The Ukrainian Church: Hope through Adversity

Over the past twenty-one months as the war has waged on in Ukraine, the Three Worlds team has sought ways to encourage and support our Ukrainian Church of God contacts – those who are still in Ukraine, many of whom are internally displaced, as well as those who have fled Ukraine and have needed to reestablish themselves and their families in a country not their own.

One of those close contacts is Pastor Stepan. The Three Worlds team first connected with Stepan and his family when they attended the Three Worlds Leadership Network (3WLN) event in its earliest years, and immediately ministry connections were made. Stepan was scheduled to lead a session at the 3WLN event in 2020 until it was canceled due to the pandemic. At that time, plans were also just beginning to formalize for EuropeX, a church-planting network, and Stepan was set to be a part of this as well.

As a Church of God pastor in Ukraine, Stepan was leading a young and growing church. Building upon their momentum, the church had a number of young people with aspirations to serve and impact their local community in a variety of unique ways. 

In addition to leading the local congregation, Stepan helped lead a network of pastors and leaders in ten other congregations throughout Ukraine. Together, these pastors had dreams to plant more churches, impact more families, and point more people to Jesus. Then, on February 24, 2022, Ukraine was attacked.

While there was a tremendous amount of uncertainty, the Ukrainian Church of God immediately jumped into action, housing displaced people, sharing whatever essential supplies they could provide, establishing and coordinating a relief supply chain that stretched across the country, ministering to others who had lost so much, and always pointing people to Jesus.

Pastor Stepan and his family faithfully served in this capacity in their home church for many months, until they finally had to make the difficult decision to leave Ukraine. Stepan’s wife was pregnant, they had two young boys, and their parents were dealing with physical ailments that required attention.

Knowing other young leaders were ready to step in and lead the church and local relief efforts well, Stepan and his family received their paperwork allowing them to leave Ukraine, and they made their way to southern Germany. Upon arriving, Pastor Stepan saw an opportunity to gather other Ukrainians having experienced the same atrocities as he and his family. In the following months, with the help of local German Church of God leaders, a new church was planted in Calw, Germany.  

Stepan and his family were only a handful of the 2000+ Ukrainians who arrived in Calw. They were able to connect with several hundred Ukrainians, as word spread that there was a church being led by people who fully understood the horrors they had experienced. 

Today, the church operates weekly programs with Sunday worship services, youth group meetings, bible study classes, and more. Eighteen people have been baptized in the last year, and many Ukrainian Orthodox believers have shared that they have experienced the love and compassion of Jesus for the first time through the church in Calw.

Our Three Worlds team is thankful for the opportunities we have been given to walk alongside Pastor Stepan through this experience. Most recently, in partnership with the German Church of God and the Global Strategy/Church of God Ministries – Anderson, the team was able to help coordinate the funding of a stipend that will allow Stepan to continue focusing on ministry. The German government requires those seeking refugee status to obtain a work contract within a certain timeframe. The stipend provided through this joint effort has allowed Stepan to meet this requirement and continue in full-time ministry.

 We praise God for the continued ministry of Pastor Stepan and his family. Having experienced the devastating impact of the war firsthand, they have in turn been instrumental in welcoming and walking alongside many refugees experiencing the same.  

A Tale from the East: One Pastor’s commitment to ‘feed his flock.’ Ukraine Stories 2/7

For Pastor Appreciation Month, this article is in honor of Ukrainian pastors, all of whom have been faced with an insanely difficult year.

I know many Ukrainian pastors who decided to flee Ukraine this year. Many of them fled to neighboring countries (Hungary, Poland, Germany, et. al.). They did what is best for their families, to keep their wives and young children safe from harm’s way.

I know many Ukrainian pastors who have chosen to stay put and keep on keeping on.

I also know many Ukrainian pastors who have fled their homes, but have chosen (sometimes out of legal obligation…) to stay within the borders of Ukraine.

ALL OF THEM have wrestled with questions no pastor should have to wrestle with.

It is easy to pass judgment one way or another, but until you are in their shoes…

until the spotlight is directly on you and your family…

What would you do?

