‘Sound of Freedom’: Smuggling QAnon Conspiracies into Our Churches

by John Ellis

What do you get when you cross a QAnon promoting, MAGA actor with a glory hound who uses a very real and devastating issue as a tool for self-promotion? You get Sound of Freedom, the movie currently capturing the hearts of minds of white evangelicals near you.

With a production budget just north of $14 million, the film has managed to haul in over $50 million at the box office so far. While not a number to sneeze at, the box office returns aren’t as earth-shattering as the makers and fans of the movie would have us believe. For sure, the gap between the budget and the box office makes the producers and investors very happy (and rich). However, making $50 million at the box office in 2023 does not make a movie a cultural zeitgeist. Unfortunately, Sound of Freedom has become a cultural zeitgeist within white evangelicalism.

The movie’s problem is twofold: 1. the QAnon conspiracies promoted by its lead actor Jim Caviezel and, 2. the spotlight being shone on the film’s protagonist Tim Ballard. Considering my intended audience, the QAnon conspiracies are easier to deal with than the latter problem. It’s also the potentially more long-term impactful problem. So, I’ll start there.

Known for his work in The Passion of the Christ, Frequency, and the hit TV show Person of Interest, Jim Caviezel is a bona fide movie star. There’s been a lot of noise in the industry over the last few years about how terrible Caviezel is to work with. When your name is at the top of the call sheet, the risk of becoming isolated in self-serving ways is high. When it’s your face on the posters, and the face/name counted on to sell tickets, you’re rarely going to be challenged or contradicted. Caviezel isn’t the only movie star that people dislike working with. However, add in his embrace of MAGA and QAnon and his movie star hubris and lack of self-awareness are accelerated into the stratosphere of extra obnoxious, xenophobic, and dangerous.

During the press junket for Sound of Freedom, Caviezel has reiterated his belief that a cabal of elite power brokers drive the child trafficking market because they crave the adrenochrome found in the blood of tortured children. The conspiracy claims that elites, like Hillary Clinton, for example, drink the blood of children to prolong their life. While undergoing torture and facing their murder, the children’s adrenaline oxidizes and produces adrenochrome, according to Caviezel and the QAnon conspiracy.[1] Not only is the conspiracy not based on any actual evidence, the “science” about adrenochrome is nonsense.

In a recent interview on Charlie Kirk’s podcast, Caviezel denied that Sound of Freedom is Q-adjacent. Except, during the interview, he repeated the conspiracy about elites drinking the blood of children for adrenochrome. He also echoed the current QAnon claim that, “it’s not QAnon, there’s Q and Anons. And Q puts out a question and you are not allowed to ask questions anymore – not allowed to – and the anons, they look it all up and they start looking and investigating that stuff.”

Never mind that there is literally no one stopping anyone from asking the questions (it’s similar to how people claim to be silenced by the very platforms from which they are complaining about being silenced). But conspiracies thrive on a martyr complex. Caviezel likes to tell the story about how Mel Gibson tried to talk him out of accepting the role in The Passion of the Christ. Gibson apparently warned his good friend that he would never work again in Hollywood if he took the role. During interviews, Caviezel loves to play the victim card with that story, painting himself as a selfless conservative Christian hero who willingly torpedoed his career to speak truth. He conveniently leaves out, of course, that over the five-season run of Person of Interest, which he landed after playing the role of Jesus, he made an estimated $3+ million per season (not to mention residuals) and that his net worth is believed to be north of $30 million. If his bank account isn’t enough to refute his cries of victimhood, a quick glance at his IMDb page reveals that his career since working with Gibson has been a career that the vast majority of actors would sacrifice a limb to have.[2] If anything torpedoes Caviezel’s career in Hollywood[3], it’s going to be because he’s stepped up his promotion of QAnon theories and is now openly courting the praise of racist Christian nationalists like Charlie Kirk.

To be fair, Caviezel claims that he had never heard of QAnon until after he had filmed Sound of Freedom. Whether that’s true or not is irrelevant (by summer of 2018 when filming took place QAnon had already spread widely) because the actor is using promotional appearances for the movie to promote a QAnon conspiracy.

