Any self-professed Christian who uses the term “hurting your witness” in an attempt to police the behavior of Christians is almost certainly worshipping something that is not Jesus Christ.
Sadly, Christians seem to be disproportionately fooled by conspiracy theories. I’ve also said before that when Christians spread lies, they need to repent of those lies. Sharing fake news makes us look foolish and harms our witness.
We saw this in the last election when some of the troll factories focused on conservative, evangelical Christians. Here we go again.
What now?
First, we need to speak up— particularly to those fooled yet again— and lovingly say, “You need to go to trusted sources.” Social media news feeds are not a trusted source. That’s why we created coronavirusandthechurch.com, to provide credible information for pastors. But, there are plenty of credible news sources— generally from outlets that do not have a track record of conspiracy peddling.
Second, God has not called us to be easily fooled. Gullibility is not a Christian virtue. Believing and sharing conspiracies does not honor the Lord. It may make you feel better, like you are in the know, but it can end up harming others and it can hurt your witness.
I’m not saying this guy actually has small bodies buried in his garden or has visited Epstein’s island, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to learn that he is a massive fan of Star Trek. Christians are supposed to follow the truth, and if there is one thing that we have learned over the years, it is that the truth is one thing in which “credible news sources” absolutely do not traffic. They are, in fact, the primary factories of fake news.
You can always tell the Churchian because his primary concern is to avoid looking foolish in the eyes of the world.