The Wisdom Pyramid - A Review

We don’t hear as much about wisdom these days in modern discourse.

We hear about expertise, eloquence, and clarity.

None of those three things are bad things in and of themselves, but they are a far cry from wisdom.

Any good Bible reader can tell you that wisdom is a good thing. Wisdom is personified by Solomon in the Proverbs. Moreover, James urges his readers, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him.” (1:5) The alternative to wisdom is being a doubter who is “like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.” (1:6)

To be honest, being tossed like a wave seems to be the standard state of most people in our culture. People tend to have a ton of information at their fingertips, especially since most of us carry the internet in our pockets. But having information without knowing what to do with it leads to being wind tossed. Having a framework that allows us to do something with available information is a step along the way to wisdom. True wisdom is having a true framework that can handle all available data.

Brett McCracken’s book, The Wisdom Pyramid, published in 2021, is a helpful, popular level book on the problem of information overload (or wisdom deficit) with some practical solutions. It’s more than a jeremiad and much more than a self-help book.

McCracken identifies the problem of information overload, with statistics that help illustrate the immense increase in volume and range of information we are exposed to. He also notes there is a constant pursuit of novelty in our world—there is always something different coming down the pike. This is complicated by the emphasis on finding meaning within, so that one’s moral compass is guided by one’s current feelings.

This sort of condition helps explain why many of feel ill at ease in the world. There is no solid ground. We have not been taught how to navigate this world. We are often overwhelmed by the battering of the wind, like waves of the sea. Too seldom have we asked God for wisdom.

As part of the solution, McCracken proposes a six-tiered approach to information intake. Much like the food pyramid paradigm that used to guide our nutritional sources, the foundation layer is the most plentiful with the top level being consumed sparingly.

It is little surprise that McCracken, a regular contributor to The Gospel Coalition, begins with Scripture intake. The Bible should make up the largest volume of our information diet. The Word of God is food for the soul and we should feast on it regularly. After that the teaching ministry and community of our local churches should be a plentiful source of content. In a reasonably healthy church with other believers also trying to consume great volumes of Scripture, that fellowship and teaching should echo the foundation of the pyramid.

McCracken recommends that nature form the third tier of the ever-narrowing pyramid. It has certainly not helped our culture’s understanding of truth to believe we have conquered the outside and that we can master nature. The heaven’s declare God’s handiwork, if we’ll only take time to listen. The next level in the wisdom pyramid is books. Old books are good, because they help us see the problems with our own age. New books can be good because good books explore topics with a depth and precision that blogs, newspaper articles, and social media does not.

The penultimate layer of the wisdom pyramid is exposure to beauty. McCracken recognizes the transcendent nature of beauty—that it isn’t merely a human appreciation, but reflects the order of the universe. More significantly, he knows that because has emotive power that comes and goes. It cannot be the main pursuit, though it can point us toward the other transcendentals: truth and goodness. Finally, at the tippy top of the pyramid is the internet and social media. These are the “fats, oils, and sweets” foods of the old food pyramid. Great treats, but terrible for long-term health when taken in large quantities.

The wisdom pyramid is helpful. It may not perfectly reflect the opportunities we have, but it should be something we aspire to replicate. Our problem is that most of us have reversed the pyramid. We live online and dabble in the others. It’s a good thought to try to wean ourselves off our phones and the internet (except my blog, of course), and spend more time at the bottom of the pyramid.

After all, we should be seeking wisdom. And wisdom is best found in the words of the author of the universe. Indeed, where else shall we go, for Christ has the words of eternal life? (John 6:68)

The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World

By McCracken, Brett

Buy on Amazon

The Courage to Be Happy

Not too long ago, in a quest to answer a question about lyrics in a Ben Rector song or find the end of the internet—whichever came first—I stumbled across a review of Rector’s latest album. The gist of the review was, His music seems pretty happy, which is surprising given the state of the world.

That sentiment is pretty common in popular culture. The review is in a relatively minor website, by no means a strong editorial force or significant cultural shaper. However, I think that is what a lot of people are thinking.

“How can I be happy when there is so much wrong with the world?”

There is war in Ukraine, abject poverty is horrible, it feels like the culture has gone crazy, my email inbox fills up faster than I can deal with it. The deficit is huge, there are issues with the environment, inflation is insane, the stock market it down.

Seriously, why can anyone be happy?

The Erasure of Distance

This sentiment of warranted unhappiness because of distant problems is a peculiarly modern issue.

One of the blessings of modern telecommunication is that it erases distance.

I can call someone on the other side of the world in a second and have a clear communication with them. I can also talk to the person sitting in the cube next to me using the same tool. In fact, I can hold a teleconference and have a discussion with half a dozen people that are thousands of miles away. Grandparents can speak to their grandchildren live, with video, and even watch in real time distant family events like baptisms, plays, birthdays, etc. This would seem miraculous just a few decades ago.

But the erasure of distance is also one of the curses of modernity.

Every problem in the world is now an immediate concern. I can get live pictures of people bleeding out in the street in Ukraine. I can see children starving to death on another continent. Flooding a world away pops up in my news feed with a higher frequency and realism than the family next door who just got a cancer diagnosis.

There is no separation. There is no local community. Every global problem is blasted into my pocket begging me to do something about it.

I don’t believe there is any more evil in the world than there was a hundred years ago. However, we can be much more aware of all sorts of evil, with vivid depictions, and demands for immediate action.

The Feeling of Futility

The demand for action is what makes the experience the most miserable.

When there is a car crash and we are the first on the scene we can provide first aid, call the ambulance, and hold someone’s hand as they weep over their lost child.

When there is a flood in the next county over, we can go and muck out someone’s living room, provide a bed for a neighbor, or get meals ready for disaster relief workers.

Truly local problems provide real ways that we can do something. We can take a casserole to the family who just lost a loved one or whose matriarch had surgery. There is something meaningful.

