A couple of weeks someone I know asked me with a very concerned look on their face how I was doing. Initially, I thought this was because of the recent LA fires. However, after some brief back and forth, I soon realized that their concern had to do with all the recent actions of the new Trump administration. She, along with many others, was concerned with all that the Trump administration had done, and understandably so. However, I admitted that I hadn’t been paying attention simply because my wife and I were doing our best to stay above water with our three crazy girls. In addition to this, being a bi-vocational pastor, just as I am done with one responsibility like prep for my college class, I just as quickly have to start researching and writing Sunday’s sermon. I should also add that these two worlds that I occupy on a daily basis couldn’t be more different. One is a small church with mostly older people connected to the conservative LCMS, while the other is a good-sized “prestigious” university with mostly young people connected to liberal academia. Ironically, in most of my interactions with members and students, politics or current political events come up far less than one would think. I don’t think it’s because most are purposely avoiding these things; rather, I think it’s because we have other things that take up our time and attention, right, wrong, or otherwise. At least, that is how it is for me. Mind you, I don’t write this with some sort of pride, just that this interaction made me realize how much we are influenced by outside factors that may not necessarily have an immediate effect on our day-to-day lives. Please know I do not intend to be insensitive to the plight of others, but these dynamics reveal how easily outside forces can influence and manipulate us. To my thinking, what makes it even worse is that we are less likely to consider that we are the ones being manipulated or propagandized. In the cultural moment, this leads me to conclude that something is not right, that something is deeply amiss in how we understand the world around us.
With these things in mind, I feel compelled to share an incredibly impactful experience I had about six years ago in the ministry I served at that time. Our school ended up all over the news, both local and national, because one of our teachers did a mock slave trial with her students. That this was problematic was obvious. However, what was deeply disturbing to me was how inaccurate the media reports were concerning the school and its demographic makeup. What the various reports latched onto was the fact that the school was in an affluent area that was predominantly white. However, what was not reported on was the fact that despite being in an affluent area, the school did not really serve that immediate community but instead the surrounding areas of Yonkers, Mount Vernon, and New Rochelle. All of these communities are much more middle-class, working-class, and non-white. What the reports also did not bother looking into was the fact that the school’s student body was close to 50% non-white. All these facts were easily attainable with a bit of digging; however, what became clear was that the agenda was not fact-finding but narrative-pushing. Witnessing and providing a personal window into the media apparatus that claims so vehemently to be trustworthy was deeply disconcerting. Hearkening to Noam Chomsky it very much impressed me upon how consent is indeed manufactured. Since 2003 and the lead-up to the War in Iraq, I have often operated with a hermeneutic of suspicion concerning the media apparatus, but this made me truly believe that much of what is reported is mostly not true. At one point during that time, I even had someone reach out about “diversity” officer needs because of the reporting, realizing that they had no clue how diverse we already were. Due to no fault of their own, it was the media reports that led them to believe we were a homogenous community when we actually weren’t.
For me, this experience begged the question: is watching the news worthwhile or paying attention to various news outlets worth it? Because if they are this irresponsible here, why wouldn’t they be this way with so much else? Certainly, the media apparatus operates with a certain level of power and authority, even with a certain spirituality underlying it that we so easily overlook as modern people. I am not so sure we realize just how powerful of a force the media apparatus is in our lives and how ubiquitous it is. It is simply part of the world we inhabit, whether on the TV screens of the local eatery, the home page of our computer, or on the YouTube or Facebook apps on our phones. Sadly, to realize this, we have to slow down and become mindful of our surroundings, which is no easy feat.
To use a less polarizing example, wildfires raged through two areas in Los Angeles just a month ago. I first learned about the fires not because I live near them, but from people back east texting to see if we were okay. They knew about the fires before I did because of the news. Nestled down in South Orange County, I had no clue because the smoke never made its way down by us and because I hadn’t been paying attention to the news that evening and the following morning. When I went up to LA the next day to the church I serve, it was only apparent then because I was actually closer to the fires. I could see the smoke, and I could smell the smoke. It had become real. Yet, later that day, I went back home to clear blue skies in Orange County, which remained for the rest of the week. What struck me about this experience is how, if it were a century ago, I wouldn’t have had a clue that there were fires raging up in LA. Maybe a month later, I would have learned the news, but the immediate sense of danger brought by a screen would not have been there. What stayed with me about this experience is while the media apparatus has the ability to bring us closer together in positive ways, it more often takes us away from the beauty and needs of the present moment which is all we really have. It can take us away from the immediacy of the actual world in which we reside. It can take us away from the concrete and into anxious abstraction where worry about the future, which usually never materializes, is paramount. I wonder if it’s this dynamic that we really need to pay close attention to and be mindful of. The media apparatus has the power to convince us that reality is a certain way, to drum up our fear and anxiety, to make us burdened by a FOMO spirit and notions that we may be on the wrong side of history if we don’t pay attention or don’t somehow act. But what if this is simply part of a big lie? A lie meant to take us away from the present moment, feed our discontentment, and play on our false desires for control, predictability, and self-importance?
It is well-known that the Apostle Paul spoke about the struggle against the spiritual forces of evil. It is also known that Paul spoke of the call for non-conformity of Christians in this present evil age, too. It would be easy to use these emphases of Paul to support staying in the know or to become completely passive but his words are more nuanced than that. In fact, Paul’s encouragement to non-conformity is followed by words about loving one’s enemies, holding fast to what is good, leaving wrath to God, and overcoming evil with good. It is fascinating to me that Paul wrote these words to the church in Rome, which grappled with terrible mistreatment from both the Romans and their Jewish brethren. They certainly would have been justified in striking back. However, Paul calls for something different. I wonder if this might be a place we could draw from for sustenance and clarity amid this current cultural climate. Reorienting ourselves to our immediate and present contexts but with the Way of Jesus as our referent point, not ABC Nightly News or some YouTube media personality. Nonetheless, the call to non-conformity and not succumbing to this present evil age is ever before us. So much of what we take for granted, like the media apparatus, can all too easily be assumed to be a good, but is it? What if it might do us well to step away from it? What if doing so might actually be an act of faithfulness to “the Way”?
The featured cartoon is by Alfredo Garzon.
A Foolish Way 