CONSPIRACY THEORIES DURING CORONAVIRUS TIMES – THE SAPLINGS OF A NEW GNOSTICISM INSIDE THE CHURCH

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dc.coverageSTUDIA UBB THEOLOGIA ORTHODOXA, LXV, No. 2, 2020 (p. 45 – 56)en-US
dc.creatorBENA, Iosif
dc.date2020-12-30
dc.date.accessioned2026-02-21T23:33:53Z
dc.descriptionSince the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, we have been bombarded with a constant stream of conspiracy theories and fake news regarding the coronavirus, vaccines, 5G radiation, microchips. Some of these theories have circulated only inside fringe communities on the internet, but most have been transmitted very intensely amongst the faithful, and some have made it up to the highest levels of the Church hierarchy. The question we would like to address in this article is why do Christians succumb and are so likely to transmit to others such statements, whose falsity is blatantly obvious to anybody with a very basic high-school physics education. It is our opinion that this pro-conspiracy attitude is the syndrome of a very incomplete catechization and of a resurgence of gnostic heretical thinking, encouraged by the new social media communication tools. We will begin with a brief review of Gnosticism, of what made it so popular at the beginning of the Christian era, and of what brought about its demise. We will then show that the same mechanism that was at work in the Gnostic thinking responsible for the propagation and acceptance of conspiracy theories.en-US
dc.formatapplication/pdf
dc.identifierhttps://studia.reviste.ubbcluj.ro/index.php/subbtheologiaorthodoxa/article/view/3705
dc.identifier10.24193/subbto.2020.2.03
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14637/3235
dc.languageeng
dc.publisherBabeș-Bolyai University / Cluj University Pressen-US
dc.relationhttps://studia.reviste.ubbcluj.ro/index.php/subbtheologiaorthodoxa/article/view/3705/3582
dc.rightsCopyright (c) 2020 Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Theologia Orthodoxaen-US
dc.rightshttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0en-US
dc.sourceStudia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Theologia Orthodoxa; Volume 65, No. 2, December 2020; 45 – 56en-US
dc.source2065-9474
dc.source1224-0869
dc.source10.24193/subbto.2020.2
dc.subjectGnosticism, Conspiracy Theoriesen-US
dc.titleCONSPIRACY THEORIES DURING CORONAVIRUS TIMES – THE SAPLINGS OF A NEW GNOSTICISM INSIDE THE CHURCHen-US
dc.typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/article
dc.typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
dc.typePeer-reviewed Articleen-US
dc.typetexten-US

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