All we can do when we see the horrors of the world while scrolling through our phones is send a small donation, repost something to “raise awareness,” and feel a little bad by proxy.

The inability to really fix the big problems of the world leads to a feeling of futility.

The feeling of futility can lead to a sense of despair, which causes people to wonder why anyone can be happy when there is so much misery in the world.

The Courage to Be Happy

It takes courage to be happy in the face of the constant deluge of negative information we receive. “If it bleeds, it leads,” is the motto of all forms of news media. We have to find ways of coping with the overwhelming flood of information.

One way of responding to persistent negativity is what comedian Bill Bailey humorously demonstrates through the “Not Too Bad” approach, with the additional caveat, “All Things Considered.” As he describes it, this is the process of dialing down expectations to a reasonable level so that things are really not as bad as they could be.

Frankly, that’s the way I generally approach the issue. First, I try to limit my consumption of bad news. Second, I dial down expectations and try to remember that things aren’t really as bad as they could be. Living in the Midwest, I am frequently reminded that I am not alone in my approach.

But that’s not a particularly good way to live life. This sort of pessimism leaves one consistently expecting the other shoe to drop. It’s like the sword of Damocles hanging over your head. Things will probably be worse in a few weeks, so enjoy the moderate misery of the day.

It takes courage to be happy. It takes internal strength to shut off the flood of sadness from the world and say “Thank you” to the God of the universe who created everything from nothing, instilled the created order with wonder, and gives us breath every single moment. It takes stubborn, persistent, relentless effort to remember that things are not only “not too bad,” but that they are, really, pretty darn good most of the time.

Sometimes its good to take a moment to count your blessings, push off the negativity, and take a moment just to be grateful for the inherent goodness of the world. Given my own sin and depravity, things are much better than they ought to be. Most of the time, if I’m really honest, things are pretty darn good.

My Tech-Wise Life - A Review

It’s one thing to argue that a plan like the one Andy Crouch outlines in Tech-Wise Family would work. It’s another thing entirely to find out how the people who participated in the plan felt about it. The 2020 book, My Tech-Wise Life, which was co-authored by Amy Crouch (Andy’s daughter) and Andy Crouch provides a portal into one teenager’s thoughts on her family’s approach to technology.

Amy Crouch is a student at Cornell University. As she describes herself in this book, she is not an exceptional being in the ways that our world often describes it. She is not a social media influencer with her own cable TV show, she has not won Olympic Gold, she has not developed a new technology that will end malaria in the world. However, at the age of 19, she did complete a manuscript for this volume. This is someone who may not be extraordinary in the conventional sense, but is the sort of person that I’d like to hear from about how a method of navigating the distractions of our tech-saturated world can come through and be the sort of college freshman that can write a good book.

This is a short book, but a helpful one for this particular moment. In eight chapters, Amy explains why her family’s conscious, tech-minimal lifestyle was a good thing. Each chapter is accompanied by a letter of response from Andy Crouch, Amy’s father. In Chapter One, Amy begins by demonstrating how social media can make us feel inadequate through comparison. A casual photo highlights our imperfections, which can make our image-infatuated minds dwell on negative self-perceptions. The answer that Amy provides is not to revel in self-love and post more ugly pictures on purpose, but to recognize the limitations of technology, keep tech in check, and focus on real life relationships. In the second chapter the topic is distraction. Anyone who writes knows how easy it is to get sucked into the cycle of clicking through social media platforms, email, and anything but the task at hand. Those who get notifications will find their phones constantly buzzing, drawing them away from essential tasks. The result is a harried life of distraction and unproductivity, which if started at a young age can set up patterns that undermine a teen’s future. Amy’s answer is to take control, limit apps, take media fasts, and keep the main things the main thing. This is enabled by a family structure than supports, encourages, and, when necessary, enforces such discipline.

Chapter Three wrestles with the question of connection and isolation. She discusses strategies to use technologies to connect rather than isolate. This begins by recognizing how easy it is for our portable entertainment devices to keep us isolated and treasure the connection. Social media is a fine garnish, but our goal should be a life off-grid. The secret to getting there is recognition of which has the greater value. In the fourth chapter, the topic shifts to the problem of secrets, privacy, and the digital age. Amy’s emphasis in this chapter is the problem of porn, which is distorting self-perceptions, expectations about sex, and relationships. Additionally, she talks about how the prospect of secrecy or anonymity can enable negative behaviors. Amy recognizes the good of privacy, but also that it is a limited good, so that having parents who can help when you’ve been sucked into binge watching a fairly harmless, but not-particularly-valuable show can provide some direct feedback.

Chapter Five deals with the issue of lying online. This has been encouraged, in some cases, because of the age limits of apps like Facebook, so that 11-year-olds would claim to be 13 in order to get access. Now the realization that a million identities and faux accomplishments are only a few clicks away. The message here is that it isn’t worth it, your real friends will know the truth, so you are burning bridges by presenting a false front online. The sixth chapter tackles the topic of using technology to avoid boredom. Here Amy channels some of the wisdom of her father (the culture maker) to argue that boredom is a good thing and the source of creativity and greater community.

The topic opens in several earlier chapters, but Chapter Seven explores the issue of technologies replacing sleep time, especially among teens (who need more than most adults). The stats are inarguable. 24/7 access to phones and computers is taking away from the rest that kids (and adults) need to live healthy, cognitively balanced lives. Amy’s solution is to put boundaries on phones, keep them out of the bedroom, and practice Sabbath where minimal technology is available to distract from other activities. The final chapter is an exhortation to live in hope. Basically, we need not acquiesce to the negative influences of technology. We can, in fact, take control and have a more positive experience if we take control, set limits, and live in communities that encourage healthy limits to technology.

I commend both Andy Crouch’s book, The Tech-Wise Family, and the combined effort with his daughter, Amy, My Tech-Wise Life, to both individuals and families. My Tech-Wise Life is obviously marketed toward teens, but I found it to be refreshing and helpful in many ways. It serves to undermine the argument, which I have heard some parents make, that limiting access to technology is going to “make my kid angry for living like we’re Amish.” Amy shows that when the whole family tries to live a tech-wise life it can make for a much better experience.

