Are Christians Losing Their Minds? The Misinformation Epidemic

Did Poland start World War 2? Are you sure vaccines don’t work? It seems lately there are a lot of Christians losing their minds instead of standing for what’s actually true.

“The Poles forced, they played too long and forced Hitler to start World War II with them”.

Um, what a minute, what?

Infamous, ultra right-wing, conservative, Christian media personality Tucker Carlson was famously one of the only Western media outlets to be granted an audience of any duration with Vladimir Putin during the invasion of Ukraine. During the two hour interview, Tucker asked a few questions, and largely let Putin talk. This statement above from Mr Putin is not a new viewpoint – Putin famously wrote about this in his large essay towards the end of 2021 claiming that Ukraine was a country that really didn’t exist, and that there was a historical precedent in Europe that justified in his mind what would happen just a few short months later.

Including this little gem regarding the start of World War 2. That it wasn’t that Hitler and his proven territorial ambitions that were responsible, but that Poland was asking for it and there was no choice in the matter. Anyone remember Ribbentrop? No? Doesn’t exist?

Classic rapist blaming the victim mentality. Usually someone who begins victim blaming is setting up justification for what they are doing, or what they’re about to do, in a similar vein. It seems to be going around a bit lately, cause maybe it’ll let some people think about invading a neighbouring country like Canada or Greenland? But I digress.

And I mean, we can’t do much about what Vladimir Putin thinks. He and the Russian people still refer to World War 2 as The Great Patriotic War, and revere militaristic conquest as a large part of their nation’s identity. During the interview, Tucker seemingly was surprised on some points, leaving them unchallenged. You may think that this was just to allow Putin to talk. Fair enough.

But in subsequent interviews and posts, including around the publication of this interview, and a recent interview from the past weekend with US envoy Steve Witkoff, Tucker continually pushes this alternate view of history, and his largely Christian, evangelical, right wing, conservative fanbase continues to lap it up. In fact, so much so, that Russian state owned outlet, Russia Today (RT), did and regularly does reshare absolutely every talking point that Tuckers puts forward, with founder Margarita Simonyan regularly talking about how useful he is for converting Western minds.

Oh yeah, and that crazy rant about how Moscow has radicalised him against Western governments, they have no poverty, their people live in freedom and comfort and not oppression, they have free press, and that they have the most amazing bread.

Maybe the last one is true. But certainly there is mountains of evidences to the contrary on the other points.

I’m a Christian, and this is driving me absolutely insane. Because Tucker Carlson is not the only right wing “media personality” who is polluting Western thought with misinformation and historical redaction – there are several unvetted, unchallenged personalities doing so, at great expense to our modern world.

And unfortunately, I largely see members of the Christian faith community who are the largest perpetrators of resharing, reposting, and pushing for these alternate narratives that are driven by isolationist news outlets or individual podcasters (hello Joe Rogan).

Did somebody say vaccines? Because I largely attribute the spread and repeating of disinformation to the overwhelming spike in distrust in the media happening around the time of COVID vaccines.

This has spilled over into the world of measles, where a recent outbreak has caused the new head of the USA Health Department, infamous spreader of disinformation, RFK Jr., a large amount of concern, probably because history proves that vaccines are safe and proven against diseases like this. You don’t think they are? Here’s the spread of measles in the United States – guess what the difference was? And do you see where it kicks up again around the big anti-vax movement pushed by misinformation and short TikTok videos?

And it’s all the parents of children who’ve bought into the narrative who have the most reason to fear. Maybe we should have listened to the doctors and health bodies that have been studying these things for decades and delivered proven, consistent results after all.

A similar thing happened around the formation of COVID vaccines during our recent pandemic. In fact, this is still ongoing, with a significant portion of the right-wing community taking it upon themselves to daily reshare individual podcasters speaking out against vaccines, rather than any peer studied reviews or vetted evidence otherwise. This isn’t actually new – the History of Vaccines shows that there has been this presence ever since the first vaccine was introduced, but the voices being so loud certainly has been.

Ps. did you notice the pandemic is over? Did you notice when it changed? Did you notice we really do just treat COVID now as “just a flu” where previously it was killing millions of people and requiring extended lockdowns to prevent further death?

But during COVID, people were afraid. They were scared that they’d been forced to take a needle in order to stay employed, or were super afraid when the findings of a study regarding the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccine specifically caused them concern. Rather than managing the risk, however, this has been blown out into full distrust of all forms of mainstream media. There are many who pretty much now get all their news exclusively from Twitter posts and podcasts.

