CHAPTER ELEVEN

HOPE KILLERS

The Curse of Conspiracy Theories and Catastrophizing

In the early years of computing, both data storage and memory were expensive, so many programmers saved precious bytes by using only two digits to signify a calendar year.

It worked fine—for a while.

But decades later, as the new millennium approached, it suddenly dawned on some of them that these older computers and programs wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the year 1900 and the year 2000.

While many experts viewed this as no big deal, a number of others sounded the alarm. They were convinced that most older programs and hardware would need an accurate date in order to function properly. So they predicted a massive wave of breakdowns and failures when the clock struck midnight, January 1, 2000.

They called it the Y2K bug. They claimed it would produce the mother of all computer glitches. They warned of elevators suddenly stuck, cars stalling, airplanes crashing, and nuclear plants melting down. Many feared it would usher in a worldwide economic crisis.

Their concerns created quite a stir, especially among folks who were prone to buy into conspiracy theories and catastrophizing. By mid-1999 I was under immense pressure from a small but vocal contingent in my church to set up a co-op food bank, preach Y2K sermons, and prepare our congregation for the looming disaster.

When I resisted, they plied me with books and tapes. I remember one particularly harrowing recording in which an influential Christian voice at the time predicted the total breakdown of American society, massive civil disobedience, looting, food shortages, and a potential worldwide economic collapse followed by global conflict as dictators seized the opportunity.

A Debate I Couldn’t Win

When I pushed back and pointed out that the internal clocks in the computers of that era were notoriously inaccurate—which should have already resulted in reports of numerous stuck elevators and immobilized automobiles—I was sloughed off. They had their own experts telling them differently.

When I pointed out that real-life computer programmers and the government didn’t seem too concerned, they told me it was due to a conspiracy of silence. The government had no idea how to fix the problem, so in order to keep the uninformed masses from panicking, they were covering up the problems as they frantically searched for a solution.

Others told me that President Clinton and his cronies were keeping it out of the media because they planned to exploit the resulting chaos and crisis by imposing martial law and installing him as president for life.

It was a debate I couldn’t win. They had an answer for everything. That’s how it is with conspiracists and catastrophizers. There’s no way to convince them until after the fact. Their experts will always trump yours. And the absence of any hard evidence will simply be chalked up as further proof that the conspiracy is widespread and powerful.

One Hundred Fifty Slot Machines

When the dawn of the millennium finally arrived, there were a lot of parties, a few computer glitches, and no global disaster. The next morning the BBC compiled a list of all the reported Y2K problems country by country. Here’s what their reporters found:

In North America, even before midnight passed, some difficulties arose. About 150 slot machines at race tracks in the US state of Delaware stopped working. But according to John Koskinen, who has been leading US efforts to tackle the Y2K bug, the machines have been fixed.1

So let me get this straight.

The conspiracy theorists and catastrophizers in my congregation wanted me to preach a series of sermons and start a disaster preparedness food bank to protect us from the devastating effects of 150 broken slot machines in Delaware?

Life is too short and hell too hot to waste time on such nonsense. Yet try to tell that to a conspiracist or catastrophizer in the midst of their panic and you’ll be written off as a naïve fool.

But here’s the real kicker.

Nothing seems to faze these folks. Once their latest theory has been proven wrong, they just move on to the next one.

Moving On without Looking Back

Most of the same people who hammered me about Y2K are still at it. With Y2K in the rearview mirror, they turned their attention to everything from Mayan calendars to blood moons. And once those proved to be no big deal they moved on to financial conspiracies and more secret schemes to shut down the government and set up a dictatorship.

Like Harold Camping devotees, they keep hitting reset. They never seem to notice that all of the primary sources of their information have a long history of getting it wrong.

It’s enough to make me long for the Old Testament days when a prophet who warned of things that never happened lost the right to be heard—and sometimes his life.2

Today, those who cry wolf simply lie low for a season and then pop back up with a new conspiracy or catastrophe on the horizon.

Looking Stupid and Feeling Worse

Unfortunately, our propensity to catastrophize and buy into conspiracy theories undercuts our testimony and credibility with non-Christians. When the danger passes without a ripple, they rightfully look at us as Chicken Little or the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

It’s no wonder they’ve stopped listening.

It’s one thing to look foolish because we believe in the message of the cross and the power of an empty tomb. That comes with the territory.3 But it’s another thing to look like a bunch of scaredy-cats, warning everyone about things that never happen and fearing things that don’t exist, all the while claiming to be ambassadors for the King of kings.

Feeding Fear

But as bad as the impact of catastrophizing can be upon our witness, its impact upon our spiritual life is even worse. It kills our hope and feeds our fear. We may talk as if we trust Jesus, but if we live most of our lives in a state of fear and worry, it’s an empty cliché.

When we fall prey to conspiracy theories and catastrophizing, we not only end up worrying about things that are highly unlikely to happen, but we also forget that even if they did happen, God would still be with us.

Most of us know Psalm 23. Many of us can quote it. God is with us in the valley.

Most of us also know that Jesus promised to never leave us.

And most of us know God has promised to never give us more than we can handle.4

But once we slide into the swamp of conspiracy and catastrophizing, we forget all that. We end up fixating on the things we fear rather than the God we follow.

In addition, we imagine facing the things we dread with the spiritual strength we currently have. We forget that even if everything we’re worried about happens, we won’t have to face it with the spiritual strength we currently have. We’ll face it in the strength God provides the day it actually happens.

He has a just-in-time delivery system.

He’s never a day late.

He’s never a day early.

Which is why if everything we dread most were to actually happen, it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as we imagine. God provides us with what we need when we need it. He gives dying grace to dying men. We can’t store up his power and provision in a warehouse somewhere.

I wish we could.

I’d have boxes of wisdom, peace, and power squirreled away.

But that’s not how it works.

We walk by faith.

God calls us to trust him to provide all that we need when we need it. My guess is that if Daniel and his friends had known all they would encounter, their hearts would have melted. It had to be nerve-racking enough just to watch the Babylonians advance on Jerusalem. But had they known the rest of the story—that the city and temple would be sacked, that they’d be taken captive, carried off to Babylon, castrated, forced to study the occult, given new names honoring demon gods, tossed into a fiery furnace, thrown to hungry lions, and forced to interpret a dream without being told what the dream was—they would have collapsed in terror.

I doubt they could have imagined there would be any way they could survive all of that. Yet God showed up in each situation in miraculous and unexpected ways. And at the end of the day, he made sure they not only survived but that they thrived.

It’s still the same today. If we claim to be followers of Jesus, there’s never a good reason for panic. God loves a mess.

After all, it takes a mess to have a miracle.

1 “Minor Bug Problems Arise,” BBC News, January 1, 2000, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/586620.stm.

2 Deuteronomy 18:20–22

3 1 Corinthians 1:18–31

4 Psalm 23; Matthew 28:20; 1 Corinthians 10:13