What should you do?

What does God want you to do???

I want to tell you the story of one man whom I have been privileged to meet on a few occasions this year.

He was a pastor in Donetsk. Until 2014, when Russia invaded that region of Ukraine and annexed Crimea. (By the way, “annexation” looks strangely like what my ancestors did to ‘The New World,’ despite it being properly inhabited already.)

In 2014, he and his wife fled their home in Donetsk. They moved to a lovely seaside town, safely removed from the hotspots. Perhaps you’ve heard of it: Mariupol.

It’s the same city that the Russian military has all but wiped off the map in 2022.

This time (Spring 2022), the pastor (whom I’ll call ‘Sasha’) and his wife fled farther from their homes, seeking shelter with family in western Ukraine (near the border with Poland).

When they fled westward, they invited any of their congregants to join them, promising to care for their basic needs and help find them a place to stay until it became safe to return ‘home.’ Some chose to take them up on this offer and they joined their caravan heading westward. Some chose to stay behind, knowing that it would not be easy to do so. But how could they leave their home? How could they leave their property and possessions? And if they did leave, what would that even look like? Where would they go??

In June of this year, I sat down with Pastor Sasha and listened for the better part of an hour as he shared his experiences from the previous several months. See, even though he and his wife fled to safety in western Ukraine, he has continued to go back to the East every month. Why, you ask?? Let’s hear it from him directly:

“We are from Donetsk. We left Donetsk in 2014 when the war started. We were ministering there in the church. I was the pastor there, there were two of us. So our ministry at that time, when we left, we started ministering at the front line. We planted two churches there. So that’s how we started the church there. There were people who just started attending the church there.

And now, we are responsible for that. We care for them. We cannot get right to Donetsk, because we can even not pass or give something to them. It’s not allowed. And these territories, it’s still the territory of Ukraine.

Even it’s dangerous there, but we go there. Just to see people and hug people, to pray with them. They appreciate that, the care we bring. And of course, some food, some pills or medicine, some treatment. And those that are willing we evacuate from there. This is the trip we had recently, the last one.”

As he spoke of the danger he routinely faces traveling into war-torn neighborhoods, I found myself wondering “what would I do???”

What would I do if I were an Ukrainian pastor? How would I respond to all this devastation?

Would my family stay in our home? Or would we flee to safety? And if we stayed, what would my life look like? What would my ministry look like?

I remember fondly my time serving as a pastor in Indiana. The joys of pastoral ministry involve leading one’s staff (usually mostly volunteer-based), leading the regular worship services, teaching/preaching, and visiting one’s congregants (especially the sick and elderly).

I remember one dear old widow whom I would regularly visit. Those visits were so nice. She was such a sweet faithful lady. My visits would begin with getting a can of Pepsi from her fridge, before I would walk into her living room where she would be sitting.

Even if I didn’t want a Pepsi, I learned to take one. Or else inevitably a moment later I would see her struggle to get up and go to the fridge to get one for me.

Those visits would be relaxing as we shared stories and just enjoyed fellowship, before we prayed and I went on to my next appointment.

IN STARK CONTRAST TO THAT, I listened to Pastor Sasha’s recent visits to such a lady from his congregation. Before we take a look at that conversation, I should preface things by saying that, at this point in our conversation he pulled out a large plastic Pepsi cup and dumped its contents onto the table between us.  Suddenly the space between us is consumed by a lot of shards of metal.

Daniel: Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh…

Pastor Sasha: …This is specific bomb material because before when the bomb was exploded, it was not sharp. But now they make it out of some metal which is very sharp so it will just cut wherever it goes.

Daniel: Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh….That’s insane…Where did you get this???

Pastor Sasha: Just when i went there, i was visiting an old lady, a grandma, I opened the gate and right near the gate was this part and also that one, and I was picking it up, and she was like ‘oh I’ve got lots of them, my son…’

Daniel: …Oh my gosh, oh my gosh…

Pastor Sasha: This one is from near the church territory. In Donetsk area. Front line.

