For Pastors
Vic Francis combines his background as a journalist with decades of pastoring, national church leadership and practising as a supervisor and spiritual director to champion pastors and their holy calling in an uncertain world.
For Pastors aims to inspire, encourage and help pastors and Christian leaders keep saying yes to the call of God on their lives.
For Pastors
The Conspiracy Trap
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Conspiracy theories. Why are they so prevalent, and are Christians more gullible than most?
And what happens when a conspiracy theory leads towards something worse - radicalisation? Indeed, could the next terrorist come from the pews of your church?
In this episode, Vic Francis asks these questions and more of Maja and Dave Whitaker, pastors and academics from Christchurch who have studied conspiracies and radicalisation and come up with some startling truths.
If you are concerned about extremism, you can access Government advice here or here for the Police crowded places strategy. And for Dave Whitaker’s thesis, click here.
Meanwhile, for more information on Vic and Solace, check out our website or search for us on Facebook or Instagram. And if you would like to support this podcast, please become a member at https://www.patreon.com/c/forpastors
Enjoy the podcast!
Kia ora, I'm Vic Francis, and welcome to this episode of the For Pastors podcast. I'm combining my background as a journalist with decades of pastoring, national church leadership, and practising as a supervisor and spiritual director, to champion pastors and their holy calling in an uncertain world. In this episode, we explore the growing phenomenon of conspiracy theories and why the church needs to take them seriously. How do we respond when the people in our pews stop trusting the world around them, and even the church around them, and start trusting instead in something far darker? Welcome today to For Pastors: The Conspiracy Trap. My guests today are husband and wife Maja and Dave Whitaker, who have both undertaken research into conspiracy theories and where they might lead. Dave and Maja, welcome to The Conspiracy Trap episode of For Pastors.
Maja WhitakerKia ora, Vic. It's great to be with you.
Dave WhitakerYeah, thanks, Vic. It's awesome to be here.
Vic FrancisIt is wonderful to have you here. Uh, before we get into the subject matter, we should find out a little bit about you. Maja, maybe we'll start with you first. Who are you? What makes you tick?
Maja WhitakerSo I'm, uh, married to Dave. We've got four girls together, and we live in Christchurch. I work at Laidlaw College, where I'm the academic dean and a senior lecturer in theology. I'm ordained in the Acts movement, and Dave and I pastored the Equippers Church in Timaru for about a decade, and we've moved up to Christchurch here.
Vic FrancisDave, how about you? Maybe you can fill out that picture a little.
Dave WhitakerSure. So after moving up from Timaru to Christchurch, I did my master's in theology through Otago, and my topic was around, uh, radicalisation of Christians, uh, and how we prevent it. So, while I was doing that, I was a pediatric physio as well, I've done that a lot of my working career. But currently now I'm a pastor at The Well Church, a Wesleyan Methodist church here in Otautahi, Christchurch.
Vic FrancisLovely. It's beautiful to meet you and wonderful to be able to share on this really important topic. Uh, if we start somewhat at the beginning, Maja, what led to your fascination with conspiracy theories?
Maja WhitakerIt really came out of a pastoral context. So we were pastoring through the time of Covid and just noticed how a number of people in our church, so in Timaru, were being impacted by conspiracy thinking. And I particularly had a few people in my life group who were really concerned. Like, they would send me screenshots of stuff they were seeing online, and I was quite taken aback 'cause I thought, like, these are quite rational people and how can you believe that this is an email from Bill Gates to you? And, you know, all of that kind of stuff that you might be familiar with. And I really had to do a little bit of a shift for myself to move from being frustrated to compassion and to move from questioning how people could fall for it, to realising people are actually quite scared.
Vic FrancisMm.
Maja WhitakerAnd as I noticed how people were trying to make sense of the world, I started doing a bit of reading about it, and, yeah, eventually doing some academic research in looking into this and done a few presentations and seminars and that kind of thing.
Vic FrancisOf course you had a husband who might be able to take that even further, didn't you?
Maja WhitakerYes. So I went to a a government hui, He Whenua Taurikura, which was looking at the issue of radicalisation, um, was set up in response to the Christchurch mosque attacks. And at that I was quite concerned about the potential danger for radicalisation to happen in the Christian Church in New Zealand 'cause conspiracy theories doesn't necessarily lead to radicalisation, but they kind of go together a little bit. Mm. And so I didn't have any space to do any research, but I did know a man who was looking for a master's topic. And so yeah,, he really picked it up, which has been great to see.
