moore, Erickson, and Greear hate conspiracy theories with the burning heat of a thousand suns. The first and most obvious is that these are men who (like all evangelical leftists) really, really want to be thought of well by people who hate Jesus. They are the ‘high society’ evangelicals, longing for the age not that long ago when respected evangelicals would be respected elsewhere. Of course, we no longer live in that age, and it’s growing impossible for a faithful Christian to be well-liked or admired in the public square.

These men choose their political beliefs like they choose their theology; they choose whatever belief that is least likely to bring controversy to their door step, as close to the middle as they can possibly get, so as to offend the least number of God’s enemies as is humanly possible while still keeping up the facade that they’re conservatives.

The Evangelical Intelligentsia looks down on the rest of us. They are educated, and we are Cro Magnon hillbillies and ingrates who don’t like no fancy book learnin’. They prefer a ThD from Yale Divinity over a Bible thumping seminary, and their bread is buttered by mainstream media that still pretends to care what they think. They see themselves as the smarter, more articulate evangelicals that live in perpetual embarrassment from the rest of us. They see themselves as intermediaries between the smart people of the world and all the dumb people in the church. We need them, they think, as our more enlightened interpreters, serving priestly duties to intercede between the savages and barbarians of conservative evangelicalism and the snooty, monocled limp-wristies who put their thoughts into a religious op-ed once in a while.

Because these men choose a respectable theology well within the Overton Window of what is socially acceptable, they choose their political or cultural stances the same way, by popular consensus in a never-ending straw-poll of what the lost people will think. And none of these men have yet figured out that the rest of evangelicalism largely despises them, and the only ones of us who don’t, are those who don’t know them despite what remains of their dying influence.

A conspiracy theory, you see, is only a conspiracy theory because the establishment has convinced the majority it’s not true. And these men live and breathe for their Lord and Savior, the Establishment. Because of this, they dare not offend them by suggesting that the approved narrative is anything but gospel truth.

Men who live in constant fear of being laughed at by the pagans for their belief in Jesus, sure aren’t going to risk being laughed at for counter-signaling the ‘received accounts’ of things. This frustrates me, much like it frustrates me that one of my teenage daughters lives in constant horror that I embarrass her in public, despite the only crowd present being other adolescent girls neck-deep teenage angst, or pimple-faced boys with broccoli haircuts and skinny jeans. For the life of me, I don’t know why the Intelligentsia has such a phobia of making kindling laugh, or drawing the ire of those who will most likely split hell open like an overweight kid doing a cannonball into the pool at fat camp.

Simply put, these men want to fit into a world where Jesus doesn’t. They would rather be proven wrong, but amidst the herd of public opinion, than be right and in the minority with Christ…even if it’s on fluoride turning the frogs gay. But after all, their entire professional schitck is predicated on the notion that they are smarter and wiser than your run-of-the-mill bumpkin Christian, and so that’s a facade that has to be kept up at all costs.

THE CONSPIRACIES THEY DENY MOST OF ALL, ARE THOSE THAT INCLUDE EVANGELICALS

Let me give you the basic run-down on what happened to evangelicalism in the last 15 years. It will be brief, and therefore, painfully shallow:

Collin Hansen published his famous Young, Restless, and Reformed article in 2006, describing the movement known as New Calvinism. In 2009, Time Magazine published a piece entitled Ten Ideas Changing the World, and listed New Calvinism as one of those. These articles, and others like them, signaled to the greater world that a new movement was under foot in evangelicalism. In other words, the movement that has roots going back to the 1950s, largely started by Iain Murray’s republishing of Puritan material at Banner of Truth, had breached containment of its niche ecosystem.

But from that point onward, cultural conquistadors and plotters and schemers who look for organic movements to commandeer and use for their own purposes, began to dump piles of cash into parachurch ministries and seminaries. Leaders arose who took over this movement from the little dusty church houses that started it by putting John Owen and Charles Spurgeon pamphlets in their foyers. An entire digital publishing industry grew out of this, like The Gospel Coalition, that claimed it was getting back to the Gospel, steering evangelicalism away the watered-down Church Growth Movement. “Conference Culture” developed, as organizations like Together for the Gospel launched careers of Reformed micro-celebs who hooked throngs of people with their preaching, and shuffled them over to their blogs and became the first generation of evangelical “influencers.”

But the aforementioned money dumped into this movement, and those from whom it got attention as a powerful movement that could be co-opted and stolen, went about achieving its purpose. It turns out, the Reformed Resurgence soon became more like the drift of Calvinist colleges like Harvard and Yale two centuries prior, and yet again Calvinism was used as a Trojan Horse to steer the reigns back toward hell. The men who were put in charge of this movement and served as advisors and board members and council members of these growing organizations began to water down their gospel message just as bad as the Church Growth Movement’s C. Peter Wagner, Rick Warren, and Bill Hybels. In fact, some of these men - like John Piper and the Gospel Coalition - went on to kiss Warren’s ring and welcome him in as a celebrated and trustworthy brother. It was a coup.