Look, I’m going to be perfectly blunt here: my intended audience are not those who believe, on any level, QAnon conspiracies, specifically that the elites (whomever that group may include) drink the blood of tortured children, nor those who are counted in the MAGA camp. I’ve reached a point in my life where I no longer see any value in having conversations with people who are essentially walking Dunning-Kruger effects. I’m writing to those who are unsure of how to respond to those who are promoting Sound of Freedom. My goal is to help provide them with some clarity of thought, talking points, as well as make them aware of the potential for QAnon conspiracies to make further inroads into their churches via the voice of the film’s lead actor. My intended audience doesn’t need to be convinced that Caviezel/QAnon’s conspiracy is ridiculous nonsense.

However, one of the most prominent rejoinders is that the movie itself doesn’t promote QAnon conspiracies. Okay. Fine. But Sound of Freedom doesn’t need to promote QAnon conspiracies in the movie to create further problems and widen already highly problematic divisions in our faith communities. The lead actor is using the promotional platform provided by the movie to promote QAnon conspiracies.[4] Considering Jim Caviezel’s high profile and current position as the favored celebrity in MAGA world, the conspiratorial connection between child trafficking and elites drinking the blood of kidnapped, tortured, and murdered children is being solidified in the minds of many white evangelicals already prone to accepting conspiracy theories. And conspiracy theories begat other conspiracy theories. Truth is becoming so fungible in white evangelicalism that our ability to be faithful witnesses to the Resurrection is in danger. The growing syncretism of Christian nationalism, MAGA world, and even QAnon conspiracies within the theology and ethics of white evangelicalism is going to cross the Rubicon at some point, if it hasn’t already.[5]

Stoked by Christian nationalist talking heads and Tim Ballard, many of the film’s fans have embraced a new conspiracy that believes that evil forces are trying to sabotage the film (there’s one about nanobots being secretly served to those watching the movie). Going back to the normal business of filmmaking, Sound of Freedom bounced around a couple of distribution companies after it was already in the can. It landed in Disney’s stable and was shelved until Angel Studios acquired the rights. One of the conspiracies is that Disney is in the service of the cabal of elite power brokers who drink the blood of children and so they shelved the movie. Apparently, this cabal of elite power brokers’ influence doesn’t extend to Disney selling the distribution rights. If it was important to keep the movie under wraps, you’d think that at least one of the billionaires who drinks the blood of children would’ve been able to match Angel Studio’s offer. Currently, fans of the film are comparing notes about the “weird” things happening during screenings of the movie, like the power going out. Satan doesn’t want this movie to be seen, according to the fans of this movie. I’d argue that if Satan is paying any attention to Sound of Freedom, he’d be on the side that’s promoting QAnon conspiracies. He is the father of lies, after all.   

To be clear, not everyone who watches and/or promotes Sound of Freedom is going to be coaxed down Caviezel’s QAnon conspiracy rabbit hole. I get that. But white evangelical churches already have a growing conspiracy theory problem. A recent poll revealed that white evangelicals are the group most susceptible to conspiracy theories. On the anecdotal level, I’ve stopped being surprised when people who go to my church espouse antivax conspiracies, the racist replacement theory, are election deniers, believe that people like Steve Bannon, Matt Walsh, Joe Rogan, and Alex Jones deserve to be heard and considered, as well as a host of other conspiracies. I’m not alone in this. Friends around the country have shared with me how their initial dismay at hearing conspiracies from fellow church members has morphed into a sad resignation.

If the movie weren’t connected to QAnon via its very visible and vocal star, I doubt I would feel compelled to write about it. Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) does occasionally free those trapped in human trafficking. I also want to note that OUR has recently cut ties with its controversial founder Tim Ballard, the subject of Sound of Freedom. But while child and sex trafficking is a serious issue, OUR is not without its share of controversies that should cause followers of Jesus to be wary about promoting and/or supporting the organization (you can read about some of OUR’s problematic tactics and controversies by clicking here and here). There are many other organizations laboring quietly in the darkness that operate with much more integrity and effectiveness than OUR.