Vic FrancisYeah, it was a persuasive argument I'm sure, Dave, and you picked up the challenge and you did your master's thesis around that. Tell us a little bit about that, and we'll explore it later in the podcast as well.
Dave WhitakerYeah, it wasn't just my wife's persuasive argument. Uh, it was also the fact that there was a free master's going with it. There was some funding, uh, attached to it, um, from He Whenua Taurikura. That was good. But actually the topic really grabbed me. I don't know if you remember the Parliament ground occupation that happened back in Covid, but there were a lot of Christians at that. And for whatever reason, that really attracted, um, the Christian community in Aotearoa. And so my master's looked at that window of time, and particularly what a couple of the more contentious preachers in New Zealand were saying from the pulpit and also on their social media that might be provoking potential radicalisation of Christians in New Zealand. And then how we can prevent the radicalisation of Christians towards extremist activity in Aotearoa.
Vic FrancisYeah, that's quite a dark turn, isn't it? And we will explore that a little more as we go on. Maja, maybe again, just getting into the topic, how do we define a conspiracy theory? What are we talking about?
Maja WhitakerSo a conspiracy theory is a belief or a belief system that explains events and situations by attributing them to some kind of plot, some kind of hidden intentional plot by a person or a group of people, usually ones who've got some power, so government, corporations, elites, that kind of thing. And it says that these people are doing this thing, and they're hiding this knowledge from us. And so a key marker of a conspiracy theory is that there isn't sufficient verifiable evidence that this is actually going on, but often part of the conspiracy theory is that these powerful actors are deliberately hiding this evidence from the public. And they often have, like, recurring themes will be the idea that just nothing is coincidence. So you'd never explain, you know, the fact that this and this happened on the same day as just, well, sometimes that kind of thing happens.
Vic FrancisYes.
Maja WhitakerThere's always meaning in, in those connections. Uh, and another really common theme is that there are external agents, so someone who's other to us is trying to harm us. That's a pretty core theme that comes throughout them all.
Vic FrancisAnd I'm wondering, are they all false? We sort of tend to mock them but sometimes a conspiracy may actually really happen.
Maja WhitakerYeah, absolutely. And the evidence often eventually comes out that yes, this was something going on. Yes, the government was hiding something. So one example would be the Tuskegee syphilis study that was from the 1930s to the 1970s, where black men in rural Alabama, instead of being given treatment for syphilis, even once there was a proven standard treatment for syphilis, they were not given it. They didn't know they were part of a trial. And it wasn't until the '70s that a journalist actually exposed this, and the trial was stopped and led to a major, you know, revelation in the bioethics. There'd been a theory around that this was happening, but it was, purposely hidden.
Vic FrancisMm.
Maja WhitakerAnd so things like that do happen, and it is important that we do actually have some healthy scepticism towards power. If we're just thinking, "I'm never gonna believe in a conspiracy theory," we are probably gonna be blind to something that is being done by powerful people. We just need to be, you know, proportionate and be careful about what we're believing.
Vic FrancisYeah, so what are some of the things that will help me distinguish between the two?
Maja WhitakerSo a big part of it is how we're interpreting evidence. So often in a conspiracy theory we start with the conclusion. We've got the theory, we've got the explanatory framework, and we look at evidence and interpret in ways that make it fit. And it's quite a closed system, so we're not getting input from other sources. We might just be listening to one voice or a few voices, like a group of voices, and often those people will say, "Everyone else is hiding this from you, but I'm gonna tell you the truth." Like, that's a little bit of a red flag. Yeah. It becomes self-reinforcing and just the evidence can't be found. So it's really important that we're trying to stay open to evidence, we're using our critical thinking skills to weigh things up. Is this a trustworthy source? How does this balance against other sources? That's a kind of a key part to watching out for it.
Vic FrancisYou mentioned the syphilis study. More recently there have been the MMR and measles conspiracy theories as well. What happened there, and why is that helpful to this conversation?
