“I feel like it was changing me.”
I’m meeting Mark for the first time at a church event and find myself in a conversation about Christians and the news. He’s telling me about his love-hate relationship with the headlines — how he began listening to different sources during his 30-minute commute, how it started as a simple desire to be informed, and how it devolved into a habit that made him an angrier version of himself. How it changed him. And how he’s since gone cold turkey.
Why do politicians, wars, and the general off-kilter-ness of the world always come up when I first meet someone, you ask? Fair question. I’m a writer for The Pour Over, a news resource that’s helping people build a spiritually healthy relationship with the news.
I meet a lot of people like Mark (and used to be a news addict myself), and our inbox is full of stories of (mostly Christian) people whose news consumption has gone to one of two extremes: “I feel guilty because I have no idea what’s going on in the world,” or, “I have an obsessive relationship with the news, and it leaves me angry and anxious.”
Does it have to be this way?
You probably know my answer. But let me explain.
The Case for News Consumption
If the news is usually divisive, doomy and gloomy, or drivel (or some combination), why bother with it at all? I can think of at least three reasons:
- Your neighbors care. Like a parent might suddenly gain an interest in FootGolf to connect with a teenager they love, learning about the things your neighbors care about will help you connect with them (1 Corinthians 9:19-23).
- You may need to respond. If there’s a hurricane coming your way, you want to prepare. If you’re about to vote, you need to know the issues on the ballot. If there’s an opportunity to meet an urgent need in your community, you want to hear about it. Believers are called to care for our temporary home, seeking the common good while we wait for our permanent home (Jeremiah 29:7; 1 Peter 2:11-12). We can’t effectively seek this home’s good if we don’t know what’s going on.
- You have an opportunity to shape the conversation. Without Christians representing Christ in how we engage with the news and relate with our neighbors, we cede that arena to the world as if the gospel has nothing to do with it. No. Knowing Jesus transforms everything, including how we engage with the headlines. We can bless the world and highlight the excellence of Christ by walking in a better way.
A Better Way to Stay Informed
There’s a better way — a spiritually healthy, fruit-of-the-Spirit-bearing, God-honoring way for Christians to be informed. Here are the hallmarks of that way:
Brevity
Less news is better (unless you’re getting zero).
If you’re spending an hour every day consuming the news and only 10 minutes pursuing Christ, that’s off balance. If you’re listening to hours of CNN or Fox News or scrolling to find out what an influencer thinks and then maybe fitting in a 5-minute Bible reading, whose disciple are you?
We justify this attention imbalance by wanting to find the definitive Christian stance on everything. But God does not call us to that. He calls us to know him, not to know every issue. To seek him and recognize his voice, not to have all the answers. Jesus, our Shepherd, says, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27 NIV).
The Savior’s voice must be the loudest and most influential in your life, with the concerns of his kingdom — not this world’s — ranking highest (Colossians 3:1-2; Philippians 3:20-21).
Keep in mind the purpose of your news consumption, and then take the minimum amount of time needed to accomplish that goal. You can learn what’s on your neighbors’ minds, take necessary action, and point people to Christ with about 5-10 minutes of news every day. Sure, maybe there’s an issue that particularly tugs at your heart, and you take a deeper dive. But that’s the exception, not the rule.
Learn what you need to know from the media voices competing for your attention, then quiet them so you can listen to your Shepherd.
Levity
Believers can approach the day’s headlines with light-heartedness and peace because we have an unshakable hope.
Those who live without hope are grave and pessimistic about the news of the day, fearing a dark and uncertain future. The stakes are high because their only hope is a happy and comfortable life on earth. But believers in Jesus can approach even the darkest headlines with peace because we know how this story ends (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14).
In our news consumption, believers must make an effort to keep the big things big and the small things small. The headlines that shake the world today will probably be forgotten next month. And when we’re with Christ 5,000 years from now, how much less will they matter? But the “small” things that don’t make the headlines — the mundane acts of loving God and our neighbors — will be the ones that matter into eternity.
Believers can find humor and joy even in the headlines, remembering that the things that seem so weighty today are just a passing mist (Ecclesiastes 2:24-26; James 4:13-15). Joy and peace are fruits of the Spirit; seriousness and fear are not.
Dignity
Every name in the headlines is an image-bearer of God.
The two-part command that sums up the mandate of believers is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37, 39 NIV). The radical part of this command is that your “neighbor” includes your enemies — whether ethnic, religious, political, or otherwise (Matthew 5:44; Luke 10:25-37).
This leaves no room for disrespecting or disparaging people in the news. By all means, use your discernment to judge between wisdom and foolishness, good and evil. But even as you pursue righteousness in your positions, believers do not have leeway to neglect love in our posture.
That politician pursuing policies you disagree with is a person made in God’s image whom God loves. Your neighbor displaying a different candidate’s yard sign is an individual motivated by their own fears and convictions, a broken person (like you and me) in need of mercy. Even that terrorist across the world — gulp — is not excluded from God’s love or ours.
Don’t immerse yourself in news that indulges in name-calling and shaming. Seek sources that steelman differing perspectives, seeking understanding with compassion.
Good News
A spiritually healthy relationship with the news starts with limited consumption, eternal perspective, and respect for others.
The Pour Over has been presenting the news with brevity, levity, and dignity for six years, striving to keep our subscribers informed and focused on Christ. This other way of doing news is resonating with frustrated believers who just want to learn the facts, remember the Lord, and move on with their mission.
The disciple’s goal is becoming more like Jesus and making him known. As Paul urges us, we seek to “be transformed by the renewing of [our] mind” rather than being “conformed to the pattern of this world” (Romans 12:2 ESV). So we don’t settle for consuming the news in worldly patterns: emotional manipulation, anxiety about things we can’t control, short-term focus, hatred toward those who threaten our comfort, and so on.
I hope you’ll join the 1 million+ people now reading along with The Pour Over so we can meet again in your inbox on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. But even more, I hope you’ll refuse to settle for worldly patterns of news consumption and run to Christ for the renewing of your mind.
Steph is a writer for The Pour Over, which helps over 1 million believers maintain a healthy relationship with the news. She lives in Omaha with her husband, Andrew, and they have two daughters and a son on the way.