Daniel: Unbelievable. Can I take a picture of it?

How do you pastor people whose lives are literally in jeopardy every day?

How do you pastor people whose thoughts are consumed by such fundamental questions as:

Should I stay in my home, or flee to some other geographic location?

Will I die today?

Will someone I know and love die today?

I found myself selfishly wondering if I will one day wrestle with PTSD just from listening to Pastor Sasha’s experiences…

In this conversation, he shared stories from his own experience. And he shared stories from the experiences of his colleagues and of his congregants. He spoke of young men being called up into military service, who have since died. He spoke of older men volunteering for military service, who have since died. He spoke of men whom it is unclear what happened to them. He spoke of handicapped people from his congregation who are unable to move freely on their own. He has evacuated many of them from their homes and taken them to safety. But then the next struggle begins: Where is a safe, available, and also handicapped-accessible place for them to stay for an undetermined amount of time???

How do you shepherd people in a time of war??

How do you provide for their spiritual well-being while yours is undoubtedly also being massively challenged, to put it lightly?

How do you provide for their physical well-being while you yourself are living in temporary housing, provided by a friend, a family or a church connection?

These are all questions I have never been forced to even consider.

Pastoral ministry requires a wide range of skills and a wide knowledge base. While one does not have to be an expert in many fields, it certainly helps to know a little about a variety of things. It is basically necessary to also have a lot of connections: people whom you can turn to for advice, information, assistance with things out of your ‘wheelhouse.’ See, no one person can do it all. We need others. This is true on a ministerial level. This is also true on a lay-level.

Pastor Sasha: “But one positive thing out of this war… the war united even Christians and nonbelievers. When this war started, all the people were volunteering, ah…it doesn’t matter the denomination now, everybody is just mixed together, helping together, serving and ministering in different locations, so this is also shuffled us, which is good. Before, all the denominations were so separate, they never, like very rarely they do something together and they, yeah when everything was good everybody was just by themselves. And now it doesn’t matter who you are.”

Sasha’s Wife: “It was so obvious, you just go on the way, like because of the traffic jams were terrible, and so we just stopped in different churches. And it doesn’t matter which church, you just stop. They have mattresses, they accept you, they feed you. And then you go next, and then you go next, and lots of people, rotations. Because we were on the way for three, little bit more than three days, because the roads were stopped…”

This is the story of just one Pastor. There are many similar stories. As Pastor Appreciation Month draws to a close, I invite you to join me in praying not only for your local pastors. But also pray for all the pastors in Ukraine. And Russia! And pray for all those who had been serving in one of those countries, but are currently located elsewhere.

In addition to prayer, I would invite you to consider giving to the Church of God Disaster Relief fund. This fund has helped provide resources to care for the ongoing needs of those whose lives have been greatly affected by the war in Ukraine. Please click on THIS LINK and write ‘Ukraine’ in the comments.

https://www.jesusisthesubject.org/disaster-relief-and-restoration/

A Tale of Two Churches: Ukraine Stories 1/7

Once upon a time there were two churches…

They were both located in western Ukraine. They were only about 15 kilometers away from each other. But they did not have any connection or partnership. The only thing they had in common was that they both worshipped the Risen Lord Jesus on Sunday mornings.

They were not affiliated with the same denomination or faith group. One identifies as ‘Non-denominational,’ while the other simply identifies as ‘Evangelical.’

But then a tragedy occurred on the other side of their nation.

And with a tragedy always comes an opportunity. In the famous words of Mister Rogers, ‘look for the helpers.’ See link HERE.

Their communities became overrun with ‘refugees’ (more accurately ‘internally-displaced people’), fleeing their homes in the east. Some of these people came from Church of God congregations in eastern Ukraine. Some came from different faith backgrounds. Some came from totally irreligious backgrounds.

But they all came with very real needs.

Needs for Shelter. Needs for Food. Needs for friendship and community.

These two congregations began doing what they could to care for these new ‘neighbors.’ And in time, they got to know about one another’s responses to the critical needs all around them.

And they began a partnership.

