Evangelical Pastors Secretly Spreading Qanon Messages to their Congregrations

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Figures far right pastors would be spreading this stuff along

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The uber-conspiracy theory QAnon, which has destroyed families and inspired followers to commit political violence and even murder, is officially banned on YouTube. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist on the platform, and a VICE News investigation has found that evangelical leaders are successfully circumventing YouTube’s rules to spread QAnon conspiracies to millions of people. Indeed, through YouTube, QAnon conspiracies are becoming endemic in the most popular evangelical channels, even though they never mention QAnon at all.

The investigation was conducted in collaboration with data analysts at Pendulum, a data science company that uses machine-learning technology to track misinformation on YouTube. The researchers found at least 1,800 Christian evangelical channels that have posted at least one video with a signature QAnon phrase. In total, the data shows that in the space of three years, those channels have posted a combined 20,000 videos mentioning one of a list of common QAnon phrases. Together, they’ve garnered over 208 million views.

Evangelical pastors for the most part have been careful to avoid openly endorsing QAnon, knowing it would draw attention and criticism on them and their church, as well as a possible ban from YouTube. So instead, they have spread the conspiracy theories that are core to QAnon, including the claim that Democrats are running an underground sex-trafficking ring and that Trump is working to unmask them, a moment QAnon faithful call “the great awakening” that will see people like Hillary Clinton executed.

“The number of evangelical Christian leaders who are straight-up QAnon believers is very small, but the larger sort of narrative has made its way into the evangelical movement where, even without being a straight-up QAnon follower, they will still embrace a lot of the conspiracy theories that QAnon, and followers, promote,” Kyle Mantyla, a senior fellow at progressive advocacy group People for the American Way, told VICE News.

Time to start taxing the piss out of these churches.

Edited September 8, 2021 by Coconut Flan