How do we break the stereotypes surrounding Christianity?
A Houston-based pediatrician and pastor grabbed national attention this past July, after the president retweeted her peddling the same COVID-19 conspiracies theories he himself has pushed before. In a video that has now been banned by most social media companies, Stella Immanuel touted hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19 and said that wearing face masks aren’t necessary to stop the spread. She garnered tens of millions of views online and is endangered many in our country to unnecessary harm.
As a current Yale Hastings Scholar and former recipient of an AAAS Fellowship in partnership with Yale Divinity and Yale Medicine exploring the growing polarization between faith and science today, I believe Christians perpetuating COVID-19 conspiracies will do irreparable harm to our gospel witness for generations.
Spreading conspiracy theories and fooling a disproportionate number of Christians during a global public health crisis will not only call into question our good judgement but only reinforce what many in broader culture already believe about Christianity today.
Dumb. Anti-science. Brain-washed. These three words describe what many urbanites feel about church and churchgoers. While they may never actually say so out loud, these words do reflect the views of many millennials and Gen Z living in secular global cities today.
Developing a Framework for the Secular Mind
The world has changed drastically in the last 50 years, and perhaps it is not surprising that along with the recent passing of Billy Graham, the era of biblical authority in America has also passed. In Graham’s era, not only did about 75 percent of the U.S. population attend church, but the majority also believed the Bible to be the authoritative word …