They have theological and liturgical differences, yes. But what matters is they share “one Lord, one faith, one baptism…”

What an amazing illustration of Unity!

What an amazing testimony to the suffering world all around them of God’s Love in action!

What an amazing testimony to the peace of Christ!

In subsequent articles, I will share more individualized stories from our collective experiences these past several months. You will hear first-hand from some of the people that they are helping. Note: Specific names and locations will consistently be withheld for security purposes.

I would ask for you to do two things in response:

1.) Pray for all involved. Pray for God to continue to meet their needs, especially as winter is right around the corner.

2.) Please consider giving! Giving to the Church of God Disaster Relief fund is an easy way for you to make a tangible difference. Please click on this link and mark ‘Ukraine’ in the comments.

Ukraine? Is that still going on?!?

Ukraine.

Chances are that is a place you have learned more about this year than ever before. Maybe it’s been awhile since you’ve heard about it, though. It seems that’s how news cycles work. When something’s not ‘new’ anymore, reporting dries up. But unfortunately, the situation in Ukraine is still quite dire. In this article, I want to tell you why what is going on in Ukraine should affect you. To start with, here’s a basic overview of what has happened to the people of Ukraine, including several congregations of the Ukrainian Church of God.

First off, here’s the facts. This isn’t political, this isn’t propaganda. This is simply the facts: In February 2022, Russian military forces invaded Ukraine. The occupation and the war still rages in certain regions of Ukraine. This has caused massive bloodshed and loss of life. This has caused massive devastation to cities, roads, infrastructure, and oh yeah, farmland. This has caused many people to flee Ukraine, seeking safety as ‘refugees’ in foreign countries. This has caused many people to flee their homes, but stay within the borders of Ukraine (‘internally-displaced people’).

Secondly, here’s a few ways this will affect you as a citizen of the earth. Amongst other economic ramifications, a significant source of the world’s grain comes from Ukraine. This year a lot of that has been destroyed, or made impossible to harvest and/or export. This will affect loads of people world-wide as certain food products are (or will shortly be) unavailable or way more expensive than normal. While for some people, this will merely be an inconvenience, for others this will cause hunger or serious struggles to provide for their family on limited budgets.

The people who have relocated to new countries with the title ‘refugee’ have been through unimaginable circumstances. Many of them have lost loved ones. Many of them have left behind the men in their lives (generally speaking, ‘military-aged men’ are currently not legally allowed to leave Ukraine). So, many wives are separated from their husbands, children separated from their fathers, all with the uncertainty of his safety. On top of this trauma, they find themselves now living as ‘guests’ in a country where the language is different, the currency is different, the school situation is different (not to mention ‘foreign!’), and they may be greeted with open arms by some of their neighbors and looked at with hatred or disgust by others.

Meanwhile, the people still within Ukraine (‘internally-displaced people’) have many of the exact same issues! Formerly quiet towns may now be overrun by new families who are from a different part of the country (think of a small town in Iowa suddenly having a surplus of new residents from California). With that can come many of the same issues of crowding, conflicting ways of thinking or living or even speaking (dialects of the same language). Also there’s always concern of ‘they’re gonna take our jobs!’

And then, of course, there are Ukrainians who continue to reside and live in literally war-torn regions. Many of these people have chosen to stay behind because ‘this is my home! Where else would I go?’ Or their health and mobility prevent them from easily traveling somewhere else. Or maybe they are literally not able to travel safely past certain borders or military checkpoints. And so they continue to try and stay alive, one day at a time.

All that to say, every Ukrainian has experienced more trauma than I have cumulatively experienced in my entire life…

Even if the war stopped today, this trauma will take years (if not decades) to fully process and heal from.

So what can you do?

Let me identify four practical ways you can respond to this mega-crisis, in the short-term and long-term.

1.) Pray. I know this may be trite or cliché, but I try to live by words attributed to Martin Luther: “Work as if everything depends on you, but pray as if everything depends on God.”

