Reality in Ruins
How Conspiracy Theory Became an American Evangelical Crisis
A question often raised in the dawning months of 2026 is how and why we can watch the same event and yet come away with radically different—often antithetical—conclusions. This winter, we watched video evidence of Renee Good and Alex Pretti’s fatal encounters with ICE. Since 2023, we have seen the destruction of Gaza. Five years ago we watched insurrectionists storm the US Capitol. Since the first cameras were installed on cellphones, we’ve been able to see the police brutality inflicted on Black folk. Yet we remain polarized in our interpretation of these events and the conclusions we ought to draw from them. More specifically, Christians seem to be irreparably at odds with one another as to what a faithful understanding of and response to these events should be. How is this so?
In Reality in Ruins, theologian Jared Stacy argues that conspiracy theory and evangelical Christianity in America run together. This evangelical buy-in didn’t begin in the past decade; it is a pattern going back more than 200 years. This is why Stacy argues that evangelicals have inherited a disoriented Christianity. Not only is the evangelical tradition prone to embracing conspiracy theories, but it also actively peddles them for power and profit.
In making this argument, Stacy’s focus is more specific than conspiracism writ large. His task engages a specific manifestation of conspiracism found in Christian communities, churches, and institutions. Crucial to this focus is the role of stories—both the ones told about America and the ones evangelicals tell about themselves. In this way, conspiracism is not merely about truth propositions but involves a greater encompassing narrative that provides the proper conditions for the conspiracy to be regarded as truth. Conspiracism is, for example, not simply the belief that the 1969 Apollo 11 moonlanding didn’t happen; it’s a story about cold war tensions, NASA’s development, and the American government’s willingness to deceive its own people.