This book is very important in the attention economy because it shows (rather than states) the possibility and promise of limitations to technology. Amy encourages asking why one should use a particular technology or platform, not merely how to get access to it. Though the applications will change faster and faster, the principals are the same.

If you are a parent, read The Tech-Wise Family and this book, too. If you are a youth pastor, buy copies to distribute to your students. If you are a pastor, read this book, buy copies to have on hand when you have families come in for counseling due to results of stress that a tech-harried life will cause. This book does not answer all questions or make detailed theological arguments, but it provides a way forward for one of the most pressing questions of our day.

My Tech-Wise Life: Growing Up and Making Choices in a World of Devices

By Crouch, Amy, Crouch, Andy

Buy on Amazon

NOTE: I made the decision to refer to Amy by her first name due to the fact that this was co-authored by her father, to simplify the language. Since there are distinct divisions between her work and her father’s the first name seemed the simplest way to make the differentiation.

Reading the Times - A Review

Most local newspapers are dying. The little paper in my city has been reduced to high school sports, complaints about the nearby nuclear plant, classified ads, and the occasional social gossip. More and more newspapers are shifting to a model of reprinting what comes through on some subscription service. This has had the effect of trivializing the news, so that local stories about small-scale, but important deeds like a teen giving her father CPR or a child finding the foundation of an old historical building while exploring the back woods disappear. In their place we get news about a smaller and smaller set of less and less real people who happen to have a large following on social media, their own TV show, and might have moderate talent in some other area of life. We end up knowing more about a rich, beautiful, spoiled person whom we will never meet than we do about our neighbor down the block.

The media by which we take in the news of the day affects the trivialization of the world, though it does not mandate it. Many people get their news from social media, which means that it tends to be ideologically slanted toward opinions shared with one’s friends. Since one of the basic presuppositions of our society is that if you associate with someone you agree with them, a bubble of reality begins to form. And, since the art of disagreeing temperately on social media is difficult to learn, opposing ideas are often avoiding or ignored rather than engaged and questioned. Comments are either strongly affirming or attacking the opinion under consideration, because to say “yes, but” or “maybe this, yet not that” is a needle that few can thread from a keyboard.

But it is our behaviors that trivialize the news. We share articles with misleading headlines, sometimes without having read the body. We look for opinions that excoriate our outgroup. The algorithm feeds our human behavior and continues to provide the material for which we have developed a taste. And we must be clear that our taste has been developed through our own actions, or, at least, through our own failures to resist the tendency of the news medium to trivialize our view of the world.

What can we do about it?

Jeffrey Bilbro’s book, Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News, provides both an apt diagnosis of the problem and some particularly helpful steps toward alleviating it. The result is a succinct, clearly-written book that is accessible to the layperson.

Bilbro’s diagnosis is not particularly innovative. He is channeling the energy of Wendell Berry, Jacques Ellul, Neil Postman, and Thoreau in arguing that the way news is presented is not good for the human condition. In application, Bilbro’s solutions are much more reliant on Berry and Thoreau (whom Bilbro has written about previously) than the other two thinkers. In any case, innovation is not what is needed, but intelligibility and digestibility.

The core of the problem, as Bilbro presents it, is not necessarily the technology or the content of the news, but rather that too much of what we get that passes as news has very little to do with our lives, even though it is designed to rattle our cage. What we get angry or excited about often has little to do with what God is concerned about:

“Perhaps we need to conduct an emotional audit and consider which issues or news items cause us to become angry, outraged, or excited: Are we grieving over what grieves God and rejoicing over what brings him joy? Or have we become emotionally invested in trivia while growing apathetic about matters of real import?”

Bilbro recognizes that a big part of the problem is the way we read the news. As a result, the fix is to change ourselves and what we value. This is a book that is timely and well suited for those looking for an off-ramp from the highway of partisan politics, misanthropy, and emotional turmoil that often goes with the news.

After a brief introduction, in which Bilbro explains that his purpose is to help us understand how to use the news to love our neighbor better, the book is divided into three parts with three chapters each. Part One deals with attention, Part Two with time, and Part Three with community. The pattern of each part is to present the modern problem in the first chapter, put out a somewhat abstract better condition in the second chapter, and then provide some realistic practices that can help transition between the two. This pattern of problem, better vision, and help to get there makes this book a novel contribution.

Bilbro does not abstain from social media, nor does he recommend that for his readers, but he provides a means to put social media use in its place. He doesn’t recommend disconnecting from news media, but being more thoughtful of who we read, when, and how. The book presents a realistic vision of living in a world that demands our participation, but threatens us through our participation at the same time.

Much of Bilbro’s writing has had a localist bent. Like his hero, Wendell Berry, he has invested a great deal of thought in how to live in this place, right now. Modernity tends to flatten the world (a la Friedman) and create a tyranny of the eternal immediate present. Bilbro points to living better with an eternal viewpoint and a local scope, which is just the opposite of the way the news pushes us to have a global scope with an immediate viewpoint. This book won’t solve all of everyone’s problems, but it is another piece in a puzzle of dealing with the malaise of modernity.

In addition to being helpful and well-written, for those engaged in the study of modernity, this book ties a lot of pieces together. The footnotes are a roadmap to a wide range of resources for deeper study and consideration. They are also a trap for an individual’s book budget. I had to read the book again (a pleasure) before writing this review because I got sidetracked for several weeks following the leads that Bilbro laid out in his notes. Several mysterious packages showed up on the porch in the interim, which I had to explain to my wife, which was local news enough around here.

Buy the book because it is good and useful. Beware that it is going to make you stop, think, and probably even change the way you look at a few things.

Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News

By Bilbro, Jeffrey

Buy on Amazon

NOTE: I received an advanced reader copy from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Discernment Bloggers, Truth, and Christian Witness

One of the best attributes of the internet age is that it has eliminated the gatekeepers to public discourse. At its best, the internet enables people to bypass denominational filters, editorial boards at book publishers, and the like. Among other things, it allows for amateur theologians.

The lack of gatekeepers allows us to get access to raw information on a more regular basis. WikiLeaks can publish documents that tell a different story that official channels do. Individuals subjected to abuse without recourse can get their story out and get problematic institutional administrations removed. Pastors and laypeople without access to an official platform can engage in meaningful theological discourse.

There are a lot of positive aspects to the democratizing of information, particularly when it comes to Christian discourse. At the same time, the same democratization can have a dark underbelly.

One example of this is in the rise and proliferation of discernment bloggers. At their best, discernment bloggers highlight areas where institutional reform is needed and push dialog toward those topics with an intent to seek reforms and pursue a measurable good. It might be that a discernment platform might spring up for a season and, having dealt with the issue at hand, recede into the sunset.

In practice, however, discernment blogs often turn from meaningful discourse to perpetual gossip and divisiveness. They use several tactics to pursue popularity, which are exceedingly effective at getting attention, but tend to erode the foundations of morality and truth by those who use them.

Rather than simply relying on truth-telling as the means to communicate, discernment ministries often rely on exaggeration, decontextualization, railing, and intentional ignorance to undermine their ideological victims. What usually results is a shrill, relentless attack on the disliked party and anyone who defends them or looks like them.

Valid Beginnings

A caveat on this discussion is, of course, necessary. Some discernment bloggers started with a legitimate purpose or grievance. Usually that was to deal with a particular local or even national issue.

There are, for example, some discernment blogs that began in order to expose misogyny, clerical abuse, or subversive theological liberalism. Those are worthy issues to be opposed.

The problem is not opposing bad things, it’s that as the platform grows and, perhaps, once the original problem is rooted out and exposed, the topics of concern become broader and the quality of evidence considered for publication sometimes drops lower and lower. Mission creep is a real issue as eventually some discernment blogs have become little more than clearinghouses for ridiculous conspiracy theories. (Sometime consider the number of conservative Evangelicals who are supposed to be rolling in money from George Soros.)

The discernment platform becomes a thing in itself that takes up time and needs constant feeding. Sometimes this is even complicated by it becoming a source of income for the vigilante through advertising and sponsorships.

True Discernment

Discernment is an important attribute of mature Christians. Hebrews 5:14, in a plea for increasing spiritually maturity, states,

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Beyond the methods of abuse highlighted above, the biggest problem with many discernment blogs is that they are not particularly discerning. Contrary to Hebrews 5:14, they aren’t trained in discerning good from evil, but merely railing against those they don’t like. This is more likely to be true of discernment blogs that have been around for a while, whose missions have expanded from a particular issue to an attempt to take down the world.

Any person or group whose mode of operation is to fixate on someone else’s problem is not exercising true discernment, they are just being divisive.

A gourmet––someone who is fanatical about good food––may complain loudly about bad food at a restaurant. However, a true foodie is as likely to rave about good food as to rail against a disappointing meal. Even as they complain about food at one restaurant, they are likely to tell you where you can get the true and better food in another.

People who like football may despise the opposing team, but will be able to recognize when that team is playing excellent football. A good play may not result in cheers, but it will be recognized as something legitimately good. That’s the difference between enjoying a sport and simply hating the other team.

In many cases, internet “discernment” has become nearly entirely about hurling abuse at the disfavored parties. Biblical discernment looks much different.

Persuasiveness

The purpose of discernment should not be to heap scorn and shame on someone, but to persuade them and others to repent.

Persuasion may be a dying art in our day. The so-called longtail of marketing and the accessibility of media that fits my existing opinions means that entities can spend much more energy reinforcing opinions than persuading people of them.

We might consider persuasion to be yet another casualty of the internet age.

But Christian discernment includes the attempt to persuade. The arc of church discipline from 1 Cor 5 to 2 Cor 2:5–11 is one of redemption through persuasion. In this case, persuasion came about through expulsion. But that expulsion was always in hope of convincing the offender that he was acting like an unbeliever.

Christians ought to be, in fact, some of the most dedicated persuaders out there. As Paul argues in 2 Cor 5:1a,

Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.

The large passage that sentence is in talks about the ministry of reconciliation that Christians have been given, our role as ambassadors of the gospel of Christ, and our living compassionately among others.

Persuasion is the better part of true, biblical discernment.

Sweetness of Speech

In his Proverbs of Hell, Williams Blake states, “Damn braces, bless relaxes.”

This is true from both sides of the issue. Satan came to the Garden as an angel of light appealing to Eve’s curiosity and desire for godlikeness rather than as a tyrant seeking abject worship. He was persuasive and we all know the results.

In the same way, gospel evangelism is much more likely to be persuasive if it encourages the unregenerate to consider the beautiful truths of the gospel in light of their own darkness. Persuasion invites, ridicule repels. Evangelism of a rude, confrontational tone is much less likely to result in true (or any) conversions.

This should come as no surprise, as Proverbs 16:21 states,

The wise of heart is called discerning, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness.

How we say what we have to say is truly important. This is true with regard to our communication of our political opinions on social media and in person. It is also true as we seek to expose deadly sin within the body of Christ.

Persuasiveness allows the words to be sweet even if the truth packs a wallop. Many attempts at discernment in this age have distorted that paradigm: The words pack a wallop, but the truth they express is meager or twisted.

Is Rudeness an Apostolic Ministry?

Discernment bloggers often cite examples in church history of strong rhetoric that appears to have been effective to support their tone and content.

For example, Paul is somewhat hyperbolic in Gal 5:12 when he states that he wishes the Judaizers would mutilate themselves. Jesus himself is pretty harsh with the Scribes and Pharisees on multiple occasions and even uses physical violence to make his point in cleansing the temple.

