A young man of around thirty, shirtless and his head shaved bald, roamed the church where young evangelical Christians gathered to hear President Trump recently in Arizona. He held a QAnon sign. I was wondering why this was allowed to happen?
Is there a link between QAnon followers and Evangelical Christians? How else can you explain a shirtless, tattooed bald guy roaming the hall posing for pictures with some in the crowd?
Who are QAnon followers?
If you were an adherent, no one would be able to tell. You would look like any other American. You could be a mother, picking leftovers off your toddler's plate. You could be a young man in headphones across the street. You could be a bookkeeper, a dentist, a grandmother icing cupcakes in her kitchen. You may well have an affiliation with an evangelical church. But you are hard to identify just from the way you look-which is good, because someday soon dark forces may try and track you down. You understand this sounds crazy, but you don't care. (1)
To keep this diary as short as possible, I will not discuss theories of who Q is, the name Q, nor specific prophecies.
A brief overview of QAnon.
Q is an intelligence officer or military insider with proof that corrupt world leaders are secretly torturing children worldwide; the malefactors are embedded in the deep state; Donald Trump is working tirelessly to thwart them. ("These people need to ALL be ELIMINATED Q wrote in one post.)
To believe in Q requires rejecting mainstream institutions, ignoring government officials, battling apostates (unbelievers), and despising the press. (1)
QAnon feeds on apocalyptic beliefs, which is a core evangelical belief. The eventual destruction of the global cabal is imminent but can be accomplished only with the support of the patriots who search for Q's meaning;'s clues.
Christians on the End of Days can easily see signs of impending doom-in comets and earthquakes, in wars and pandemics. It has always been this way. In 1831, a Baptist preacher in rural New York named William Miller began to publicly share his prediction that the Second Coming of Jesus was imminent. Eventually, he settled on a date: October 22, 1844. When the sun came up on October 23, his followers, known as the Millerites, were crushed.
QAnon may be propelled by paranoia and populism, but it is also powered by religious faith. The language of evangelical Christianity has come to define the Q movement. (1)
So I think we can safely say that most evangelicals are not QAnon followers, but most QAnon followers are evangelical.
(1)The Atlantic, Adrienne LaFrance, The Prophecies of Q, June 2020 issue.