Maja WhitakerYeah. So there's a long, persisting conspiracy theory around the MMR vaccine and whether this is associated with autism and there was a Doctor Wakefield who put all this misinformation out there. He's been completely debunked, but he posed himself as this like heroic truth teller. And what happened in Samoa in about 2019, there was an outbreak of measles which caused a lot of deaths. Over 40 children died, preventable deaths, because the vaccine coverage had dropped so significantly in Samoa. And that vaccine coverage had dropped because there had been a medical accident where proper procedures weren't followed. And so the government said, "Hey, we're gonna stop. We're gonna make sure we got our procedures right." But at that time some international anti-vaccine figures and organisations came in, reinforced local fears with a lot of misinformation, spread stuff on social media, targeted it at Samoan audiences, framed it as protecting children, and led to the place where there was a really low coverage. So the community didn't have that kind of herd immunity, and that meant that when measles came along the most vulnerable were affected. Mm. And so a lot of children died when they didn't have to. And you see how there's like a big combination of things happening there. Yes. But that persistent vaccine conspiracy theory is really, people have died because of it.
Vic FrancisPeople have died because of it. Yeah, absolutely. Why, why do you think conspiracy theories are so attractive to us? They do get under our skin, don't they?
Maja WhitakerYeah. Like we love the idea of knowing secret knowledge. Mm-hmm. It is quite appealing to us and to the kind of fallen side of us as well. But in the literature they talk about there being three big psychological drivers. So one of them is around narrative, that we want to have a compelling narrative or story that makes sense of the world for us. And particularly when things are uncertain and we're in a space of chaos, a conspiracy theory can come along and explain that chaos to us. Mm. And that gives us a sense of control over the world, which is something we psychologically need. Uh, and so you can see how, using Covid as example, a lot of chaos, a lot of turmoil happening. You're like, "Oh, I'll cling to it even more." So there's that narrative. Then there's our needs that we have. So we've got this existential need to have a sense of control again when life is feeling uncertain, and so that promotes us towards us. And the final "N" is networks. Um, conspiracy thinking creates these really strong social networks. You get a sense of belonging and identity. You know, you're connecting with people online. And it also helps form this kind of in-group and out-group thinking. So we define ourselves as a group by defining ourselves against another group. And that actually makes us feel quite good. I feel like I've got a social network. Yeah. So those narrative, needs and networks mean that it's quite alluring psychologically and so you can get there quite easily, I think.
Vic FrancisYeah. That's a really helpful grid, I think. Dave, you've mentioned your thesis and Maja's mentioned Covid. Mm. I'm sort of thinking probably in all of our memories, Covid is still reasonably fresh. Why was Covid such a fertile place for conspiracy theories to take off, do you think?
Dave WhitakerI think there was definitely a loss of control in that time. And people wanted someone to blame. Conspiracy theory is often about, like Maja just mentioned, that in-group versus out-group, having an external group to be able to point to and go, "Actually I'm in this situation because of them" and there's a higher group that is controlling it. And a lot of the, the research that I did, the preachers were blaming the government and the media, so I think in that uncertainty, people are looking for someone to blame and it's the institutions that, uh, get blamed. And the big institution that was controlling things is the government. And of course everybody is stuck at home and so they're on social media a lot 'cause that's the only kind of socialisation they get, and that's just a whirlpool of emotion going on and it's just feeding into it. So yeah, it's just perfect storm really for that to happen.
Vic FrancisYeah, it is, isn't it? And I'm sure conspiracy theories are as old as the hills I guess, but our media uh, social media environment of these days just exacerbates it, I imagine. Well, it's a good point I think for us to take a wee break, and when we return we'll ask whether Christians are particularly gullible when it comes to conspiracies, and we'll take a darker look into radicalisation and where it could potentially take us. So we'll be right back. Dave and Maja Whitaker, welcome back to For Pastors and an episode we're calling The Conspiracy Trap. I must confess, I love a good conspiracy theory. Way back in the 1980s when I was editor of Challenge Weekly, we regularly explored conspiracy theories. I remember one that particularly grabbed me was the story that went around of an angelic hitchhiker who people were picking up on the Desert Road and would tell those in the car that Jesus was returning before promptly disappearing from the car and leaving the passengers shaken but ready to repent. It wasn't true, of course, but oh, how many Christians wanted it to be true. And Dave, I'm wondering if Christians are particularly vulnerable when it comes to conspiracy theories?
