The reality of conspiracy theories

This article appeared today in the Press Enterprise, Riverside, CA. It was written by Gregory Elder (credit info at end of article).

The painful reality of conspiracy theories has a long and fabled history.

Perhaps one of the more instructive cases for us is a religious conspiracy theory, but the principles apply to any belief system.

This is the story of Titus Oates and the Popish Plot.

Titus Oates was born in 1649 in England. As an adult he entered the ministry of the Anglican Church and served as a chaplain in the navy until he was dismissed for homosexuality. Afterward, he briefly joined the Catholic Church and was admitted to seminary twice, but was thrown out for being so obnoxious in both schools. He left Catholicism and returned to England as a very angry man.

Oates lived in an age when religious tolerance was not at a high peak, and he became quite the bigot. Oates now loathed and detested Roman Catholics, and of all Catholics, he hated the Jesuits the most. From Oates’ perspective, rebellions in Ireland, the Spanish Habsburg war in Germany in the Thirty Years’ War and the English Civil War all had the same roots — the Catholic Church.

Oates was intensely frustrated that nobody saw the dangers the church posed quite as clearly as he did. Anti-Catholic prejudice was already high in England, but apparently not high enough for Oates. To wake the English nation up, he penned a colorful document called “A True Narrative of the Horrid Popish Plot.”

Oates wrote the text and a friend illustrated it with nasty cartoons.

Oates created a tale that accused the Catholics of secretly plotting to poison King Charles II and overthrow the state, putting the Catholic Prince James on the throne. The message sadly fell on willing ears and created a hysteria in London so great that people began to flee the city, taking the lurid belief with them across the kingdom.

The matter reached the king and Privy Council, who decided that the plot was a hoax, but that decision only deepened the public’s belief in a deep state, working behind the scenes to overthrow the government.

Oates managed to get invited to the Houses of Parliament to explain the plot to the legislature. The popular anger was so fierce, there was a series of trials and execution of many people including a number of Jesuits, some barons and senior Anglican clergy. Catholics were banned from living within 20 miles of London, laws were passed barring them from various professions, homes were ransacked and lives ruined.

The popular hysteria reached such a peak that Oates got carried away and denounced the king for secret sympathy to the Catholic plots.

This was, of course, treason, and caused Oates to be charged, but anger from the mobs got him released. Over time, the hysteria faded and Oates died in obscurity in 1705. A great many people find the world a dangerous place. As such, we can be prone to believing conspiracy theories because we want to find one master reason to explain all that is wrong in this confusing world.

The Salem witch trials and the McCarthy era afford American examples of such popular hysteria.

Sadly, the recent tragedy in Washington, D.C., and accusations on the internet show us what can happen when conspiracy theorists gain a public platform.

It is not a surprise that Jesus called Satan a murderer, a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44) Those who willingly create or spread lies and bogus conspiracy theories are not our friends, and doubtless God will judge them. But in the meantime, here are a few of the things that we can do to protect ourselves and our community:

• Get your news from reliable sources, which are as nonpartisan as possible. Your friend who heard something weird, Facebook, your opinionated uncle and obscure websites claiming to have undocumented insider information are not good sources. News agencies that have a good reputation to lose if they are found inaccurate are a better bet.

I read things on the AP, Reuters and the BBC, and of course the newspaper in your hands right now.

• Do not give in to fear. Fear is the gasoline that gives power to predators. Look at recent history and you will see that the Y2K disaster never happened, Communist plots did not cause fluoridation in the water system, Catholics in 17th century England did not plot to overthrow the king, and the Roman Empire did not fall because of moral depravity. But fear made people believe all of these bogus stories.

• Beware of any “news” involving human sexuality. Examples of this kind of genre are stories many of us have heard about, for example Hillary Clinton running a pedophile ring in the basement of a pizzeria, Barack Obama being gay or that all Catholic priests are molesters.

Here is why these are dangerous: Human sexuality is a natural force which gets people’s attention, creates mental images hard to forget and can destroy a person’s reputation overnight, true or not. It is one of the most effective ways of influencing popular opinion.

• Take with a huge grain of salt stories of a deep state or government cabals. The reason these are dangerous is they are impossible to disprove. How could I “prove” to you that Mike Pence is not a secret Communist? In spite of the fact that there is no shred of evidence for this, you cannot easily disprove something that is made up. Consider the logistics of trying to organize a secret surprise party for a friend, and then ask if it is possible that thousands of people are in on a secret.

• Remember: Diseases, plagues and pandemics happen. They are an unpleasant part of history but a force of nature just like old age. But pandemics are not the fault of any one group of people any more than it is the fault of one group causing a rainstorm.

From 1347-50 the bubonic plague killed about 25 million people. Their blame went to whom?

The medical community of the day blamed it on a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. A lot of other people blamed the Jews or various Christian sects deemed heretical. We must not go down that path.

• Racism is a soul-destroying heresy and must be confronted. If people try to blame the problems of our nation on that group over there that looks differently or dresses differently or eats different foods, the only person who benefits from such division is the devil. The ugly twin sister of racism is anti-Semitism, the insidious accusation that Jews are the cause of misfortune.

• You and I are not individually capable of saving the nation or the world. Yet we are obliged to respect the people around us, to seek salvation for our own souls, and to work for a nobler political community. Supporting a theory that asserts something without clear evidence will not accomplish any of these needs. Instead of listening to conspiracy theory, we would do well to recall the words of the Hebrew prophet who said, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

Gregory Elder, a Redlands resident, is a professor emeritus of history and humanities at Moreno Valley College and a Roman Catholic priest. Write to him at Professing Faith, P.O.Box 8102, Redlands, CA 92375-1302, email him at gnyssa@verizon.net or follow him on Twitter @ Fatherelder.