The Weekly Word: The Unholy Conspiracy

By Robert Williams, Lead Pastor at The Bridge Church

Have you ever hung around someone that just brings down the whole team? Have you ever worked with coworker that just makes your whole job miserable? Have you ever known a person that just brings everyone’s spirits down, no matter where they go or who they’re with?

What do these people look like? Well, these people tend to be grumpy all the time. They tend to gossip a lot and drama seems to follow them everywhere.

They spend a lot of time talking about what they don’t like and what they’re against, rather than what they are for. Not to mention, the whole world is out to get them. Usually, their name is something like “Steve” and they have 37 pens in their left-front breast pocket (ha ha).

If you don’t know someone like this, be careful. It might be you.

I’ve had so many people like this in my life. It’s hard to work with them and even harder to live with them. What’s even more frustrating, is how much power people like this can wield. It just takes one; one person to spoil the bunch.

I’ve served on teams where one person completely destroyed the team morale, purely because of their attitude. The hardest pill to swallow? Many times, these people claim to be Christian.

Over the last week I’ve been spending time in the book of Matthew during my time alone with God. Every year just before Easter, I always get this huge urge to really know Jesus more, so I typically end up in one of the gospels.

This year, it’s Matthew and specifically, last week, I was spending some time reading one of Jesus’ most famous sermons, The Sermon on the Mount. In that sermon, I came across these words:

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. … You are the salt of the earth. … You are the light of the world. … let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

If you know this passage at all, you know that I broke it up a bit, but in these three different sections of Scripture it’s pretty easy to define a theme.

We are called to be peacemakers. We are called to be salt and light. Peace is what we are all longing for, on the earth and in our souls. Salt makes just about everything taste better and light overcomes darkness, which symbolizes joy.

Can I be blunt? This may offend some of you, but it’s hard for me to watch people that claim to be Christian spend their lives spreading darkness, and I’m not talking about things that are just blatant, outright sin. That’s spreading darkness as well, but I’m not talking about that.

I’m talking about the darkness that we spread unknowingly, the darkness of anger and bitterness towards the world. I’m talking about the darkness of distrust and nationalism that seems to have creeped it’s way into Christianity.

I’m talking about the darkness of conspiracy theories that it seems so many Americans and even Christians are falling into. Do you know what the root word of conspiracy is? Conspire. To conspire against.

I’m not saying the world is perfect, and I’m not saying that we don’t have things that seem fishy going on in our country. I’m not naïve. But I am worried about the kind of seeds that Christianity is sowing.

One person on twitter said it best when they wrote, “If the people of God are spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation, the world has no reason to believe us when we proclaim Jesus as Lord.” (@theostoria)

I say all this to challenge you with a few questions: What if Christians are slowly becoming the people that no one likes to be around? What if we’ve completely forgotten what it means to be salt and light? Peacemakers? The hands and feet of Jesus?

Peace brings love and order. Salt brings out flavor and makes food taste delicious. And light? Light destroys the darkness and brings about joy. Does your life resemble those three traits? Does your social media account? Or are they only sowing seeds of anger, distrust, and darkness?

Do us all a favor, yourself included: Be salt. Be light. Bring Peace. After all, that’s exactly what Jesus did.