2.) Befriend Ukrainians. Maybe there are folks in your hometown who recently arrived from Ukraine. More likely, there are Ukrainians in your hometown who have been there already for some years. Either way, befriend them. Let them know that you are sorry for all that is happening in their homeland. That alone means the world to them.

3.) Learn about Ukraine. Scan through Netflix for shows about ‘Ukraine.’ Go to your local library or Amazon and find a book that picques your interest. It can be about Ukrainian history, culture, language, food, whatever you like. Education is always beneficial, and I dare say you presently know next to nothing about Ukraine. I confess that was my reality until quite recently!

4.) Get involved in humanitarian aid. There are many organizations out there. I cannot vouch for all of them. But there is one that I can vouch for. In the past several months, I have accompanied members of our Hungarian Church of God on 20-some trips into Ukraine, delivering humanitarian aid to ‘internally-displaced people.’ Usually we bring food, but also we have brought medicines, diapers, soap, clothes, toys for children, etc. Many of these deliveries are paid (atleast in part) through funds received by the Church of God Disaster Relief project. If you would like to help directly, I can personally guarantee funds given will be used to help Ukrainians. I will load the products into the van and drive the van myself!

Now is literally as good a time as any to contribute to the Disaster Relief project. Winter is coming…

There are entire communities of people who are hundreds (if not thousands) of miles away from their winter clothes. There are entire communities of people who have been living creatively in buildings not necessarily designed for housing. As an example, I know a mother who fled eastern Ukraine with her 5 children. They are graciously staying in a former clothing store. While protected from the elements, it certainly does not provide the level of warmth that a typical house would offer.

In addition to all of that, my most recent trip across the border saw the Hungarian border guard thanking us for taking things into Ukraine (His sister is married to a Ukrainian and they live in Ukraine). He said that 6 months ago, he would see 100 vans crossing the border daily, delivering humanitarian aid. But our van was the first such van he had seen in several days. The unfortunate reality is that there are very few people/organizations presently delivering supplies into Ukraine.

However, we are. And with your help, we can continue, so long as there are needs.

You may think you can’t do much to help. But let me assure you that YOU can make a massive difference.

Give here. Please designate ‘Ukraine’ in the comment.

(*Specific names and locations withheld for security purposes*).

IMPORTANT: How QAnon Threatens the Church

No, this moment in history is not normal. We live in a time of crisis that revolves around political and geographic fragmentation, a loss of faith in institutions, an enormous wealth gap between the rich and the poor, and under the constant influence of social media and its monitoring and algorithms. We've seen this before in history. It may have not been the internet in previous occurrences. Instead it was the radio, or the pamphlet. It occurs about every 80 years or so after a period of global hyper-connectivity experiences a backlash. The world counteracts against all of the global and ethnic integration, loses faith in the traditional forces that have kept society together, and moves toward an emotional, chaotic period of dangerous ideologies. People retreat into conspiracy theories; religious cults and bizarre sects flourish as institutional religion declines. What makes this period different is the speed and the scale at which this is happening. Nothing exemplifies this recklessness more than the QAnon movement that is growing globally and now has elected representatives in the U.S. congress. In a time when much of the Christian movement in the world is choosing to focus on political power and ideology, QAnon represents the next dangerous frontier for the church where service, theology, and compassion could be replaced by fear, conspiracy, and division.

 Conspiracy theories are nothing new. They are especially prevalent during time of rapid transition and confusion. People who are attracted to conspiracy theories are often those who feel powerless against forces bigger than themselves, are inclined towards a victim mentality, or resent where they are in life. Conspiracy theories offer four big payoffs: 1) They make powerless people feel like they have valuable, insider information. 2) They quickly identify an enemy who can be blamed for all of their ills and concerns. 3) They have the potential to create communities of people that bond over being against the world together. 4) Finally, a conspiracy theory is a very convenient belief because it can never be proven wrong. After all, if you don't agree, it's just because you have been manipulated by the dark forces. Enter QAnon.

