On Conspiracy Theories

A post from Carl Trueman on conspiracy theories reminded me of several quotes I have collected through the years, all of which make similar statements.

Conspiracy theories have an aesthetic appeal: they make us feel more important in the grand scheme of things than we are. If someone is going to all this trouble to con us into believing in something, then we have to be worth conning; and the impotence we all feel in the face of massive impersonal bureaucracies and economies driven not by democratic institutions so much as multinational corporations is not really the result of our intrinsic smallness and insignificance so much of our potential power which needs to be smothered. Such views play to our vanity; and, to be brutally frank, the kind of virtual solitary vice which so much solipsistic internet activity represents.

Conspiracy theories don’t hold up, though. Nobody is that competent and powerful to pull them off. Even giant bureaucracies are made up of lots of small, incompetent units fighting petty turf wars, a fragmentation which undermine the possibility of the kind of co-ordinated efforts required to pull off, say, the fabrication of the Holocaust. History, humanly speaking, is a tale of incompetence and thoughtlessness, not of elaborate and sophisticated cabals. Evil, catastrophic evil, is not exceptional and brilliant; it is humdrum and banal; it does not involve thinking too much; it involves thinking too little.

-Carl Trueman, Histories and Fallacies

“Many issues are misconstrued, not because they are too complex for most people to understand, but because a mundane explanation is far less emotionally satisfying than an explanation which produces villains to hate and heroes to exalt. Indeed, the emotionally satisfying explanation may often be more complex than a mundane explanation that is more consonant with verifiable facts. This is especially true of conspiracy theories.” 

-Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals and Society 

"My boyfriend, Jim, has so many conspiracy theories. I think he gives people too much credit. I so rarely meet a single person who is very well organized, or with any direction. What are the chances a meeting a whole group?"

Esme Raji Codell, Educating Esme

"Liberal historians often assume that people are omnicompetent. Because they believe that humans can do anything, they routinely assume that outcomes are almost always the planned results of some human intentions. (An aside: this is why conspiracy theories abound. When you think that men control everything, you assume that every bad thing is the result of some intentional human plan.) Not true. Fallen humans are both capable and myopic, both powerful and unwise. The result is that human history is littered with unintended consequences. The Great War for Empire (a.k.a. the French and Indian War) shattered the colonists’ largely warm relationship with Great Britain in the 1760s, but this was accidental and unplanned. Historical events have causes, but they are often unexpected ones. Indeed, we should not be surprised when fallen humans misjudge situations and unleash dynamics that yield surprising results."

-Robert G. Spinney 

Why Evangelicals Should Care Who Becomes Pope

In a sermon a couple of weeks ago, I made two comments about the Roman Catholic Church's search for the next pope (who at the time was not yet chosen): (1) ecclesiastically speaking, we Protestants have no dog in this fight (2) culturally speaking, we Protestants should still hope and pray for a conservative pope to be chosen.

In the link below, Justin Taylor gives some helpful excepts from Carl Trueman, church historian at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. Trueman is hardly an ecumenical fan of the Roman Catholic Church (see his fascinating article here, http://www.reformation21.org/articles/pay-no-attention-to-that-man-behind-the-curtain-roman-catholic-history-and-the-e.php, yet he is always full of good sense. And his comments in the link below do a better job at making clear what I was trying to say two weeks ago.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2013/03/14/why-protestants-should-be-interested-in-rome/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+between2worlds+%28Between+Two+Worlds%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Because It's Cool, or Because It's True?

If you have a few minutes, you would profit from listening to Carl Trueman and Todd Pruitt's discussion about Calvinism and coolness.

http://info.alliancenet.org/mos/podcast/birth-cool

Are You Willing to be Thought a Cult-Member?

Good article from Carl Trueman's archive. The article was originally a response to Reformed Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke's claim that Christians risk being viewed as a cult if they do not embrace evolution, but he delves into others areas as well. Here is a sample, along with a link to the entire article.

"To be blunt, those Christians who (rightly) point out that we live in a post-Christian, post-Christendom era, cannot have their cake and eat it. Being regarded as a cult was the flip side of the apostolic church coin. Standing against the dominant culture by believing that Jesus is Lord and that God has raised him from the dead made the church a cult; and these claims will always be regarded as indicative of a cult mentality by the wider secular world. Do not, therefore, gleefully proclaim the death of Christendom and at the same time lament the fact that we are in danger of being perceived as a cult. History, biblical and otherwise, indicates that such a posture is incoherent." 

--Carl Trueman, "Life on the Cultic Fringe," http://www.reformation21.org/articles/life-on-the-cultic-fringe.php

Armchair Pundits vs. Leaders

"Recently, a friend quoted John Kennedy to me: `To lead is to choose.' It is not a quotation that I have been able to verify, but whether Kennedy said it or not, it is surely a piece of brilliant insight into the nature of leadership. One of the luxuries of having no power or influence is surely the fact that one never has to make any significant choices.  Sure, one can choose to support this leader or that leader, to argue for this side or that side of an issue; but because such support and such arguments are hypothetical and insignificant, because the responsibility for the decision or the policy lies in the hands of somebody else, then if it all goes horribly wrong, one always has the option of walking away while telling onlookers. `It was nothing to do with me.' The leader has no such luxury: ultimate he not only has to support one side of an argument but he has to act consistent with that; and once he does so, his ability to walk away unscathed if it all goes down the pan is reduced to zero." 

--Carl Trueman, "Pro-Coice not Pro-Options" 

http://www.reformation21.org/articles/prochoice-not-prooptions.php