Dave WhitakerYeah, I think there is something about Christians that does lend them towards going down the conspiracy theory route. I mean, I think we saw that around the Parliament grounds occupation with the number of them who were there. I think there's something in us that is looking for meaning in the world and, uh, we don't tend to put things down to coincidence. So we sometimes misapply God's sovereignty, uh, in things, and so we're looking for that underlying meaning that sometimes is misapplied to a conspiracy theory. And we've also got sometimes a framework in some of the more apocalyptic books like Revelation and Daniel that we can misapply. And that can be taken and has been taken quite wrongly and can be weaponised to explain, um, some theories. There are so many books out there about Revelation that have been applied and proved wrong over time, which apply to conspiracy theories. I think spiritual warfare can sometimes come into that as well. We just kind of blur stuff that is supposed to be talked about in a spiritual element and we take it into the here and now. And we live in, or a lot of churches are spaces where the pastor has a lot of authority and they kind of speak for God. And that can become a kind of a closed space.
Vic FrancisWe also have this big overall story of good and evil, don't we? So if I'm on the side of good, anything that's not coming my way is probably gonna be evil, so therefore I can make a case against it.
Dave WhitakerYeah, that overarching narrative. Yeah. We often like things black and white as Christians, and so it's, it becomes an us versus them. Yeah. Maja, we were talking before earlier, you were saying how often the church can become a closed institution.
Maja WhitakerYeah, so we call it like a total institution where you find all of your connections within it. So, so like the army, for example, would be a total institution. You're in that, all your friends are there, your workplace is there, you're living with those people. And often churches can be like that, and that can be a great experience of community. But it also can flip over into becoming a little bit dangerous where that community well, essentially becomes an echo chamber. And so we're not listening to external voices that might cause us to ask some questions, or where we are hearing external voices, we're interpreting them through a framework that is, that's not very generous. And so we're not questioning things in the same way. And particularly if, like Dave said, those power structures are in play that mean that we're not able to ask questions. So, your church context where questioning is generally not encouraged. You just take how the person up the front says this is what the scripture means. That's a bit dangerous, and so something we need to, yeah, watch out for.
Vic FrancisYeah. So Dave, what can churches do proactively to build a resilience against the misinformation and the conspiratorial thinking that sometimes takes over?
Dave WhitakerI think it begins with the pastor having a real humility, and coming from that place that actually there is a limit to our understanding of scripture, also obviously of God, but also of the world around us, how things operate. And so I think that begins with a good solid theological education. In my study, I found that the pastors that I was looking at were autodidacts. They, they thought they were educated themselves, but their education was self-taught and there were no external voices. There was nothing actually speaking into their world other than their own kind of thinking. I think we can encourage critical thinking in our churches as well. I think sometimes that's thought of as, as doubt. But actually that's not doubt, that's wrestling with hard issues, and I think we need to encourage our people to wrestle with hard questions of God and faith. I think having strong accountability structures for leaders, when that happens conspiracy theories can be called out. But when they're not there, then the leader can just bring them in and no one's questioning. Mm. And that's obviously unhealthy and unhelpful.
Vic FrancisAnd I guess the danger is, you get a leader who's read a book, and that chapter of the book appears in the sermon on Sunday, and so everybody's reading the book, and before you know it It, it can happen quite quickly, I imagine.
Dave WhitakerYes, absolutely. And so that's where having different voices into that space, not just the one pastor speaking all the time, having multiple voices from other uh, ethnicities and gender and background is healthy. Yeah, because you're not just getting that one perspective. I think encouraging a diverse community within the church is healthy as well. Sometimes our churches become a bit monocultural. And in doing that, we lend ourselves to just thinking in one way. And that can obviously lead towards conspiracism as well.
Vic FrancisIs, is there also a benefit of having some theological differences represented within our own church communities?
Dave WhitakerI mean, I think there needs to obviously be agreement around core beliefs. But I think, you know, there are so many different interpretations of, say, the Book of Revelation. Yeah. I think we can hold that that we have differences around those things, and that's fine. And we can agree to disagree around the fringes, and I think that's absolutely healthy and fine.
Vic FrancisYou mentioned an "us versus them" dynamic. Can you explain that a bit more, and why is it so dangerous if we end up in that place?
Dave WhitakerUs versus them is something that is a big part of radicalisation towards extremist activity, but it's also something that's a big part of conspiracy theorism as well. It creates a sense of consolidation and purpose within a group when we can point to another group and say, "Hey, we're not them, and therefore we are us." You don't have to look far in today's world to see people, politicians and unfortunately church leaders doing that. Taken to its nth-most degree, we get extremist activity where people take it upon themselves. They build a suspicion around an out-group. Then they develop hostility towards that out-group, and then eventually they will do harm towards that out-group.
