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The advertisement in the airline flight magazine shows a smug CEO who boasts, "I 'read' 15 books on my flight from New York to L.A!" Thanks to a book-synopsis service, the busy executive can get the gist of leading bestsellers in minutes. Increasingly, magazine articles come with brief abstracts for readers in a hurry. Newspapers and even weekly news magazines have fallen victim to Mc-journalism first introduced by USA Today.

We live in an age of exploding information and expanding communications technology. Not surprisingly, we also live in an age of "information anxiety," the fear that one will become hopelessly out of touch with the postmodern juggernaut. In New York, Washington, and Los Angeles, the upwardly mobile dare not show their faces in public without a quick perusal of the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, or Variety. These publications define the "reality" of their respective professional communities.

Every pastor, teacher, parent, and mature apprentice of Jesus needs to develop a cultural radar. A system of reading and reflection helps us master the proliferation of information we encounter daily, decide what is important, and evaluate its meaning.

A meaningful cultural radar needs to be reasonable in its demands on time and money. It needs to touch on all aspects of cultural formation, specifically those that are outside of one's particular interests or professional responsibility—politics, economics, sociology, and technology must all be covered. Elite culture must be balanced with popular culture, fringe with mainstream, and traditional with futuristic.

We can each develop our own cultural radar, but over the years, I've found the following resources to be particularly fruitful sources of information and perspective. In my opinion, these cultural resources should be in every Christian college and seminary library, every pastor's study, and in the home of every thoughtful layperson.

* The Wilson Quarterly (800-829-5108; $24) is the publication of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. It is a "newsmagazine of the world of ideas," particularly new understandings. Lengthy articles are combined with thoughtful book and periodical reviews and reports on current research.

* Utne Reader (800-736-8863 or www.utne. com; $19.97) is a bimonthly compilation of the alternative press: Think of it as an alternative Reader's Digest. (Some original material is included as well.) Culling from a wide range of periodicals and 'zines, it provides a synthesis of alternative, progressive, and libertarian viewpoints. In short, this is the voice of those who question authority. Each issue focuses on a particular theme, such as "The Future of Love," "Cyberhood vs. Neighborhood," or "Who Cares About the Kids?" The magazine seeks to identify subjects that are being debated in the alternative press long before they surface in daily newspapers and the evening news.

* First Things (800-783-4903; $29) is the inspiration of Richard John Neuhaus and is the voice of the Institute on Religion and Public Life. Since its inception, it has grown in stature to be one of the most important commentaries on public life from the perspective of orthodox faith. Conservative in its political perspectives and moderately Catholic in its leanings, but with substantial contributions from evangelical and Jewish thinkers, it has become the voice for the "public intellectual" concerned to "advance a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society." Each issue contains book reviews as well as an idiosyncratic survey of religion and public life by Father Neuhaus.

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April 28 1997, Vol. 41, No. 5