Nearly 20 years ago, I wrote a column for The Oklahoman headlined “Internet deception runs wild.”

In that July 2001 piece, I highlighted the claim that an atheist group formed by the late “Madeline Murray O’Hare” had collected 287,000 signatures and was pushing to remove all Sunday morning worship service broadcasts.

“The good news is, the prayers have been answered — many times over,” I wrote. “Since the false petition related to the late Madalyn Murray O’Hair (that’s the correct spelling) began circulating in the late 1970s, the Federal Communications Commission has received more than 35 million signatures asking it to block her efforts.”

Two decades after that column ran, well-meaning religious people’s susceptibility to conspiracy theories has not waned.

If anything, the rise of social media has made it worse. Much, much worse.

“This last year has just been one giant conspiracy theory about everything — the pandemic, the civil unrest, the election — and it all sort of culminated with this terrifying scene we saw on Jan. 6. That was an army of conspiracy theorists, pretty much,” Tea Krulos told Religion News Service’s Emily McFarlan Miller this week.

Krulos is the author of the book “American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness.”

Last week, I referred to President Donald Trump — who has repeatedly claimed he won an election he lost by 74 Electoral College votes and 7 million popular votes — as the nation’s conspiracy-theorist-in-chief.

In the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 siege at the U.S. Capitol — egged on by Trump — a leading evangelical theologian told NPR this week that it’s time for a Christian reckoning.

“Part of this reckoning is: How did we get here? How were we so easily fooled by conspiracy theories?” said Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center in Illinois. “We need to make clear who we are. And our allegiance is to King Jesus, not to what boasting political leader might come next.”

In a May 2020 essay titled “Christians Are Not Immune to Conspiracy Theories,” The Gospel Coalition’s Joe Carter traced the problem all the way back to Satan spreading lies in the Garden of Eden. Carter’s take remains a must read.

Finally, in his “On Religion” column last week for the Universal Syndicate, Terry Mattingly interviewed Daniel Darling, author of the book “A Way with Words: Using Our Online Conversations for Good.”

“Today's mobs are not found on the streets with sticks and stones; they're dressed nicely in office cubicles, sitting quietly in church pews and sipping coffee in the comfort of air-conditioned homes. The mobs are — us,” said Darling, the National Religious Broadcasters’ senior vice president of communications.

“It is intoxicating. So intoxicating that we are tempted to immediately post something without stopping to consider if what we are communicating is true. And we often fail, in these split-second decisions, to consider the humanity of the person or organizations we are joining a mob to crush.”

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. For insurrectionists, a violent faith brewed from nationalism, conspiracies and Jesus: “As insurrectionists began the attack on the Capitol, a banner waved above the throng,” writes Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins. “It read: 'Proud American Christian.’”

At The Tennessean, religion writer Holly Meyer reports that symbols brought to the Capitol raise questions about the role of Christian belief in the riot.

For more on “Flags, faith and fury,” check out my Christian Chronicle story.

2. Charismatics are at war with each other over failed prophecies of Trump victory: In mid-November, Julia Duin profiled the Pentecostal and charismatic leaders still prophesying a Trump election victory — two weeks after his defeat to Joe Biden — and refusing to back down.

Her latest viral report for Religion Unplugged details “prophets and their thousands of followers (who) are slugging it out in an orgy of self-blame, recriminations and fantastical hopes that somehow before Jan. 20, God will bring about a victory for Trump.” This feature built on earlier pieces at GetReligion, including: “It's civil war among American charismatics and Pentecostals, but few reporters are covering it.”

CONTINUE READING : “Christians and the conspiracy theories that helped fuel the Capitol mob” by Bobby Ross, Jr., at Religion Unplugged.