Vic FrancisWell, to go into your thesis, you describe conspiracy theorism as, and I quote, a radicalising multiplier." What does that mean?
Dave WhitakerSo, conspiracy theorism isn't radicalisation. Radicalisation is an increasing hostility towards an out-group towards doing something extreme towards them. Conspiracy theorism is a bit different in that if someone has tendencies towards radicalisation and they start to believe conspiracy theories, then it will accentuate that path towards it. So it intensifies it. It multiplies it. It gives them, I guess, a framework for why they might dislike that group. It gives them that reason, that meaning. It legitimises why they want to do something, some harm towards them. But it's not radicalisation in and of itself, I guess until they start acting hostilely towards that out-group.
Vic FrancisSo you're saying there are some other factors that would come in to make a conspiracy theorist a radical or a, you know, somebody who actually would go and outwork that in a really unsavoury sort of way.
Dave WhitakerYeah. I mean, there's been a lot of time and effort since 9/11 trying to work out what are the risk factors for radicalisation towards extremist activity, and actually there are hundreds of potential risk factors. It's very hard to work out who's going to do the next terrible event. You can't really profile people very clearly, but conspiracy theorism is one of those things which when you add to a whole list of different factors it's something that will basically multiply their chances of doing something wrong.
Vic FrancisI get it. Yeah. Maja, what are the warning signs that we could notice as pastors, maybe someone in our congregation is moving from a healthy questioning into something that might become something more concerning. What should we be looking for?
Maja WhitakerYeah, it's really important to do this. I mean, to a degree there is a little bit of a demographic. So often young males with a difficult backstory that might be isolated. But like Dave said, there's so many other risk factors, that demographic's not predictive at all. But things to look out for are just this increasing certainty that they might have about their beliefs. So I'm more and more certain about this, and I'm less and less able to question it, or I'm less able to have other people question it, so getting really defensive about things. Listening to one voice. Like I've heard people say, "There's this one guy on YouTube. You've gotta watch him." And you're like that's a red flag. 'Cause there's never just gonna be one guy to whom the truth has been revealed. But that's often paired with a growing distrust of authorities, and that can be all authorities. So obviously you might wanna be a bit distrustful of this and that, but if it's becoming more and more you just can't trust them, you can't trust that, again, these are warning signs for us. When that us and them language becomes quite clear in a person's communication and the them becomes an enemy. Mm. So it's not just that I'm distinguishing myself from them as I'm forming my identity, but they are bad and they don't deserve to be here or, you know, whatever the different things are. I'd say another thing to watch out for is the identity formation of a person. We talked about how the conspiracy group, but even more like a radicalising group, there is that sense of identity you find. You're in the know with these people, and you're connecting with them often online. And so they're getting deeper and fusing their identity with that conspiracy community, but at the same time they might be getting more socially isolated, so they're drifting away from their normal connections. Which might mean also they're drifting away from church. But you need to take immediate action, I think, if there is a concern that someone's moving from just questioning to the kind of talk where they're wanting to take action or do something. That's, I think, when you need to take something seriously, and you can't just kinda go, "Oh, it'll be fine."
Vic FrancisYeah. Well, a little later we will explore some of the things that we can do when we recognise that. Dave, I'm wondering is it possible that the next terrorist could come from within one of our congregations?
Dave WhitakerYeah, look, Vic, sadly it is possible. I think in New Zealand we've become disabused to the fact that terrorists are just Muslim terrorists. Like, I think we realise now, you just have to think about the Christchurch mosque attacks, some of the manifesto, while I don't think the mosque attacker was Christian at all, there are references in that to Christian scriptures and things like that. So there are Christian themes. Could they come from within our churches is another question. I think, it only takes one person to mishear some bad teaching around Revelation and the us versus them and the violent rhetoric from the end times kind of battle that we're in to go, "I'm gonna do something to make a difference on behalf of the bishop or on behalf of my leader." The profile for people who enter into terrorist activities is actually the same profile for everyday violence in a standard prison population. And if you think about some of the churches in New Zealand that are doing great work and trying to rehabilitate people out of our prisons and into everyday life, if they are hearing messages that are potentially dangerous and have some of that us versus them rhetoric and are not well modulated and are given to this vulnerable population, then it's not unthinkable that someone could take that and could run with it and do something dangerous.