Outside of Scripture, some of the greats in church history take the gloves off for a round of theological eye-gouging from time to time. I mean, someone has been able to create a database of Luther’s insults to delight the hearts of homeschoolers around the world.

My argument isn’t that there is no place for strong language and rhetorical flourishes. Sometimes a joke at the opponent’s expense is a good way to bring onlookers to your side. It may be persuasive, as long as we recognize that the one being persuaded is not the butt of the joke but those “overhearing” the debate.

The key is that the truth we are communicating needs to overshadow the means by which we communicate it. When we lose that central aspect in our discourse, we have lost the mission.

Paul and Jesus may have used harsh language toward their opponents, but they communicated a positive message, not simply a criticism of someone they didn’t like.

This goes back to the gourmet raving about the good food at a favored restaurant: “Don’t go to Jimmy’s Grill, the steaks are dry and flavorless, but Bob’s Chophouse cooks the most excellent sirloin.” In true discerning communication, there is always an attempt to point toward the good, not simply to highlight the bad.

Throwing rhetorical hand grenades is pretty easy. Building a positive and convincing position is much harder.

Conclusion

One way to identify discernment blogs is that they often have very little positive message. They feed our desire to have our views validated by constantly showing why the other side is wrong, even when we agree with 95% of what the opponent thinks. The differences may be small, but it feels good to be “better” or “more truthful” than the other guys.

Many discernment blogs also handle the truth poorly by editing the words of others and adding their own context to attempt to paint the others in a poor light. This alone should cause those with real discernment to stay away from some of these discernment “ministries.”

As we think about godly communication, the pursuit of purity in the visible church, and legitimate attempts to reveal real problems in the body of Christ, we need to think about what discernment means. A more biblical model of discernment might not be as effective at getting clicks, but it might be more effective at honoring Christ. And, after all, isn’t that what we are supposed to be all about?

Social Media Justice and the Gospel

One of the common complaints against Christianity—what Tim Keller calls defeater beliefs—is that a good God…a loving God…would not judge sin and wouldn’t punish it if he did. He would just wipe it away and forgive it without judgment. We are taught by culture not to like violence, so we like to believe that a just God would also be non-violent.

Miroslav Volf, a theologian at Yale and a Croatian who had personal experience with the gross injustices of ethnic cleansing and genocide in former Yugoslavia argues that a God who punishes evil through judgment is necessary to keep people from seeking revenge:

If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end to violence––that God would not be worthy of worship. . . . The only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that violence is legitimate only when it comes from God. . . . My thesis that the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many . . . in the West . . . [But] it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human non-violence [results from the belief in] God’s refusal to judge. In a sun-scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die . . . [with] other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind.

Our belief in a God who violently judges sin is necessary to restrain our hearts from desiring immediate and exorbitant revenge on the people that seek to do us harm. This is why Habakkuk calls for the judgment of the Lord in chapter 2 of his short book, rather than trying to settle all of the scores with his own hands.

In fact, in the history of Christianity, some of the worst evils that have been perpetrated in the name of Christ have been caused by people not trusting into God’s justice, but trying to bring about their own version of justice in their own time.

Social Media Justice

As Christians living in a world that celebrates injustice, often presenting it under the cloak of goodness or true justice, we find ourselves given a tool to announce our disapproval of everything bad. Thus, we think, we can stand against real injustice, even if it only via posts or tweets.

This is the mentality of the social media warrior. In fact, in our age, the digital assaults on people’s reputations that are perpetrated in the name of injustice are not much different that murder. The goal of many social media warriors is to destroy the life of their victims, but without the shred of mercy that actually killing them would entail.

An example of this is the recent brouhaha over the interaction between the Native American activist Nathan Phillips and a boy from a parochial school. That case itself has turned into a Rorschach test for your political position, so I will leave that unending debate over who was right (if anyone) in that situation to others.

However, what we should not miss is that there was an instantaneous urge to crush, smash, and destroy by those that hated the look on the boy’s face in the initially miscaptioned photo. To be clear, the opposite reaction could have been obtained from the other side if an activist wearing a charged political slogan had been caught in a pose that could have been represented as disgust, smarminess, or disrespect of one of the political right’s favored populations. The problem is not left vs. right, it is the urge to destroy.

And there were calls for destruction. Based on questionable interpretations of the event, which were driven largely by an inflammatory caption on a photo posted by a bot Twitter account run out of Brazil, people who consider themselves good and just and consistent in their pursuit of justice were calling for assault and even execution of the child in the photo. There were dozens of physical threats made against the school itself. All of this in the name of justice. Again, when the tables are turned, there are voices on the right that are just as nasty in their pursuit of justice.

This is exactly the sort of “justice” that Habakkuk is warning against: Justice that is really unjust because it is brought about in our way by our hands, instead of according to God’s judgment.

Conclusion

I believe in a God of judgment because it is the clear expectation of the authors of the Old and New Testaments. The need for a just God of judgment reinforces my belief in the God described by the Bible. The rise of the social media warrior with his virulent, destructive cruelty in the name of justice reminds me why Christianity must be true, else we have no hope.

We need a just God who will make the wrong things right. That is part of the gospel. Just as is the fact that salvation is available for all who believe in accept the power of the atonement to cover our sins, and put faith only in that for our final redemption. God is just. Our attempts to force justice in this world will bring about injustice. Thank God that he sent Christ to keep those who receive him, who believe in his name, from bearing the deserved wrath for our sins on our own shoulders. Thank God for being a God who is both just and gracious at the same time.

The Fake Web is Ruining the Internet

Something is amiss in the futuristic, digital wonderland that is the internet.

Among the most obvious problems are the incessant arguments including those caused by trolls and those perpetuated by sea lions. Add that to the sheer magnitude of bots online, and we have a real problem that can lead to misery, confusion, and misdirection away from facts.

The possible paradise of the internet is turning out to be a myth. The democratization of information has made it nearly possible to discern what is true.