This is quite interesting to watch, because almost all Christians losing their minds about the true origins of the Ukraine conflict, 9 11, vaccines, 5G mysteries, and all the other notorious misinformation campaigns on earth, blame the radical left and left leaning news outlets exclusively.

Well, there certainly are left leaning news outlets. Some that come to mind are ultra left Vox, MTV or Buzzfeed. Then there would be left but not so left, such as MSNBC, CNN, SBS and ABC (here in Australia, although the Disney owned American ABC is also left), and sometimes BBC. Then you’ve got some that seem fairly centre, such as Reuters, Al Jazeera (unless it’s about the Middle East), and Forbes.

And wouldn’t you know it, there are actually several right wing to ultra right wing mainstream media agencies as well, such as Fox News (switches between right and ultra right depending on who is president), Sky News (again, here in Australia), and NewsMax.

Some “smaller” news agencies come to mind as well, such as Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, NPR, and AAP.

In other words, there are a whole heap of media outlets that lean all sorts of different ways. There are some additional meta level platforms such as Ground News which amalgamate all news sources together and allow you to see how different media outlets spin or lean the same facts.

But here’s the thing – there’s still facts underneath. There’s still a story that occurred, whether it was a plane crash, someone getting sick, a president saying something, a coup in a country, 10 childrens’ hospitals being blown up by war criminals, people being threatened to be deported from their entire region. The justifications and alignments of what’s taking place is where the flexibility, so to speak, arrives.

But we’ve moved beyond that point of flexibility. It isn’t spin that is being disputed any more – it’s the truth.

And I thought Christians losing their minds for anything should be losing their minds in aid of the truth, not in spite of it.

Has our faith community become so desperate for validation or approval that we have started resorting to ignorance of facts or a peer review process when it comes to world events? Do we really have to resort to only listening to Tucker, Joe, or whoever else has set themselves up with an isolated microphone in the basement of their house, interviewing whoever randomly walks in off the street, without any sort of fact checking, research, or scrutiny to what is being said?

Joe Rogan is the ultimate dude bro in this space. He has become more popular on his own than every legacy news media outlet. But if you watch any of his podcasts, you hear the person being interviewed speak, unchallenged, unquestioned, with Joe just sitting there going “wow, wow, wow, I didn’t know that”.

Yeah okay, they said something potentially profound, entirely provocative, in the opposite direction of what everyone else is saying… but is it true? If you just do a quick search of “joe rogan fact check”, you’ll find almost every episode is littered with things that just don’t hold up as objectively true.

Opinion is one thing and every single one of us is divided on opinions, that’s for sure, but we shouldn’t be divided on facts.

And that’s ultimately where I would plead with my fellow Christian especially. Before you reshare it, you push it, you believe it – is it true?

The truth stands up to scrutiny. The truth shouldn’t be afraid of it.

Many Christians seem to think that if someone disagrees with their view on a world event, that it means that it’s a complete rejection of themselves and their faith. That if my audience doesn’t like or agree with the “evils of COVID vaccines” or “isn’t Putin a really great guy cause he sent Trump a portrait in violation of the Logan Act ahead of his re-election while he bombs every hospital and civilian power plant in Ukraine”, that it’s a rejection of the Christian faith? Can I still be a Christian and still say “hey Netanyahu went too far bombing civilian targets in Gaza and Yemen”, rather than “nope didn’t happen it’s fake”?

I remember going to a Planetshakers conference when I was just starting out at university and hearing a pastor speak about his encounters with some Christians doing a certain type of uni ministry. He said he kept encountering a Christian martyr who would do something silly on campus or in violation of the university’s rules or guidelines and get in trouble for it.

“Oh I’m being persecuted for Christ”, they would say. “No, you’re being persecuted for being an idiot”, was his retort.

If it’s your post about the merits or historical accuracy of Christianity that are being disagreed with, fair enough, perhaps that is a conflict with your faith at its core. Personally, I strongly believe the Christian faith stands up to scrutiny at every level, and I strongly question the logical or historical nature of a worldview without God. Refer 6 Reasons Atheism Still Makes No Sense To Me for more on that. Discussing the truth is never something the Christian should be afraid to do. Paul told us to be ready to give an answer to defend the faith we profess.