 In many ways, groups formed around conspiracy theories can serve as a pseudo-church or cult - one that puts the person in a self-centered frame of mind and is constantly seeking to identify enemies and live in perpetual fear. That's what unhealthy religion does as well and we've seen plenty of that lately. In many places, global Christians are more interested in accruing political power and winning the argument than changing their community and serving those least like them. The message of Jesus and the New Testament is replaced by the dysfunctional Israelite mentality that wanted a king with political power (that didn't go so well). If theocratic politics is akin to dysfunctional Israel reborn, QAnon is like the gnostic movement, which deviated from Jesus' teachings in favor of a detachment and disdain for the world.

QAnon followers are your neighbors, they are in churches, they might be your dad or your grandma. They believe that QAnon is a person deep inside the U.S. Government in the Department of Energy (or some other department) who is exposing lots of secretive information about how their political enemies are conspiring against them and society. It often involves conspiracy theories revolving around child molestation, but can include warnings about vaccines, can be hostile to both education and science, or can go on about Satanism or how technology is being used to control people etc.  QAnon conspiracies often go after liberal Hollywood celebrities like Tom Hanks (who is a Greek Orthodox Christian and not really that political). Then there are conspiracies about the illumnati, UFOs, Bill Gates and the idea that some politicians actually have lizard skin underneath their human skin (no joke). It's often the case that a QAnon follower is someone who is pretty naive about the internet. They access it in lesser known parts of the internet like 4chan, 8chan and Reddit and take it all at face value. It all sounds pretty goofy, but 22 Republicans in congress and 2 independents have supported QAnon beliefs. QAnon is alive and well in Europe, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere.

But who is Q? The primary sources are James and Ronald Watkins, a father and son team who gained control of the message board 8chan, which is filled with lots of questionable material including child pornography. They were based in the Philippines and started posting on October 28, 2017. Q believers don't seem to realize that the Philippines is a hub of dark web entrepreneurs who spread pornography, scams, and conspiracies from the safety of some nice home in Manila. The most wanted criminal in the world was a thirty-something, obese American who brilliantly realized how to sell illegal pharmaceutical drugs over the internet to Americans with remote doctors signing off on the prescriptions. He made billions of dollars off of the opiate addiction of Americans. The Philippines was a good base of operation because it's so easy to pay-off the authorities in that country. Cyber-libel cases are also extremely rare in the Philippines (The F.B.I. eventually arrested the cyber-drug dealer). Of course, the Q leaders have managed to monetize their conspiracy theory with books, t-shirts, and other memorabilia. Unfortunately, the F.B.I. has not always been able to stop actual acts of violence in the name of QAnon and those are expected to grow exponentially in the near future. Watkins had previously made money by starting porn sites designed to get around Japanese censorship rules. Fortunately, it looks like the Philippines finally had enough of this embarrassment and chased Watkins back to the United States.

[Side note: For those of us interested in actually fighting sex trafficking, QAnon is not helpful. Their stupid conspiracy theories interfere with the actual work of rescuing people from human slavery. It's deeply counter-productive and minimizes the issue so that false and ludicrous charges are constantly on the web and in the media; while the real criminals get ignored.]

So how did your sweet, church-going Grandma become a die-hard QAnon follower? Well, it can be addictive. Q releases regular "Q-drops" of enticing information and follows it up with melodramatic writing along the lines of "I could get killed by sharing this information. I must go now." It's like being on a giant investigative team solving the world's most dramatic and consequential mystery:  What evil forces are taking over the world? It can appeal to lonely people, people who are not good critical-thinkers, people who naively believe anything on the internet, and people who are angry. The primary in-road, however, is sharing Q's political beliefs.  It then can become a vortex that sucks people in and no amount of intercession by friends and family members can break the spell. But how, specifically, does your evangelical grandma get caught up in a movement that originated with a pornographer based in the Philippines?

