“Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.”
— Hebrews 12:1
A CHALLENGE TO DISCIPLESHIP
One of the things for which I am most grateful in ministry is the camaraderie I share with a number of other pastors, both in the city of Richmond and around the country. Over the past years, and especially in recent months, I have heard a consistent theme of lament from these friends in ministry. When asked the question, “What’s the greatest challenge you’re facing when it comes to discipleship in your church?” The answer has been, almost universally, “the News.”
When pressed for an explanation, I hear some version of an all-too-common story: “A congregation member’s preferred news source seems to be the most powerful voice in their lives. It tells them what to believe about who they are, the problems of the world, who is at fault, and what to do about it. The news has become a lens through which the Bible, the Christian faith, and (most especially) their local church is interpreted.”
The weekly rhythm seems to have become, at least for some American Christians, to ingest tens of hours of broadcast and printed news each week, and then to evaluate their pastors and churches to see if they “got it right.”
What is even more troubling (and frustrating) is that, when this problem is named, Christians often respond with some version of, “Yes, yes, you’re absolutely right. Sensationalized, politicized news is a serious problem. That’s what I only read/watch _______ because it’s not biased, it’s just the facts.” It appears that most people believe they are the exception to the rule. Other people, less intelligent than myself, are influenced by the news, but not me.
EVERYTHING IS SPIRITUAL FORMATION
I imagine that there may be some who are confused by the title of this article. Isn’t spiritual formation things like prayer, retreats, and disciplines like fasting? Of course, but let’s remember that, in this gloriously complex life the Lord has bestowed upon us, there is no such thing as a sacred/secular divide and there is no such thing as neutral. Life is sacramental, meaning that the spiritual and the material are two sides of the same coin, they are indivisible, inseparable. We know this existentially even if we do not know it intellectually. We sense this in the birth of a child, the wedding of loved ones, the lingering conversation over wine with dear friends, and a crackling fire outside under the stars. These are material events and yet something mysteriously spiritual is taking place as well. It is no wonder that the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion retain their power and significance in the life of the church - they point us towards the reality that all of life is both spiritual and physical.
Additionally, from a Biblical perspective, all spiritual things can be divided into that which honors and gives allegiance to the Lord Jesus and that which denies and rebels against him. If all spiritual things are either for Christ or against Christ, and all of life is spiritual - then there is no neutral territory. There are no neutral actions, no neutral words, no neutral influences.
Therefore, not only is watching or reading the news an act of spiritual formation, but given the weight of influence it holds in so many of our lives; it is growing to become, if not the most significant, at least in the top three most significant molders or shapers of who we are becoming.
Here’s another way to say the same thing: everything in your life is shaping and molding you both physically and spiritually, including the news.
THE NEWS AS A KIND OF GNOSTICISM
Before we go any further, it’s worth asking ourselves, “Why is the news so enthralling for us?” It doesn’t seem rational. We turn on the television, log onto our preferred websites, read daily, curated email news summaries… and it’s mostly depressing fare. So why do we keep coming back?
One theory to consider is that most news sources present themselves as a kind of Gnostic Gospel. For those of us who may be a little rusty on our church history, gnosticism began as a second century Christian spin-off that was soon identified as a heresy because it invited people to trust, not in repentance of sin and salvation in Christ, but in a kind of special, mystical knowledge or esoteric insight. A practicing gnostic believes that they are more enlightened than others—they have a special kind of insight that others do not have.
This is, in a sense, what contemporary news proposes to offer us. The news says to us, “It’s a big, complicated world out there and people are trying to take advantage of you. Come to us and we’ll give you the inside scoop. If you subscribe to us, you’ll be one of the enlightened few and not part of the mob of fools.” The news offers a kind of salvation through special knowledge.
THE NEWS AS TEMPTATION TO BE LIKE GOD
Let’s take things a step deeper. The news offers a sub-strain of the same temptation presented to the first humans in the Garden of Eden: the temptation to “be like God.” How? It has always been the sole purview of God to know all things happening in all places, to be omnipresent and omniscient. Humans, on the other hand, are finite creatures. We can only be in one place at one time and we can only know a few things, not all things. Therefore, in our human finitude, we only have the capacity to care about a few things, not all things. Historically, for most human beings, those few things were limited, almost exclusively, to local events. Almost all news for almost all people has, historically speaking, been local news - not national or international news. The average farmer in Minnesota was not asked to know or care about events in Nepal, or Seattle, or Texas. The average restaurateur in New Orleans would know far more about the happenings in her neighborhood than the happenings in Washington D.C.
