Conspiracy Theories

Back in 1997, Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts starred in a movie called Conspiracy Theory in which Gibson plays a paranoid schizophrenic obsessed with conspiracies. His home is covered in newspaper clippings, secret codes, and corkboard diagrams. “Jerry” is a living, breathing hyperactive pattern-detection system. To most everyone, he’s just an erratic schizo that’s lost all touch with the real world, but the central reveal of the movie is that Jerry isn’t wrong about everything. In fact, he’s picked up on a genuine conspiracy that everyone else has missed.

For reasons that should be obvious to anyone who’s been on the internet this week, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about that movie and people like “Jerry” over these last few days.

One of the fun things about going to church your whole life is that you realize very quickly that the church isn’t an elite club of honor roll students, ivy leaguers, or beautiful people who walk the red carpets. Can you find the brightest and best at church? Absolutely. But if a church really has Jesus at its center, it's going to attract all sorts of other people, including those who might be more likely to buy tabloids than be chased by them.

So I’ve known a few Jerry’s over the course of my life, and I’ve heard some wild conspiracies. I couldn’t tell you how many of these real-life Jerry’s had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, but what I’ve learned in observing the more schizophrenic types is that they really do sometimes see things that most people completely miss.

But why?