“Evangelical Conspiracism in Context: Nephilim Conspiracy Theories, from Depathologization to Critique”

Evangelical conspiracism is part of a broader sociopolitical pattern of conspiratorial thinking with a long history, and which is critically analysed by an established community of scholars in the social sciences and humanities. This presentation will contextualize Nephilim-related evangelical conspiracism in the broader scholarly discussion of conspiracy theories and society (e.g., Butter, Knight, and Thalmann). Drawing on the specific literature on conspiracism and Christianity, this paper will show how the Nephilim serve a specific, instrumentalized, but no less spiritualized function in the rhetorical and persuasive milieu of “Nephilim research” where a focus on biblical literalism collides with the symbolic capital found in uses of scholarly language without scholarly accountability. By focusing on the Nephilim as a functional stand-in for a variety of other concerns about the relationship between Christianity and civil society, this presentation shows just how patterned and revealing this particular embodiment of conservative American Christianity is.