The names Mohler, Duncan, Dever, Keller, and Mahaney oversaw the raising-up of a new, second generation of “trusted figures” like Platt, Chandler, Anyabwile, DeYoung, Moore (Russell) and more. The third generation of trust figures launched by the second include rank heretics, race-baiters, Socinians, Reformed ‘hip-hop’ stars, gay priests, lesbians, and lady preachers.

Having commandeered seminaries like SBTS and SEBTS, and intertwining themselves with denominational entities (like The Gospel Coalition and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission under Russell Moore becoming basically a singular organization, sharing contributors, writers, and board members), and taking over publishing houses (like Lifeway Christian Resources) the subversive movement grew tentacles all over evangelicalism, and down within the church structure…a church structure that ordinarily would never tolerate the doctrine of their promotees, but now being susceptible to the influence of such “trusted men,” swallowed their scheme hook, line, and sinker. Within ten years, this counterfeit Reformation spread outside the Reformed camp, swallowing up even the Confessional Lutherans, Anglicans, and others.

In the end, the movement spearheaded by the first generation through The Gospel Coalition and Christianity Today, has become altogether indistinguishable from the practices and doctrine of the Church Growth Movement it was created (supposedly) to oppose. And worse yet, this Reformed non-revival completely undid the work done by the Conservative Resurgence to drive out the liberals. Now, they were in charge, and branded laughably as conservatives.

SUPERNATURAL STUFF

When giving the account of it, as I just did, the guffaws start to grow. The chortles get louder. Although the history of it, as I described, is obvious, the part that’s hard to swallow is that it was of intentional design.

Surely, many think, it all just ‘happened’ to have happened in the most unfortunate way. Surely, they opine, this is a conspiracy too complex - taking twenty years to pull off and including hundreds of key leaders in a coordinated fashion - for it to be anything but a tragic occurrence. And yet, this hostile take-over of conservative evangelicalism was pulled off with expert precision. Nothing without a grand design can be executed so flawlessly.

It’s here that the Socinians speak up. Largely holding to a theology that affirms the Resurrection as the only supernatural thing to have ever occurred in the history of the world - and the last supernatural thing to have ever occurred at all, they presume that only men pull off conspiracies. And because only men pull off conspiracies, this was way too complicated a procedure to have been conducted by mortal men. Like the design of nature, it must have occurred naturally and by incredible chance.

Respectable theologians, you see, hide or dismiss Supernaturality. The more claims of supernatural things occurring, the less likely they are to be respected by a better class of pagans. Ed Stetzer, for example, has a habit of using “snake handling” as an epithet toward Christians who believe anything sinister is at play, or who recognize that there’s an unseen realm - a spiritual smoke-filled back room, if you will - where supernatural plans are laid. Believing in supernatural things, let alone demons, is downright embarrassing when you take into consideration the opinion of those who don’t even believe in God, let alone winged, disembodied malevolent spirits.

You see, I’m not under the impression that the take-over of evangelicalism over the last 20 years has a singular human schemer. I don’t believe it to have been a plot by Al Mohler or a plan by Mark Dever. As nefarious a scoundrel as Tim Keller was, he wasn’t smart enough to pull this off.

Paul warns us that there are “power and principalities of darkness in high places.” The descriptors of “powers” and “principalities” presume that those residents of the high places have significant authority on Earth below. Considering the Old Testament speaks of “the Watchers,” or celestial beings the Scripture says “hold council,” Paul was not giving new facts. He was confirming what Bible-believers already knew…demons runs some things.

But the greatest obstacle to getting the hoity-toity evangelicals to see that this was a Satanic scheme all along, is embracing the logical deduction it necessitates; if this was not planned and carried out by mortal men, then it means that these “trusted men” instead work for the devil.

Perhaps evangelicalism has finally reached the place where this doesn’t seem far-fetched at all. It is, after all, the simplest explanation.

Demonic forces are ancient ones. Historically, we know that they’ve successfully carried out plans that were not only decades in the making, but centuries in the making. And, they seem to do so with precision and flawless execution. Nobody hates the church of Jesus Christ more than his celestial adversaries. Nobody wants to ruin the church as much as Satan. And what we’ve witnessed in the unfolding and unmasking of subversive leftism in the Christian church in recent years, gives us every reason to believe it was a coordinated assault by the devil.

One can only imagine how this men would have denounced the claims of an empty tomb, had they been alive to see it. Surely, no respectable theologian would believe a conspiracy theory like that.

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