Vic FrancisIt's a sobering thought, and we'll take that into the break. Thank you, Dave and Maja, for your deep thinking and research in what is a fascinating and yet troubling, I guess, in many ways area. When we return, we'll explore further how pastors can handle conspiracies that come their way, either personally or that become evident within their congregation. So we will be right back. Welcome back, Maja and Dave Whitaker, to our conspiracy trap episode. Now, Maja, what advice would you give pastors who are trying to work with people who are diving deeper and deeper into conspiracy theory?
Maja WhitakerWell, first off I wanna say that this is actually quite difficult, and it's really tempting to put it in the too hard basket and just get on with everything else that's required by the role. But we do actually need to address these things, particularly before conspiracy thinking becomes part of the identity. And the more established it is, the harder it is to deal with. One of my big pieces of advice would be to watch out for um, othering people in the way that you are interacting with them. So you don't wanna come and say, "Oh, that's stupid. Why do you think that?" Because it's not a lack of intelligence that gets people into conspiracy thinking. It's often about trust and how they're perceiving threats. And everybody is interpreting information through their beliefs, and there's all these cognitive biases which get us there. So just this assumption that people who are smart are not gonna get drawn in. Mm. We've gotta be really careful for that one. And so coming with humility and gentleness is really important. Generally you're not gonna change someone's mind by sitting down and just giving them the facts. You're not gonna debunk their conspiracy theory by just showing them the facts. And the reason for that is we've got this strong bias towards confirmation. And the thing that happens with cognitive dissonance, so if I've got a strong belief about something and, Vic, you tell me some new facts which contradict it, usually what I'll do is dismiss your facts. I'll reject them, rather than going, "Oh, that's new information. Let me assess my belief structure in light of that." Mm. Because the experience of cognitive dissonance is so psychologically uncomfortable, we just dismiss it somehow. We find a way to explain it away. It's fake or whatever. And so just bringing facts isn't that helpful, but often bringing questions is more helpful. And if you've got time and space to really, to get people to examine their own reasoning. So what makes you believe that? What makes you think that's a trustworthy voice? And there is a little bit of a dynamic can be effective where you get people to unpack their belief in a way that examines the kind of like logical connections between the point. Then they can often realise, this doesn't hold together. Because we have this cognitive bias, which is called the illusion of explanatory depth, which is where we think we understand something until we actually start to explain it. And then we realise we don't. We've often had this experience with our kids. Our kids ask us to explain something, we're like, "Yeah, yeah, I know how a car works." And then I'm like, "I don't know how a car works." Dave answers those questions for us.
Vic FrancisYeah.
Maja WhitakerBut often, yeah, getting people to unpack that can help them kind of get to the conclusions themselves. But all of this has to happen within the context of a long-term relationship. Where a person feels like you're actually for them, you're committed in relationship to them over time. That's really important.
Vic FrancisIs that conversation that we have, is it a deliberate conversation where we might say to someone, "Could I talk to you about your political views or the things that you've been saying recently?" Or is it spending more time with them and hoping that the subject comes up? How do we approach it?
Maja WhitakerI think it'd be a case-by-case basis, I mean, some people are gonna tell you about their beliefs whether you wanna hear them or not.
Vic FrancisYes. Mm-hmm.
Maja WhitakerBut I think often as a pastor we need to take responsibility for that, and that's about addressing it early on, and, you know, there is a lot of good resources available to us. The police have a crowded places strategy and resources online we can look at, and, you know, if obviously there's imminent danger, you call 111. If you've noticed something, you think, "Actually, I'm really concerned about this person's online activity," or whatever it is, again, get in touch with the police. I think it's the 105 number that you call for concerns that aren't time-critical or reporting it online. Yes. But we do need to take steps to be prepared. I think it is important. As much as we would like to think it's not gonna happen with us, it is part of shepherding our flocks well.
Vic FrancisYeah, I think so. Dave, what are some mistakes maybe that pastors have made that you've noted or, or maybe that they could make if they weren't careful?