Our contemporary news sources present our finiteness as a problem to be overcome. We are told that we will (gasp!) be uninformed if we are not tuned in to the latest goings-on all over the world. If we have imbibed the gnostic gospel of enlightenment through special insight, then there is nothing worse than being uninformed - deprived of special insight. And so we are told we must know what is happening, we must transcend our local and become global, we must leave behind the darkness of “not-knowing” and enter the light of “breaking stories.” We must, in short, become like God: knowing and caring about everything.
It’s a heady tonic. This is why watching or reading the news makes us feel important. There is something god-like about having access to so much information about people we’ve never met, places we’ve never been, and events that have nothing to do with us.
TELL ME, WHAT IS THE USE OF INACTIONABLE NEWS?
Which brings me to my point and question: Tell me, what is the use of inactionable news? By this I mean: news about which you can do nothing. Most news is bad: an earthquake, a hurricane, a murder, a scandal; and most news is inactionable—there is nothing you can do to impact the troubling situation. If ingesting news is spiritual formation, what does ingesting all this inactionable bad news form in you?
Anxiety—The sheer quantity of evil in the world being pumped at you everyday like a firehose to the face will not leave you more peaceable, more content, or more joyful. Rather, the steady hum of anxiety will begin to permeate your experience.
Loss of Agency—Moreover, because you are growing accustomed to hearing about problems you can’t fix and suffering people you can’t help, a deep feeling of having lost agency settles in.
Anger—Which, for anyone with a moral compass, leads to anger. The built-in, image-of-God, sense of justice within you rises up in rage against the bad guys.
Hate—Anger is like the evaporated alcohol that rises from fermenting grain. Over time, it can be distilled and bottled into hate.
This is why Christians who watch or read a lot of news usually end up hating, and not loving, their neighbor. They have been spiritual formed (deformed) by truckloads of voyeuristic, inactionable, horror stories that have framed a worldview in which they are part of a small, heroic, minority of good people at war against powerful multitudes of the ignorant (at best) or the wicked (at worst).
So, again, the question: What is the use of inactionable news?
It does not assist me in loving the Lord our God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.
It does not assist me in loving my neighbor as myself.
Therefore, it is of no use.
THE OBJECTION
“But!” You say. “Are you suggesting we should withdraw from society? Retreat? Huddle in Christian enclaves where we seek shelter from the world?” Quite the opposite in fact. I would counsel that the news only gives the illusion of engagement and thus inoculates you against actual engagement with the world.
You, my friend, are a finite creature.
No matter what grandiose claims the internet makes, you may only inhabit one space at one time.
No matter what the news insists, you cannot know everything or care about everything.
I’ll take it one step further, you should not seek to know everything or care about everything because you should not aspire to be like God.
Your opportunity for obedience to God is a local opportunity. Therefore, the primary news that should matter to a Christian is local news. By local news I do not mean state government or city council, that is still largely inactionable news for most of us with the exception of casting the occasional vote. By local news I mean something intensely local.
News about a neighbor with a cancer diagnosis.
News about the young couple that lives down the street having their first child.
News about someone in the church who has lost their job.
News about someone’s coworker visiting church for the first time.
This is actionable, human news for the average human. You may respond, as a human, to news like this. This news presents you with an opportunity to love, to pray, to serve, or to celebrate at the human level (which, I’ll remind you, is the only level at which you can do anything at all).
As you respond to such local news, a different kind of formation will go to work within you. Anxiety will be replaced with confidence, helplessness with initiative, anger with delight, and hate with love.
CONCLUSION
The chorus of John Prine’s “Spanish Pipedream” gets it half-right:
Blow up your TV, throw away the paper
Move to the country, build you a home
Plant you a garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try to find Jesus on your own.
Perhaps we might rework it just a bit:
Turn off your TV, close your computer
Stay where you are, make it a home
Get to know your neighbors, invite ‘em all over
Take the love of Jesus and make it known.
In the Father’s love,