In some circles of Christianity (and Islam, and Hinduism, and Buddhism), there is a fascination with end-time prophecy. Looking for symbols and hidden messages in the Book of Revelation to identify current events has been going on since...well, since before that book was even written. QAnon taps into that same desire to uncover mysteries and find clues that lead to dramatic findings about what is going on in our turbulent world of 2020. A scientific reason for the pandemic is too boring, so a conspiracy comes to the rescue. Then there's the political angle. Since much of Christianity has chosen to become very aligned with particular politicians and political parties; any conspiracy theory that adds fuel for hatred of the opposing party is welcomed with open arms. Certain segments of Christianity (certainly not all) have a real hostility toward science, education, and intellectualism. Something like QAnon provides reasons why none of those things can be trusted. Then there's the fact that we are living through a time of increased natural disasters, political division, a global pandemic, and other apocalyptic-like events that make people feel like they are the generation witnessing the biggest catastrophe in human history. It is not true, of course, but QAnon is not for students of history. Good old Q has even dropped scripture in his hate-filled messages from time to time. That really confirms the truth of Q for Grandma because the reality is that QAnon is becoming an extra-Biblical source that guides her life. A key to Q's manipulation is making it seem that no other source of information can truly be trusted. Q makes predictions that never come to pass, but that doesn't matter to QAnon followers. That just means he is throwing people off track on purpose. QAnon becomes an emotional and spiritual belief for Grandma. It's not about reason and healthy skepticism in a world where, say...anyone, myself included, can post their opinions on something and have it instantaneously beamed around the world. QAnon people will often claim that they do research, but that research is usually limited to any website or source that aligns with Q's presuppositions.

 QAnon evangelists are now all over Youtube and have their own websites and social media. It has far outgrown Q. Many of these Q evangelists come from the evangelical Christian world. They are your grandma, but with more social media savvy and who know how to monetize it. The next generation of scamming televangelists may primarily be online and linked to Q-like conspiracy movements. As QAnon grows, it will morph into whatever people want to believe, whenever they want to believe it, and the Bible will be used to justify all of it. This is the birth of a new age of heresy and cults--the kind that always flourish in times like these. There's nothing to stop a new QAnon from emerging and being part of a more outwardly fascist movement, or leftist movement, or any other ideology. Wherever people feel like powerless victims amidst all this global change and want to uncover the identity of the cabal oppressing them, there we will see a QAnon-like cult emerge.

 So what can society do about this? The country of Finland is teaching kids how to identify fake-news and navigate the internet beginning in elementary school. These are the kinds of skills and skepticism that need to be developed in every country. Conspiracy theories are raging around the world and leading to deaths in places as closed as Myanmar and as open as the U.S. In the same way that you can't yell "fire" in a crowded movie theatre because of the potentially dangerous consequences, some forms of monitoring and censorship have to become more prevalent. Do we really want videos on how to traffic women or groom children to be on Youtube and Facebook? There are limits to how much poison our societies can withstand in this cyber-world.

For Christians, the chances of more people in their churches getting caught up in this kind of thinking is very real. Complicating things is that many of these Q believers will be citing scripture or will claim that they and Q are totally in line with the Bible. This is where the subjective nature of Bible reading combined with a church that has become hyper-politicized will come back to bite in a big way. Institutional Christianity has a habit of creating the monsters that then erode it. In previous eras, the church survives because of people who choose to seek service instead of power. People who find opportunity in global crisis instead of oppression. People who express and live out hope instead of fear. And people that transform their societies for the better, rather than condemn them. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, the church needs to spend less time being the thermometer and more time trying to be the thermostat. Grandma would do far better spending her time delivering freshly-made cookies to the newly homeless in the post-Covid economy than spending four hours on the internet trying to find out which Hollywood actor is a cannibal. And she will feel better for it. This shouldn't be rocket-science for true Christians. In fact, just about everything Jesus says in the Bible will lead someone away from the mentality that it takes to be a Q believer. One mentality is completely centered on self-sacrifice (hence the symbol of the cross), and the other is completely centered on self-protection. You can't serve two masters.

Until the world knows how to navigate social media better, and the countries of the world regain their social and economic equilibrium, our societies and the church will be forced into a box. We will constantly be presented with a choice: Do I want to spend my time living in fear or do I want to spend my time making a difference in my community? The level of destruction and the duration of this era of crisis will depend on how the majority of us answer that question.  That's the real Q.