Dave WhitakerI mean, I think it's pretty easy for pastors or just people to mock or dismiss people who believe conspiracy theories. You know, the old tin hats and just having a laugh, and you can do that personally in your own bedroom. But these people genuinely believe these things for reasons that they hold pretty closely. And if you let them know that, you think less of them because they hold those things, then you've got a lot of relational work to do to get back to square one. So you can't do that. You have to genuinely love them and listen to them. I think we have to be really good listeners. So yeah, don't mock them. Also, don't think you can talk them round. The research says you can't talk people out of conspiracy theories. You really need to love them back to the truth. And so building relationship, listening well, and yeah, being with them. And over time, as Maja says, asking those questions, you really, you're, you're really just getting them to uncover the truth for themselves. I think a big mistake that pastors do do is we inadvertently reinforce in-group and out-group divides. The church, whether we like it or not, is an in-group compared to the world. And sometimes we reinforce that in unhelpful ways, and I think we saw that with the Parliament grounds occupation. I think there became a bit of us versus them against the government, and against the media, and against all those evil forces out there. And the church leaders had a role to play in that, and I think that was not well done by a lot of church leaders. And I think sometimes we inadvertently platform conspiracy theories when we take some scriptures, particularly Revelation, Daniel, apocalyptic passages, and we reinterpret them for our times and we put our own spin on them. And we eisegetically make them say what we want them to say. And that can, yeah, send people down rabbit holes that we shouldn't be sending them down.
Vic FrancisMaja.
Maja WhitakerI think one of the things I'd really want to affirm is that we need to come to this with compassion. And compassion towards the people that we're interacting with. Not affirming the fact that they believe something, but affirming or maybe validating would be a better word. Validating the fears that they might have, validating their underlying needs. I think it's really crucial when we're trying to approach people in these things, and it's this kind of balance where on the one hand you're coming compassionately, but you're also having a really clear conversation. Mm. You're being realistic about your concerns, you're being upfront. And that takes real courage. Like I said, it's you just sometimes wanna sweep it under the carpet and go, "Oh, God, I've got so many other things to do." But that approach, I think, compassion without affirmation of beliefs is really helpful.
Vic FrancisVery helpful indeed, and I'm thinking just Dave's thing of loving somebody. Surely it's in church community that some of those situations can be resolved or some of those conversations ultimately can be had, because of the love that we have for our people. And I guess as pastors that's a great challenge for us. If you could give a pastor one piece of advice, if they for some reason have missed the whole rest of our podcast and they just land on this next two minutes, what would it be? Start with you, Maja.
Maja WhitakerI would say that a really crucial part of a healthy church community is it's a space we can wrestle with questions. And so working to foster a community where your congregants can ask questions. It's not just the one person at the front who's got the power who says this and people need to uncritically accept everything. But fostering those critical thinking skills, creating a culture where leadership has a kind of checks and balances, but also that people can wrestle with things, you know, in small groups and in their reading. And you're not being afraid of being exposed to other ideas, 'cause we can hold fast to our faith, we can hold fast to scripture, but we can still do that, that wrestle. And it's even more important of the church in this day and age. But sometimes we've been afraid of questions. We've been afraid of people asking questions. Sometimes we're afraid of that as pastors 'cause we think, "I don't know how to answer that."
Vic FrancisYeah.
Maja WhitakerBut like Dave's been saying, that intellectual humility is so important that I'm not gonna be threatened by someone who asks me a question that I, I don't answer. I'll go, "I'm not sure. I'll, I'll go and look that up." Yeah. But great that you're asking questions. I think that's really crucial in a healthy community.
Vic FrancisDave, how about you? What would be your one thing?
Dave WhitakerOn similar lines, I would say, pastors have the humility to have other voices speak into your life. My key finding from my research was that these ministers had this unexamined hubris that they thought they knew it all. They thought they had the complete handle on the truth, and they didn't allow any other voices, whether it was theological training, whether it was some kind of ministry supervision, whether it was a board who was overseeing them and speaking and holding them account. There were just no other voices, um, speaking into their world, and I think that's a really dangerous place, and that will leave you open to conspiracy theories, potentially even to radicalisation, if you don't have the humility to have other people speak into your world. So be open and humble.
Vic FrancisWell, thank you both for your wisdom in talking about the conspiracy trap. One of the things that we do here on the For Pastors podcast is we ask our guests what gives them hope. So Maja, what gives you hope? And then Dave, what gives you hope?
