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Good morning. Barack Obama has been speaking about the divisions in American culture, and the phenomenon of truth decay. He’s talked about the way ‘crazy conspiracy theories’ can be ‘turbocharged by social media.’ He wants to return to a ‘common set of facts’ that become the proper subject of debate. The term ‘conspiracy theory’ entered popular discourse when the investigation into John F. Kennedy’s murder concluded his assassin acted alone. A host of alternative accounts surfaced. Since then a number of high-profile events like 9/11 have attracted such a range of rival readings. Conspiracy theories often allege that one group, such as freemasons or the Vatican, lies behind a host of unexplained events. Conspiracy theories are surprisingly popular. And episodes like Watergate make any government attack on them harder to trust. A conspiracy theory assumes that the most powerful forces in the world are evil, and that they work in secret, undermining public good for private gain. In the mind of the theorists, contradictory evidence simply shows how sophisticated and hidden the conspiracy is. Such theories start with an intuition and go searching for plausible corroborating information. In the end a conspiracy theory relies not on evidence, but on faith. And here’s the interesting thing. Those hostile to religious faith might say Christianity is much the same. Christian faith looks suspiciously like a particular spin on the origins of life and the impenetrability of death, on the causal relation of events and the significance of human beings. All of which is actually true. I would argue religious faith is in many ways just like a conspiracy theory. It challenges the notion that there are free-standing facts, and points out that every fact is part of a story of interpretation. But here’s the difference. A conspiracy theory assumes the force behind all things is sinister, secret, and selfish. Christianity asserts that the energy behind all things is gracious, self-sacrificial, merciful and utterly generous. The Christian view of events is that we’re all part of a remarkable story that begins and ends in love. Conspirators are those who literally con-spire – or ‘breathe together.’ Christianity is a conspiracy among those who understand the Holy Spirit breathing through every moment of our nights and days. For all the appropriate concern about truth decay, we’ll never simply get back to an agreed set of facts. We’re all living in our own perceptions of a story, about politics, the virus or our own lives. Faith and conspiracy theories both perceive the activity of a hidden force. The real question is, is that force evil, or good?