A Christian Assessment of News Consumption (with Jeffrey Bilbro)

August 15, 2022August 15, 2022Kirk E. Miller

In a world in which our consumption of news is increasingly polarized and sensational, and disinformation is all too common, how do we combat such unhealthy habits to form a better relationship with the news? And what, after all, is the news even for? What is a particularly Christian mode of engaging and consuming news? In his book, Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry Into the News, Jeffrey Bilbro provides a theological, even historical, perspective on the function and impact of the news in our lives, a diagnosis of our problem, and a reframing of how we might construct alternative practices.

Access the episode here. (Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.)

Some key concepts and ideas from the book:

“Macademized minds” (or fragmented attention)

Our attentions are overloaded; we are unable to attend in meaningful ways because there’s too much to attend to.

As a result, presentations of the news become competingly sensational in order to compete for our distracted attention.

Thus, we need to develop better habits for shaping what we give our attention to.

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Cultivating Wisdom in the Information Age (with Brett McCracken)

February 14, 2022February 21, 2022Kirk E. Miller

Do you ever feel like the constant bombardment of technology and social media is making us dumber, or maybe even more foolish? Or does truth feel ever more elusive to you in an age of increasing options, viral conspiracy theories, and personally curated newsfeeds? How are we to navigate this post-truth world? Brett McCracken joins Kirk for a conversation about his most recent book, The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World. Listen in as Brett gives us guidance on finding wisdom and feeding our souls amidst the information gluttony, perpetual novelty, and “look within” autonomy.

Access the episode here. (Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.)

Ecclesiology (Church) in the Midst of a Pandemic (Coronavirus, Ep. 3)

March 19, 2020May 6, 2021Kirk E. Miller

As churches move online in the face of Sunday closures, it should cause us to ask, “What is the church in the midst of a pandemic?” Our current circumstances raise questions about what it means to be the church–questions that have always existed, with an underlying theology that’s always been at play, but are now being forced into our immediate purview in light of our situation.

Access the episode here (available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more).

See all episodes in this series.

This episode is brought to you by Logos Bible Software, with special discounts available to listeners of this podcast.

Reflections on the Use of Social Media in Controversial Subject Matters

November 1, 2016November 25, 2017Kirk E. Miller

For myself, I’ve only posted a handful of posts directly related to this election; but the ones that I have posted have seemed to gather a lot of attention, and not always the best sort. So it’s given me some pause…

The intensely public nature of social media, which makes it an amazing tool and opportunity to reach a large audience, simultaneously can make it a terrible forum for discussing sensitive topics. Its “melting pot” nature is not particularly suiting for “in house” discussions. It’s a forum that easily yields misunderstanding. And it’s also impersonal, which means it doesn’t always bring out our best, since we can hide behind our keyboards.

These two realities create something of a tension of interests for me — a great opportunity on the one hand; and a danger on the other. I’ve been wrestling through this tension a lot as of late.

Another tension I feel is the divided results of such posts. Those same posts that seem to inflame and do no good simultaneously seem to benefit others greatly. Unfortunately, often times its the less-than-beneficial sort of stuff that seems to occur in the comments. That’s where things seem to get nasty most of the time. And it’s public. But for as many negative responses I’ve witnessed, I’ve had a counterbalancing amount of amazingly constructive and positive conversations and responses in messages, over the phone, and in person. So, this is another tension over which I’m wrestling.

I’m trying to wrestle through this. If I have in any way failed to strike that balance, I apologize.

For the encouragement some of you have expressed and the constructive conversations that were had, I’m grateful. The rest, I find regrettable. And that’s not meant to be in reference to any of you; I’m talking about what’s on me (my responsibility) as the one posting. It’s given me pause and making me reconsider.

Some Thoughts on Social Media

November 27, 2012January 5, 2015Kirk E. Miller 8 Comments

Disclaimer: Please note, by pointing out the following, I do not mean to suggest that I have used social media perfectly at all times. These are simply some observations and lessons learned from my own personal experience.

Pros

First and foremost, most people enjoy social media because we are social people and we like to stay in touch.
The tremendous opportunity and potential:
- Our culture is extremely bound up with social media. (If you disagree, you’re living under a rock; sorry.) Therefore, for Christians to abandon this new realm of social media would be, in a large sense, to disengage themselves from a significant sphere of our culture.
- In a similar way to how Christians used the invention of the printing press to advance the Gospel and Biblical thinking, the emergence of social media (obviously less significant than the invention of the printing press, but nonetheless–) provides us with a tremendous tool to do the same–advance the Gospel and Biblical thinking. Social media can be used to challenge and encourage other Christians and articulate the Gospel and other biblical truths to the lost. By simply creating a Facebook account, Twitter account, etc. (and assuming that you have some people who will “add” or “follow” you), you automatically have a “platform of influence,” a “public voice,” at least on some level. Whereas in previous times, to get something in print on a public level was somewhat difficult, now anyone can do it, which is both scary (con) and amazing (pro).