Marketplace Distortion

Consider the validity of marketplace ratings. While there are examples of faux reviews that are exceedingly humorous, like the ones for the Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer on Amazon, fake reviews make buying decisions harder. And that’s not the way it is supposed to work.

The ideal of online reviews is for people who have used the product to honestly review them. However, anyone who has tried to sort through the reviews on products in a major online marketplace will know that amid the real, honest reviews are dozens that appear to be made up. These often are very high or very low ratings (depending on whether the company or their competitor funded the reviewers) and include gratuitous typos, insufficient information, and information designed to mislead. So, a product may have hundreds of reviews, but the real ones with important criticism may have been diluted by fake reviews.

The prevalence of fake reviews in the online marketplace makes using reviews nearly worthless sometimes. Add that to the ability for sellers to revise listings of old products to newer ones, while bringing along their reviews, and you have a recipe for unhelpful confusion.

Another trend that is unhelpful with the democratization of information is the volume of websites that seem to indicate they are dedicated to product reviews, but which are really dedicated to trying to acquire revenue through affiliate traffic. For example, do an internet search on “best gifts for a 10-year-old boy, you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. Someone trying to get suggestions for Christmas or birthday may want a blogger’s suggestions that their kids liked, but may only be able to find suggestions in click-through format designed to rake in money from another online marketplace.

Sometimes these offerings are helpful, but they accomplish the opposite of the intended purpose. When someone does a search online for creative suggestions, they are usually looking for something off the beaten path. However, these dozens of “product review” or “product suggestion” websites tend to all “recommend” the same dozen or so products, none of which they have any real knowledge of. (Full disclosure: I use affiliate links at the bottom of my book reviews and sometimes get a little money from them, but that is secondary to the actual review.)

The reality of the internet is turning out to be something less than the promise.

The Web Is Mostly Fake

According to a recent article from New York Magazine, we’ve passed the point where, by some measures, more than half of internet traffic is fake. Given that the next video you watch or next widget you buy may be recommended based on the programmed habits of a bot, this matters significantly. For those, like me, who spend time creating real content online—especially those who depend of traffic from YouTube or other traffic sites—that distortion can be disheartening and financially debilitating.

Because traffic generates traffic as we all chase the next cool thing, this fake traffic is distorting our culture. Is someone’s video really viral, or did they create or finance a bot army to give them clicks, help them trend, and push a somewhat novel but largely inane product into everyone’s feeds? The world may never know.

Given that a fair amount of news reporting—both traditional media and various internet outlets—is now mind-numbing reporting about trends on social media, the power of faking on the internet may have significant social implications. Is anyone really mad about the latest controversy? Or, was some minor infraction by a local official magnified by thousands of bots financed by someone who is either making money off of the clicks or gaining power by fracturing society? This is a powerful question that I don’t have an easy answer to.

One Proposed Solution

I do think, however, that we have the potential to curb some of the worst excesses in our own control by using self-control and changing our habits.

Perhaps the best solution to the problem is to use the internet in an old-fashioned way, with sustained patronage, long time relationships, and word of mouth recommendations. Major branded websites for news and information will likely remain significant, but to some extent we need to rely more on pseudo-social connections rather than search algorithms.

Used by CC 2.0 License. Photo by londonista_londonist.

For example, as a blogger well after the heyday of blogging, I think we need to bring back the blogroll. If someone likes my website, there is a decent chance that they will like the blogs I like, so I can let them know what and who I follow. That also means that I am vouching that I’ve watched/read enough of the content to know that it is real and not bot-generated.

In a world of depersonalized identities, we need to reorient toward personal connections, even if it is only virtually. The possibilities for deception are still higher, but bots are generally identifiable through their patterns of activity, real people are both more predictable and more erratic.

Conclusion

Much of the internet has become, for all intents and purposes, worthless. People are fake. Reviews are fake. Facts are fake. As we try to live life in a virtual age, taking advantage of the real benefits of the internet, we need to begin to reestablish habits that will make our experiences online more benefit than curse.

Amusing Ourselves to Death - A Review

Neil Postman’s classic book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in an Age of Show Business, is an assessment of the shifts in Western culture since the advent of modern communication technologies. This is the sort of book that was prophetic in its day and, although somewhat dated, still communicates significant warnings to readers now.

Amusing Ourselves to Death was published in 1985, during the Reagan presidency. It certainly does not escape Postman’s notice that the ascendency of an actor to the highest political office supports his point that entertainment has become the central purpose of American culture, though that fact is more a capstone illustration of the book’s greater point than the central argument of concern.

What Postman notes, however, is worth paying attention to. His central premise is that the medium is the metaphor. This is an intentional deviation from Marshall McLuhan’s famous slogan that the medium is the message.

Postman’s clarification is helpful, since it separates the content of the message from vehicle that carries the message. In other words, the facts of the news are the same (if written well), but the secondary signals created by the means that the news is transmitted also shape the reception of the news.

For example, Postman notes that prior to the invention of the telegraph, most newspapers focused almost exclusively on local news. The telegraph sped up the spread of national and international news, so that information could be had within minutes rather than days or weeks. The change was not wrought overnight, but the shift of concern from local issues to global ones has completely overtaken us today. Notably, it is much easier for me to find out about the personal lives of political leaders across the globe than to find out what the local city council is talking about.

Not only has news changed, but education has changed. Instead of doing the long, hard work of training minds, much of our educational methodology has shifted to entertainment. Postman notes that Sesame Street is a prime example of this, though certainly neither the worst nor the only platform that does this. According to Postman, whatever good is done by teaching through entertainment is undermined as it forms the learning human to expect education to be exciting. Thus, the endurance to learn and slog through difficult tasks has been diminished by the medium that is very effective in achieving short term gains.

It would be easy to claim that Postman was merely clutching at pearls, if the evidence did not point overwhelmingly toward the aggravation of the problems he identifies.

