This book is an excellent prompt to think more deeply about the news, the information we consume, and how and why we do so. God’s word calls us to an eternal perspective that places Jesus Christ as the turning point of history. Yet, in an age surrounded by newsfeeds, social media, opinions, tweets, and videos, it is hard to remember this eschatological vision. As Thoreau said, “Read not the Times. Read the Eternities”.
Bilbro helps us consider how we might do this. His purpose is to think theologically about how Christians should consume the news. But thinking leads to action, and he encourages the reader to use the news in ways that focus us on the work of the Word and loving our neighbours. He explores three areas - attention, time, and community. In each, he considers the current landscape, proposes a theological answer often using examples from history, and provides some practical ways to live it out.
Attention
In essence, our minds are being filled with numerous, trivial, and mostly unimportant pieces of information. This leads to boredom and dis-ease, makes us vulnerable to other strong opinions, and warps our emotional sensibilities - directing us to care about far-away events which do not impact us, while giving little heed to our close neighbours’ needs.
His solution - focus on one or two issues that strike you as important and that are important to God:
“Perhaps we need to conduct an emotional audit and consider which issues or news items caused 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?”
“A contemplative response to the news, then, depends on eschatological hope, on fixing one’s identity in a victory that lies outside the vicissitudes of daily news and politics.”His suggestions - read deeply, not shallowly. Focus on the things in your life that are important in the world that you inhabit.
“Perhaps the news to which we most need to attend won't be found on social media feed or the front page of any paper. Instead, it's the cry of a baby who needs a diaper changed. It's the bubbles bursting from a pot that needs to be stirred… These are the news alerts, the “push notifications,” to which we can respond with skill. And such work inculcates a properly responsible attention, an attention that seeks to lovingly care for the needs at hand.”Time
Using the different categories of kairos and chronos in time, Bilbro draws the distinction between two categories of time. Kairos is more rhythmic, cyclical and seasonal; it is more about time to act or time to plant. Chronos is more a quantifiable duration, something that is linear, and often is applied to the forward march of a society.
Christians can risk conflating redemptive time with the advance of chronological time, leading some to identify with their values being on the ‘right side’ of history, yet,
“the arc of history does not bend towards the Roman eagle or liberal democracy; rather, all its events relative to the crucified and risen Word. And Christians must learn to read the events of chronos in that light.”Bilbro encourages an appreciation of literature and art that incorporates a sense of God‘s timing rather than just human chronological timing. Such an approach requires depth and time which may be hard, but is worthwhile.
“If your response to the news fits perfectly within any partisan narrative - whether a nostalgic longing to restore some idyllic time or a woke fury at those on the wrong side of history - it’s unlikely to be keyed to God’s eschatological victory.”
Community
News and information operate within the public sphere, and they have three prominent features being secular, metatopical, and market-based. The more fascinating concept was Bilbro’s assertion that a community formed through the digital public sphere is almost evitably a swarm, and
“Because swarms simply respond to stimuli, they can't coordinate or sustain the patient, difficult work of love and care.”Some proposed solutions have been fact checking and diversifying our news feeds, but these don’t make much difference for those who are well informed often remain one-sided and reading other’s opinions can just lead to confirmation bias. More importantly however, these don’t address core issues:
“What we really need is to be shaped by embodied communities that are rooted outside the public sphere and its unhealthy dynamics”He encourages adopting practices or liturgies that reshape our intuitions and belonging, giving two principles: faithful joining (be in your community, even just walking around it), and redemptive publishing (participate in media in ways that counter its warping pressures).
In some ways, the depth of his analysis leads to an expectation of more detailed and complex solutions. Bilbro’s way forward almost seems simplistic. Yet, I think they are designed to ground us and show us that it’s not that hard or overwhelming to change our perspective and approach.
I found myself pondering how many people today are following news or information. My observation is that many follow feeds that have no real content at all. Not news, but empty memes, jokes, personal anecdotes, and life hacks. Lives are filled with the emptiness of other people’s lives. This might make it easier to disengage from other people’s trivia, but it clearly has a pull on many.
This is intelligent and wise writing that prompts thoughtful action in a sphere that we are all continuously learning to navigate.
