The Contagion of Violence and Conspiracy
On being the church in times of political violence
Yesterday’s failed assassination attempt might have shocked, but it did not surprise.
I am glad former President Trump is relatively unharmed. And it’s fitting we pray for him, and the families who—today—are holding out for loved ones to recover. And pray for those mourning permanent loss.
How did we get here? Elected officials and scholars have warned of the increasing chance for these sorts of events for years.
One study released last Fall by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics found that 40 percent of both Biden and Trump supporters “at least somewhat believed the other side had become so extreme that it is acceptable to use violence to prevent them from achieving their goals.”
Political violence like assassination attempts, the insurrection of January 6, and ethnic violence against Jews, Palestinians, Asians—these are not disparate, unrelated trends.
And the conspiracy theories, like a maelstrom, pull people into the deep where base resentments, primal stories, and vengeful commitments to retribution and violence take root—the cycle continues.
We are living with the dual contagion of violence and conspiracism. We always have been, actually.
But now the veils which hides it have been temporarily lifted. Call it a provisional apocalypse. Now, we see—more brazenly and clearly—the exponential and unpredictable consequences of violent rhetoric, moral pragmatism, and social escalation.
We see how political messianism normalizes political violence and how political violence breeds a desire for political messiahs. We also must see and name (confess) our own faithlessness, our failure to love, to seek mercy and justice.
Perhaps we share a vacillating sense of fear, anger, confusion, and helplessness. We want to fix this, after all. But feel our anxiety grow as we seemingly shout into the void. What can be done?
The church must be the church
It’s fitting that we say this on Sunday, of all days. When the church gathers, its worship recalls the story which ought to determine the people of God. This worship is a public witness. That is, to take the bread and cup of Christ is a rehearsal of the story which forms the church. It is a renewal of the church’s existence and witness.
The recollection of our baptism into the life of the Crucified One empties the power of slogans and catchphrases that define our sociopolitical world and so try to determine us, to set us apart for retribution. The revolutionary and public offer of the church for peace is bound up in our renewal as the people of the Crucified one. Christians cannot discount our worship.
Be suspicious of your suspicion
As a theologian dealing with conspiracism and extremism, I’m tracking the flurry of conspiracy theories that are rising to explain the chaotic, irreducible complexity of the assassination attempt. Already, those who claimed January 6 was a peaceful demonstration are now accusing the left of abject political violence. But—both J6 and yesterday are part of one collective crisis. Now is the worst time to give conspiratorial thinking a free pass.
Conspiracy theory always reinforces (never questions) the binaries of “us” and “them” which provoke and escalate violence. Theologically, Christ destroys the lines we draw as the Name above all names.
More practically, Christians must practice epistemic humility and theological resistance, refusing to use base ideologically charged suspicions as an apparatus to our primal theological narration of our world. In other words, confessing Jesus as the meaning and measure of all things does not grant Christians omniscience. We cannot see in the shadows. As Brian Brock says, the only thing the church knows, that the world doesn’t, is who sustains it.
Name the contagions of violence and conspiracy
The contagion of violence and conspiracy spreads. In the coming weeks, one key task will be to name things for what they are. Retribution, suspicion, hate—in the wake of political violence, these come dressed as justification for escalation, for the unthinkable, for the continuation of the vicious cycle.
As Jacques Ellul says, it is the task of Christians to shatter the false necessities and fatalities of violence. The naming of vengeance, retribution, and suspicion precedes the offering of concrete, alternative paths towards peace, reconciliation, and deescalation.
These are not “fixes”.
They aren’t techniques. They aren’t a three step process to right the ship.
They are a nexus—a space— that lays out a vision for what responsible living can look like in times like ours.
We resist the contagion of violence and conspiracy in the renewal made possible by Jesus Christ.
I’ve been repeating the words of Augustine on prayer (which might seem shallow and passive) as Rome collapsed:
“Bad times! Hard times!” this is what people are saying. But let us live well and the times shall be well. We are the times. Such as we are, such are the times.
And Karl Barth, Swiss theologian in the shadow of the Third Reich:
“The folding of the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”
For longer thoughts and reflection, see my latest with Christianity Today on the trends of political violence and theologies of resistance.