The point is not that technology is bad, but that technology is most effective if it is used in a particular manner. As a result, it is most commonly used in its most suitable manner, which shapes the media consumer in powerful ways. The efficacy of each medium to convey certain parallel signals effortlessly alters people’s epistemologies.

(Epistemology is the study of the way that people know things. Whether or not we know how to spell it, everyone has an epistemology.)

Not only how we acquire information but how we know is shaped by how information is received. Media is forming our minds to perceive in particular manners.

We need look no farther than click-bait internet articles to see that Postman is correct. There are entire companies that feed off of deceptive headlines that declare one thing in their headline and argue something entirely different in the body of the article. Even news sources that are still considered credible have recognized that few people read beyond the headlines and those who do are unlikely to get past the perspective that the headline has already presented, whatever the evidence is that runs to the contrary.

The reshaping of epistemology is radically important, even more so now than it was in 1985. Our elections have been tampered with by agents from other nations who spread misinformation with just enough truth to cast doubt. Our news sources have recognized this, along with the inability to discern opinion from fact in most of the population, and thus they have largely abandoned anything like an attempt at objective reporting because getting their constructed truth out is more important the facts. Additionally, with the wide array of “news” shows of varying degree of accuracy and political leanings available all 168 hours each week, the presentation of information has to be even more entertaining than before. In our current milieu, there appear to be a fair number of people that get their news through comments on social media rather than any legitimate news source (regardless of its bias). So, the cycle continues and the hole gets deeper.

Postman’s warning is an important one. It may even be easier to accept now that a quarter of a century has passed and the challenges have morphed.

Lacking from Postman’s analysis is an answer the for the disease that ails us. He’s standing athwart history yelling “STOP,” but does not provide a solution.

The truth is that there is no easy solution, and that the simplest solution (i.e., turning everything off completely), is unworkable because we and our children would be functionally disconnected from so much of society. However, we have to figure out a way to throttle the flow, learn how to think and exist without electronic devices, and recover some of the humanity that is being eroded with every flicker of our many screens.

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

By Neil Postman

Buy on Amazon

I Have No Opinion About Whatever Is Making You So Mad

I have no opinion about whatever it is that someone did, said, wrote, or believed that has you so upset.

Even if I had an opinion about it, I might not want to air it publicly.

Simply because I am not speaking out for or against whatever just happened does not mean that I am against or for it. Nor does it mean that I am a co-conspirator in injustice. That isn’t how guilt works. Really.

Opinions

I have strong opinions about many things. Many of them are also deeply researched. I am, academically and vocationally speaking, competent and qualified to speak on a number of issues. I am personally acquainted with some things well enough to comment on them and have reasonable and warranted opinions.

I am not, however, prepared to comment on the latest snippet of news, out of context interview sound bite, or social hoopla that has been uncovered or invented in the last 24 hours. In fact, to speak on this issue would be inappropriate unless I had some unique background in the subject matter, additional context to add, and awareness of more than the drive by commentary that has everyone so upset.

A Historical View

When the historians write the story of our present age, I fully expect them to describe how much disinformation and overreaction there was because people didn’t take time to think and weren’t equipped to do the necessary thinking.

They may call us this the age of the flip out, the knee jerk, and the public flop and twitch.

It’s not like these are different fundamentally than any other generation. Propaganda was alive and well in previous centuries. Wars have been started due to failed romances and jilted lovers.

What is different is that the flop and twitch is constant and ever shifting. We don’t even have the common decency to get upset about one thing and rail against it for several weeks. Instead, we have a new freak out every day.

Also, something different is this foolish idea that not flopping and twitching over everything that makes X upset—which may or may not be true—constitutes material participation in the alleged evil that is being freaked out about.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

In fact, many times, the freak out is not over what someone actually did or said, but what someone thinks they meant based on misreading or misunderstanding what they wrote, said, or did.

Someone sees something and misinterprets it as malicious. Several people blog about the evils of the malevolent action. Suddenly there is a fire storm in which anyone who doesn’t storm the battlements is guilty of hating puppies. Several people blog about the lack of response by “important people” who haven’t spoken out about the issue because they obviously don’t care. Meanwhile, half the people being maligned may actually know something that gives them a different position, not be aware of the situation, or simply not feel that the issue is worth addressing with such vigor. However, they must be burned at the altar of activism for their sin of inactivity.

While all of this is happening, before a response can be ventured and research conducted a new “crisis” has arisen that demands instantaneous, fact-less condemnation. Even if a correction is made, it is rarely read and the “hot take” condemnation of the event and the silent people allegedly condoning the supposed evil remain permanent artifacts on the internet. Rinse and repeat.

False Alarm Fatigue

Do you remember the red cups at Starbucks? I don’t think anyone was actually ever upset about the cups themselves, but there was a veritable cyclone of blame and aspersion flying around the web.

This is creating an environment in which Twitter—a social media platform that could be fun—is dying because smart, thinking people are getting tired of people with too little information demanding absolute agreement with their opinion of everything instantaneously and without qualification.

How many well-wrought books are we going to lose to foolish reactions on the internet? How many reputations are going to be ruined on the altar of condemnation for an improper or insufficient response?

In the meanwhile, I have no opinion about what you are upset about. Or, perhaps I have an opinion, but I don’t think it adds to the conversation.

Against White Identity Politics and Religious Registration

For all of the tizzy that some people are in over the election and the counter finger-wagging from others, there are some signals of significant causes for concern. There have been a number of false reports that have come out about the transition team and, since they supported the prior assumptions of many, they have been run with. This is problematic. However, through the noise of exaggeration and misreporting of news, there are some signs that ought to concern people of good conscience.

Against the White Genocide Movement

This election has revealed that there are good people that are becoming attracted to a movement for white ethnic identity, which is often described as opposing “white genocide” or “cultural Marxism.” As a response to the perpetual hammering of identity politics on the left, it is an understandable development. However, as a strategy for unity and justice, it is doomed to failure. Any political system that seeks disunity over unity should be rejected. The United States has already tried separate but equal once. It failed. It was mostly separate, but hellishly unequal. We should not think about going there again.

