In a video posted to YouTube on Jan. 8, Joshua Matthew Black, a resident of Alabama, reminisced about his unlawful entry into the U.S. Capitol. Black, along with hundreds of other Trump supporters, violently stormed the Capitol building in protest of a presidential election he believed Democrats had stolen. Hours before surrendering to the FBI, Black recorded a confession where he explained, “I wanted to get inside [the Capitol] so I could plead the blood of Jesus over it. … I just felt like the spirit of God wanted me to go in the Senate room.”
That Black would storm the Capitol in the belief that he was carrying out God’s will should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the troubling relationship between white evangelical Christians and conspiracy theories over the past four years. In the summer of 2020, Christianity Today drew attention to the correlation between evangelicals and a strong belief in conspiracy theories. Research has shown that half of all Americans, regardless of religion, believe in at least one conspiracy theory. Religious people, however, are particularly susceptible to conspiracy theories due to their belief in the supernatural and their endorsement of a good-versus-evil worldview.
