Published October 24, 2024
The recent double blow of major hurricanes in the southeastern United States has brought out the best in Americans—and the worst. On the one hand, armies of private citizens, many of them church-led, have descended on disaster zones to provide urgently needed supplies, help in disaster recovery efforts, and even engage in life-saving search and rescue missions. Social media platforms have played a key role in enabling these groups to mobilize and respond to communities in need rapidly. However, in an increasingly divided and paranoid society, those same platforms have also allowed wild rumors to spread.
Claims that FEMA was confiscating or destroying disaster relief supplies quickly escalated into rumors that government agencies were cordoning off affected areas, hiding hundreds of bodies, bulldozing structures, and seizing land. U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., who represents some of the hardest-hit areas in his district, issued a statement reassuring his constituents that no, “Hurricane Helene was NOT geoengineered by the government to seize and access lithium deposits in Chimney Rock.” Meanwhile, however, as Hurricane Milton spun up to a Category 5 storm over the Gulf of Mexico, similar claims began to proliferate that it, too, had been engineered by the government. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., amplified such claims, stating, “Yes, they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
Click here to continue reading.
Brad Littlejohn was a Fellow in EPPC’s Technology and Human Flourishing and Evangelicals in Civic Life programs from 2022-2025. His wide-ranging research and writing encompasses work on the relation of digital technology and embodiment, the appropriate limits of free speech, the nature of freedom and authority in the Christian tradition, and the retrieval of a Protestant natural law ethic.
