Jared Stacy | Conspiracy Thinking in American Evangelicalism

In this episode of the Untidy Faith Podcast, Kate Boyd sits down with Jared Stacy, author of the forthcoming book Reality in Ruins, for a nuanced conversation about why conspiracy theories have become so pervasive in evangelical Christianity and what the church can do about it.This isn’t just about QAnon or stolen elections—it’s about understanding how evangelicalism’s theology of persecution, end-times anxiety, and individualism creates fertile ground for conspiracism, and how reclaiming the whole story of Jesus offers a way forward that doesn’t require us to become fact-checkers but truth-tellers in our own key.Topics Covered* Understanding conspiracy theory as “functional reality” that provides people not just a lens for interpreting the world but prescribes specific actions—like how belief in a stolen election motivated the January 6th Capitol attack* Why evangelicals are particularly susceptible to conspiracy thinking: the combination of persecution complex, end-times theology giving conspiracies a “theological charge,” and modern individualism that seeks control through claiming secret knowledge* How evangelicalism’s witness to the gospel grants conspiracy theories plausibility by packaging spurious claims as “what good faithful Christians believe,” making it feel like apostasy to question them rather than just correcting misinformation* The historical pattern of conspiracy theories serving evangelical responses to cultural anxieties—from George Whitfield using gospel preaching to prevent slave revolts, to Cold War anti-communism, to contemporary fears about losing white Christian America* Why confronting conspiracy theories head-on with facts or mockery only leads to deeper entrenchment, and what questions like “why do you need this to be true?” or “why is that good news to you?” can open up instead* How the church can resist conspiracism not by becoming fact-checkers but by being constituted as Jesus’s body—a “place of reversal” where we discover we were wrong, rehearse the whole story of Jesus, and refuse to settle for anything less than recognizing full humanity in everyoneTimestamps: 01:00 Conspiracy Theory as Functional Reality 06:00 Why Evangelicals Are Susceptible to Conspiracy Thinking 12:00 The Theological Charge That Makes Conspiracies Plausible 18:00 Alternative Knowledge vs. Embodied Truth 24:00 Historical Anxieties Driving Conspiracy Theories 35:00 When Facts and Mockery Don’t Work 45:00 The Freedom to Be Wrong in Christian Community 54:00 Healthy Skepticism Without Conspiracy Thinking 1:03:00 The Church as Place of Transformation and Discovery 1:06:00 Finding Jared’s Work and Forthcoming Book This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kateboyd.substack.com/subscribe