As Christians, our identity is first in Christ. As Paul tells us clearly, in the church “there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” (Col 3:11) The church is a fundamentally political institution. We have “immigration policies” in which we offer membership to believers who have participated in the initiation rite of baptism by immersion. (At least in the Baptist context.) We seek justice in our relationships toward one another. However, the church is doomed to fail in the pursuit of justice if it retains distinctions based on nationality or ethnicity.

Photo: Lighting Strike by Fabio Slongo. Used by CC License:  http://ow.ly/48DR306gJNI

The future of the church is unity across ethnic barriers. This is the image we see in Revelation 7, “I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” This is not a vision that should fuel ethnic division or even permit us to countenance such as the body of Christ. While we are unlikely to attain to this vision while on earth, this is what we should pursue today.

Rejecting white nationalism or white genocide does not equal a call for an “open border” immigration policy. (A common accusation against many on the right and left by those supporting white identity politics.) The United States has the right to set immigration policies that take into account the good of its citizens—this is a function of nation-states in our day, and is not inherently unjust (although it may be pursued unjustly). However, the perception of some (and some that I’ve seen who claim to be Christian) is that we must build a movement of white ethnic solidarity and ban all immigration or risk being overcome. The second is implausible, despite ridiculous claims to the contrary. The first should be anathema to Christians given our eschatological hope in a supremely diverse chorus of voices joined in worship.

Against Religious Registries

Recently someone actually went onto national television to argue for a registry of Muslim believers. Or, at least, he argued there was precedent for it. Much news can be made of this person’s relation to the incoming administration. Of greater concern for me is that such a terrible idea should never have seen the light of day outside of a condemnation of our distant past.

The person speaking was correct to note that the U.S. has a precedent for registering people. He was also correct to note that during World War II we registered and interned ethnic Japanese, some of whom were immigrants. There is a precedent for such a registry.

However, the internment of ethnic minorities during World War II is an instance of protectionist government overreach. This is a black mark on our nation’s history, not the sort of historical event we should dust off and try to recreate in the present. We should not even consider it an option, though I will engage in a thought experiment for the sake of discussion.

Let’s assume we create a registry of everyone in religion X. To do so, we have to ask ourselves how we will determine whether someone is part of that religion. Is it attendance at a worship service? Is it being born into a family that has at some point attested to being part of religion X? Is it having grown up in a nation that is perceived to be predominately filled with religion X? What happens if someone converts to another religion? How do we determine whether that conversion is authentic?

All of a sudden, the government is trying to make decisions about things that it is simply not qualified to do. Religion isn’t ethnicity, where a family tree justifies inclusion. Even when dealing with ethnicity, how much is too much? One parent? One grandparent? A brother in law? For religion, the government would have to ask a different, more nebulous set of questions.

The obvious and necessary outcome is that the government steps into the role of religious authority. Person A has demonstrated sufficient effort to be considered Christian even though he grew up in a Muslim home. At the same time, since Person B simply stopped attending the Mosque and hasn’t picked up another active religion, should he be considered to still be Muslim? Unless he eats some bacon and draws a cartoon of Mohammed? Would open sacrilege be sufficient (or necessary) to change a classification?

Suddenly, I’m catching a whiff of the Inquisition. That’s not a high point in human history, much less in Christian history. I’m also hearing echoes of the persecution of the Jews under the Nazi regime. Certainly it wouldn’t start there and it might never get to that extent, but the echoes of that horror of the persecution of the Jews should be enough to steer us clear.

So what happens when the anti-theists get hold of the government? Now we can get parallel registries of Muslims and Christians. No worries, they will just be keeping tabs on people of faith. Why? Just to keep everyone safe and ensure the government knows what is going on. And then to perhaps ensure that we don’t have people of certain faiths in certain government positions. Does this sound like a dystopian fiction? Yes, but it’s only a step or two beyond registering Muslims, which someone felt comfortable bringing up as a possibility in a TV interview.

This is the sort of thing that Christians (and any reasonable people) should speak against. It’s not a good idea. It’s not going to make us safer. It’s not going to end well. If we’re for religious liberty for some (ourselves?), then we need to hold out the same rights for all. That needs to be the principle we stand on.

The government does not have the wherewithal to regulate religion. The common good is not enhanced by the government regulating religion. Making people register their religious affiliation is not simply information gathering, it is regulating. We must keep this power away from the government.

Just a Media Overreaction?

One of the tragedies of contemporary society is the 24-hour news cycle. This creates the problem of the proliferation of interviews of people who might know someone that knows something speaking authoritatively about stuff. There is such a need to fill the airwaves that they bring people that might float the idea of something like a Muslim registry on national television. This, then, fuels dozens of hot takes (like this one), replays, edits, and discussion panels. Sometimes the furor is over nothing.

I’ll be glad to find out that this suggestion is really nothing. Unfortunately, there are some that will hear it and begin to think that such a simple encroachment on civil liberties is really worth it to prevent the explosion of another IED or another religiously driven night-club shooting. Because of the protectionist stance some (particularly whites) are taking, this will begin to sound like a good idea. Reading Twitter and some of the Alt-Right propaganda sites provides evidence that this idea isn’t just nothing.

Sometimes there is an overreaction that deserves to be neglected. The media cries wolf too often, as a rule. However, we can’t let their failures in the past prevent us from seeing problems in the present. These are issues that have the potential to take root in the minds of some in our churches and we should be careful not to let sin get a foothold.

The purpose of this post, therefore, is not to fuel the overreaction, but to offer some consideration for the ideas that are actually being floated as plausible and to encourage Christians to think about how these ideas betray the gospel (as with white nationalism) and put impartial justice in jeopardy (as with the Muslim registry). People are actually talking about some of these things as if they are good ideas. They aren’t, and we should make sure that the church is clear in standing against them.