But if it’s “cats prove 5G is evil”, “why measles is good to catch and fight naturally”, “I take ivermectin that my dog was taking for my immunity”, “why COVID vaccines made no difference to world health and all the evidence that researchers have put forward is fake”, and you’re being challenged on it – that’s not persecution. That’s not an attack on Christian dogma. That’s not an attack on who Jesus is – that’s a disagreement with a perspective you have on a current event or function of our world today.

And the thing that really drives me nuts about is that your Bible tells you that this isn’t the way you’re supposed to live,

Christians keep saying that only a true Christian would share what they’re sharing. However, consider what your Bible actually says:

• “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed” – we are actively encouraged to listen to multiple people, not just one source
• “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” – put what you’ve heard to the test, don’t blindly accept it cause it tickles an anti-establishment fancy
• “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.” – you don’t want to be the one responsible for perpetuating deceit
• “Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips and harbours deceit in his heart; when he speaks graciously, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart; though his hatred be covered with deception, his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly.” – all these angry dude bros sharing these narratives sound to be full of hate and caution is required
• “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.” – true wisdom is impartial, you won’t die if you listen to a left wing news outlet discuss the same topic for balance so you can work out where the truth is actually for yourself
• “There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.” – do you know how many stories that you’re sharing and pushing that tick this box?

In other words, turn your triggered off, turn your brain back on, and scrutinise what you’re listening to.

Moreover, it is the Christian prerogative to believe and share the news of the truth. Of any type of person in our world, it is your mandate by your faith to actually care the most about what is actually true.

So Tucker Carlson, or Joe Rogan, or Jordan Peterson, or Ben Shapiro, or Donald Trump or JD Vance or Marjorie Taylor Greene or RFK or anyone in the MAGA movement, or anyone on the right or the left said something outrageous, controversial, and got your interest. That’s fine! But listen to what they’re saying, and turn your brain on, and check with multiple sources, and multiple vetted sources. And if it holds up to scrutiny – go for it.

Here’s the thing about mainstream media – bias does exist. It absolutely does. And some of it, or a lot of it, is decidedly or even explicitly anti-Christian. Am I saying you abandon all your Christian principles completely and defer to what a news agency has told you about something your Bible based life is supposed to say otherwise? Absolutely not. In the world, not of the world, is the Christian charge.

But here’s the other thing about it – they have thousands and thousands of employees per company involved in producing content and in learning about world events. This isn’t one man who has been fired from every left AND right wing agency he’s worked for before (Hello Mr Carlson), these are teams of well studied journalists, subject matter experts, and people actively recording things on camera for you to make your own judgment on. A lot of people who get TV interviews are utterly astounding thought and research leaders in their areas of expertise.

And yes, you can actually watch something for yourself, because there’s always at least 30 cameras around whenever anything happens in the world. If someone tells you it didn’t happen, but we have 30 videos showing, yes it did, well, maybe someone is telling a little lie there.

I remember January 6 2021 for instance. All these right wing agencies went nuts trying to explain in their commentary what was happening. But if you just watched the footage for yourself, without commentary, it’s not hard to see what really happened.

With Christians losing their minds over something some random dude said, it makes it impossible for anyone to hear the real true underlying Christian message. They don’t see a life marked by salvation, driven by purpose, changing in behaviour, speaking encouragement and light and life.

They see hypocrisy, truth denial, outrage over conspiracy theories that would not and have not survived any major attempt to scrutinise.

And as your fellow Christian, that’s also what I see when I look at your Facebook page, your Insta, your story reels, those 30000 podcast links you share in DMs to all your friends. I can’t hear the kindness of Jesus, I can only see the destruction of our modern society one fanatical post at a time.

And you should be outraged by some of the things happening in the world today, absolutely. The book of Micah charges us with the role and concerns of seeing justice happen in our world. But make sure you’re outraged in pursuit of the truth, not in its denial. John the Baptist was put to death for criticising the character deficit and adultery of those in power at the time if you recall, and the apostle Paul did have a very interesting conversation with Festus and other rulers in the book of Acts.

So, Christian, who are you going to be? An ambassador for truth, someone who searches for meaning and reality and cuts through the lies and bias that may impede finding out what’s actually happening?

Or are you going to be the next nutjob that gets unfriended by everyone you’ve spent your entire life trying to build relationship with, all because you cling too desperately to the wrong source of truth?

Brains on, eyes open, heart listening, mind working, salt and light in the world.

Or as one pastor I know regularly puts it, God is after fruit, not nuts.