One of the recurring complaints about OUR is that under Ballard’s leadership, they were more concerned about self-promotion than they were about the victims of human trafficking. Videoing their raids, even going so far as to sell “rescue operation” experiences to rich people, Ballard has become a celebrity among QAnon adherents, no matter how much he tries to distance himself from QAnon. Unfortunately, there have been instances where Ballard has conducted dramatic raids, freed victims, and then had to abandon those victims to the streets because OUR doesn’t historically have the resources to address long term physical and mental needs of the victims. Inevitably, they are revictimized. Combating human trafficking is less about dramatic raids and more about the hard, long work of addressing systemic and structural issues that create the environment in which human trafficking can flourish. But when the prevailing belief is that human trafficking is driven by a cabal of rich elites in the West, combatting child trafficking gets reduced to dramatic raids and headlines that proport to “prove” the conspiracy.

Leading into 2020, OUR was riding high on a wave of positive publicity and banner donations. But then media outlets began uncovering connections to white nationalist groups, mismanaged funds, Ballard’s love of conspiracy theories, and misleading claims moving into the realm of deceit about Ballard and the organization’s accomplishments. I point you to this expose written in 2020 calling into serious question the integrity and work of Tim Ballard and OUR. For the sake of honesty, I want to point out that the investigation by Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings reported on in the piece closed without any charges being filed (that happened after the article’s publication). However, I do point you to the story about Liliana (her real name isn’t revealed). Her actual story stands in direct contradiction to what Ballard and OUR claimed in their promotional materials and fundraising efforts. Liliana’s story is just one of many that Ballard and OUR have played fast and loose with for promotional purposes.

One of the more consequential impacts from Ballard’s self-aggrandizing and OUR’s historical tactics is that it makes it harder for other anti-human trafficking organizations to raise funds. When people are fed a diet of high-energy, slickly produced videos as well as exaggerated (to put it lightly) stories of dramatic rescues, they expect similar results from other organizations. Except that combatting human trafficking doesn’t usually make for good TV. It’s dirty, long, heartbreaking work that requires substantial capital on the backend to help victims avoid further victimization. It also requires political involvement to address systemic and structural issues. Not to mention that the connection to conspiracy theories causes people to call into question the motives of nonprofits that don’t fall in line with Ballard’s conspiratorial branding.

Again, I’m not claiming that Ballard and OUR hasn’t and doesn’t accomplish good in the area of human trafficking. But there are many other anti-human trafficking organizations that aren’t weighed down by the baggage that OUR carries. Lord willing, separating themselves from Ballard will enable the organization to move past any QAnon associations, its previous glory seeking videos, and misleading and deceitful claims and instead focus on doing the hard and needed work of combatting human trafficking. Sadly, Sound of Freedom largely reinforces false understandings of the work. Possibly more negatively impactful, the current popularity of Sound of Freedom among white evangelicals is also smuggling even more QAnon theories into our churches via its leading actor. Our ability to be faithful witnesses to the Resurrection is undermined by the syncretism of MAGA, Christian nationalism, and conspiracy theories with our churches’ theology. Sound of Freedom is adding to that syncretism.

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[1] People you know actually believe this.

[2] Mel Gibson wasn’t blackballed from Hollywood because he made a movie about Jesus. He was blackballed for being a raging antisemite and racist.

[3] Even if that happens, and not even accounting for his current net worth, Caviezel will not go hungry. The speaking fees he’ll charge churches and MAGA organizations will be high and I’m sure that he’ll get book deals that make him a hefty sum. He’ll be fine. Also, it should be noted that Caviezel changed the trajectory of his career from one of super stardom to just stardom because he turned down a role in the X-Men franchise to be in Frequency.

[4] Again, whether he heard the conspiracies from QAnon or came up with them separately, it’s all the same. If Caviezel wants credit for the conspiracy, fine, I’ll give it to him. But that doesn’t make it less false nor less dangerous (nor less asininely stupid).

[5] This is a point that I’m afraid many pastors are unwilling to contemplate. I understand their reticence, but sticking your head in the sand doesn’t make the problem disappear.