Maja WhitakerI think particularly as it relates to this topic is the idea that I don't need to be able to understand things or explain things. You know, we have this deep drive to be able to understand, to explain, to make judgments, to make sense of our world so we've got a sense of control. But we actually, we have that in Christ. The big story of the gospel and how that's playing out and what is to come, is such a foundation that obviously gives us hope for every kind of difficult space. But it reminds me that even in circumstances where I can't make sense of things, I'm looking at the news in the morning and I think, "Oh my gosh, this is not going well," you know, you just can rely on that, and I think that gives us a lot of hope, and it's the best news that the world needs. But it really does speak into this drive that we might have to find other ways of explaining things to bring a sense of reassurance to ourselves, is actually we can rely that God is God. We're not. We kind of know how it's gonna work out. We don't know the timing but he's got it in hand. It's a bit simplistic, but that's a really strong foundation for us.
Vic FrancisThank you. Dave?
Dave WhitakerSomething that gives me hope for the church at the moment is there is a turn towards more open systems of supervision and boards holding Like, some of it's had to actually come externally. Like the media has shone a spotlight, and sadly I don't think it should have come to that. But that actually gives me hope that many churches are going, "Actually we need to we need to be more open and transparent, and actually we need to put systems in place so that we are leading with transparency." And that gives me hope for the church moving forward that yeah, more and more leaders are going, "No, actually I need to have external voices. I need to be transparent. I need to have people holding me account." And yeah, that gives me hope for the church moving forward.
Vic FrancisMm. Thank you both for that. We're also in a process here of, um, championing pastors and their holy calling in an uncertain world. That's what this podcast's all about, and I think one of the ways we can champion pastors is by praying for them. So again, I ask our guests here if they would pray for the pastors of Aotearoa and, and beyond who might listen to this. So Dave, would you be happy to lead us off, and then Maja can finish off in praying for our pastors? It would be wonderful.
Dave WhitakerFor sure. Father, I thank you that you are ultimately the truth, and you lead us into all truth. And God, I pray for the pastors of Aotearoa, New Zealand. I pray that you would keep us holding to your truth, Lord. You would keep us from the lies of the enemy that would try and distract us. Lord, I pray for those good systems to be put into place of accountability, Lord, of boards and of supervision that can keep pastors on, uh, the straight and narrow, Lord. I pray also that pastors will embrace uh, learning and developing their skills, but also have the humility to seek other voices into their own lives and the life of their church. God, I thank you that, yeah, you are doing a good work in the churches of Aotearoa, New Zealand. And I pray that we would be a people that are not mistrustful of the government and of the systems in place, Lord, that we would pray for our government. We would uphold it, Lord. But we would also know that we live in a fallen system and that we would ultimately trust that you are in control, Lord. We put our trust in you, Father.
Maja WhitakerHoly Spirit, we ask that you would sharpen our discernment. God, that we would be aware of just those red flags that we might see in our own communities, that we would have good and wise discernment about those and what action to take and, you know, what's the best pastoral approach with different people. God, we also ask that you would cultivate and help us to cultivate our self-awareness as pastors and leaders. That we would notice the things within ourself that are, you know, on the shadow side, on the weakness side of our own strengths perhaps, where we might need to hear, you know, perhaps a little bit of rebuke from you, Holy Spirit. Show us what steps we might need to take to strengthen ourselves for our ministry. And I do pray, Holy Spirit, that you would cultivate within us a heart of compassion Lord, for the lost and those people who are getting lost in conspiracy thinking or just trying to make sense of the world outside of the framework that you give us in scripture, Lord, would you show us what loving and courageous action looks like in the different settings that we each are ministering. And God, we thank you for the privilege that it is to serve you by serving your church. God, we ask for your ongoing help to do that, and we ask your blessing upon us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Vic FrancisAmen. Well, I wanna thank you, Maja and Dave Whitaker, for coming on the podcast, for your depth in thinking on a subject that could have far-reaching ramifications. For being normal, non-hysterical, and yet having clear insight into conspiracies and where they stand. For being lovers of the church and of pastors, and for helping us all on our journeys. So we champion you too, and your holy callings in this uncertain world. God bless you. It's been a great privilege.
Maja WhitakerThanks Vic.
Dave WhitakerThanks very much, Vic.
Vic FrancisThank you for listening to this episode of the For Pastors podcast. You can find more about us in the podcast notes, along with information about who to turn to on the subject of conspiracies and access to Dave Whittaker's master's thesis. While you're at it, how about liking or rating this podcast and passing it on to a pastor you know who may benefit? Meanwhile, I'm back in a fortnight with something different again, an interview with poet, prophet and writer Strahan Coleman about what's happening deep in his life and what God might be saying to the church today. I hope you'll join me. Bless you.