'Christianity is on the verge of extinction': Here’s why evangelicals embrace QAnon

During an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," author and evangelical expert Jon Ward was asked by host Joe Scarborough why it was that so many Christians came to wholeheartedly embrace the conspiracy theories of QAnon.

In response, Ward, who wrote the book "Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation," said there is a fear among evangelicals that their way of life is fading away and they're looking for a lifeline.

"I've never understood the victimhood, constant victimhood," host Scarborough began. "I'll just speak like evangelicals speak to each other. If you believe, then you're in on the greatest thing you ever have, the greatest story ever told. You've been taught the greatest story, the most extraordinary story ever told so why do you have to wallow in QAnon conspiracy theories? What are they compensating for?"

"Yeah, one of the most painful things for me, I think, in 2020 was seeing certainty about things that were, you know, lies," Ward told the host. "That was, I think -- I try to tell the story through my own life, of growing up in a world in which we were pretty isolated from reality in a lot of ways. We were so far inside our church bubble, that I think we became vulnerable to manipulation; we were really in that church bubble for a lot of reasons."

"I unpack a lot of it, but we were busy getting blessed, seeking, you know, emotional experiences in church, learning how to love one another in our personal relationship," He elaborated. "There was not a lot of focus on, in the evangelical church I grew up in, or think evangelicalism writ large, on how to be a good public citizen. It's public character versus private character.

"So I think, you know, there's a lot of fear you've alluded to in evangelicalism," he continued. "People have been telling evangelicals for decades that, you know, Christianity is on the verge of extinction. I think because of that lack of stepping out of that church bubble, that lack of becoming a stakeholder in the public conversation, I think there's been more vulnerability to believe that sort of thing."

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