Do Not Call Conspiracy …

I am beginning a series of blogs drawing on words from the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah which seem strikingly relevant in America today. First, from Isaiah 8:12: “Do not call conspiracy everything this people calls a conspiracy …” We live in an age of conspiracy theories, and they are especially prevalent on the far right.  White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, even though she supports the agenda of the Trump administration, recently pegged Vice President J. D. Vance as a conspiracy theorist in her interview for Vanity Magazine.  But he is only following the lead of President Trump, who has consistently and repeatedly insisted that there was a conspiracy to steal the 2020 election from him.  Yesterday, January 6^th, was the 5^th anniversary of the January 6^th riots that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election.  The White House has posted on its website a revisionist history of the event in which the rioters are heroes, the capitol police are blamed and their injuries and deaths disregarded, and former VP Pence is the cowardly villain. There is only one problem, and that is the facts of the case.  Judge after judge, both those appointed by Democrats and those appointed by Republicans, rejected the claims of the Trump White House that the election was fraudulent. Fox News lost a case in which they were forced to pay a large settlement for erroneously pushing the conspiracy theory that Dominion election machines were defective, contributing to miscounts. The Constitution required Mr. Pence to do what he did. We saw with our own eyes what President Trump said to the rioters on January 6^th, we heard them chanting “Hang Pence” with the President’s approval, and we saw the rioters violently break into the capitol in an effort to overturn the results of a free election. Those who watched the congressional hearing about January 6^th saw compelling evidence, not of a conspiracy to steal the election from President Trump, but of a concerted effort by Mr. Trump to steal the election for himself.  This is an example of how he blames others for what he is guilty of. Now, five years later, Trump continues to relentlessly push his false narrative.  The problem is that most of his supporters, including evangelical Christians, believe him.  If you are one of these, I urge you to heed the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Do not call conspiracy everything this people calls conspiracy.” Look at the evidence yourself and don’t let Mr. Trump deceive you with his confident but demonstrably false claims.

The passage in Isaiah continues: “do not fear what they fear; and do not dread it.”  President Trump has used his lies and conspiracy theories to raise the fear level regarding the liberal elites ruining our country. He wants you to fear them, and he also wants people to fear him.  Conservative Christians have some legitimate concerns about the liberal agenda, but it is not the liberal elites we should fear nor President Trump.  Isaiah tells us who it is we should fear: “The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy; he is the one you are to fear; he is the one you are to dread” (Isa 8:12b). Next time we will explore this further with some words from the prophet Jeremiah.