Minding the Gap

We won’t solve our problems by retreating to the extremes.

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Of all the reader responses to former editor in chief Mark Galli’s editorial on President Donald Trump last year, the most encouraging of those disagreed graciously. “We feel differently,” they said. “But we have benefited from CT for decades. We can handle the occasional disagreement.”

Little did we know, in the waning days of December, what challenges the new year would bring. A contagion swept the planet and forced entire cities to a standstill. Then a series of events ripped open the wounds of our racial history and provoked months of civil unrest. Which is to say nothing of a string of historic natural disasters.

But what has made all these things more painful is the rift in our social fabric. Suffering is lighter when borne together, in a sense of neighborly love and common cause. Yet we cannot suffer together when we blame one another for the suffering. Everything from the fundamental science of the pandemic and the practice of wearing masks to the persistence of racial inequality and the need for law enforcement has become battlegrounds of partisan animosity.

The evolution of media has shaped those battlegrounds. The typical media consumer today has thousands of sources at her fingertips for news and opinion. In the democratized digital marketplace, anyone with a social media account can build a platform.

The positives in these developments are undeniable. Powerful stories that earlier might never have seen the light of day now can spread instantly to everyone. Important voices that might never have made it past the old media gatekeepers can now shape the world. The same digital networks that carry conspiracy theories and pornography also carry praise songs and sermons and Bible translations, expose dictators, educate pastors, and reach the lost in some of the most remote and repressive places on the planet.

Yet the negatives are significant, and they go beyond conspiracy theories and pornography. The competition for audience share is fierce, and the tides of human attention flow all too naturally toward that which offers instant and uncomplicated gratification. Content that is immediate, hyperbolic, and hyper-partisan carries the day. Thoughtful interpreters of culture are replaced by conspiracy-mongers, scorn merchants, and torchers of straw men. This impoverishes social discourse and leaves many isolated in separate media spheres that fail to challenge or broaden horizons.

Unfortunately, at precisely the moment we need media to model balance, nuance, and charitable disagreement, even some of the most venerable media institutions plunge in the opposite direction. Editors with the temerity to publish dissenting viewpoints are voted off the island, and the institutions that once employed them become smaller and more extreme. It’s easier to bear the torch for the tribe than it is to build a fire and invite the tribes together.

As a consequence, Americans today occupy dramatically different informational worlds. If you draw your news from one set of sources, then America is under threat from hordes of ignorant and hateful conservatives. If you draw your news from another set, then America is dissolving into chaos at the hands of Marxists, global elites, and the despisers of Christianity. We cannot come together on solutions if we cannot agree on the nature of the problems in the first place.

The solution is not to return to a pre-internet era, when a narrow set of people—who were often unfriendly toward Christian concerns—tell the stories of the world. The solution is to renew our commitment as a people to gracious and loving public engagement. CT will remain a magazine that affirms the essential convictions of the evangelical Christian faith but also stretches our thinking and challenges our complacency. We do not agree with every piece we publish. Listening and conversing well are dying arts, but they are essential to a life marked by the grace of Jesus Christ.

We can handle the occasional disagreement. In this season of division and rancor, we pray that Christians, followers of a Savior who engaged the faithful and the unfaithful, the insiders and the ostracized, the rabbis and the heretics, can model what it means to listen with love and disagree with grace.

Timothy Dalrymple is president and CEO of Christianity Today. Follow him on Twitter @TimDalrymple_.

Also in this issue

Raphael Warnock, the pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church who’s now running for US Senate, talked about his calling into politics as a Christian. He said, “my impact doesn’t stop at the church door. That’s actually where it starts.” That approach to living out the gospel extends across generations and segments of society in Atlanta. In this month’s cover package, we hear from pastors, politicians, and entrepreneurs—black Christian leaders whose faith calls them back into their communities in the diverse hometown of Martin Luther King Jr.

Cover Story

Atlanta Beyond MLK: How Black Christians Continue a Civil Rights Legacy

Cover Story

The Black Church Is Atlanta’s Original Community Organizer

Cover Story

Racial Reconciliation Is Still a Dream for Atlanta Christians

Cover Story

How Black-Owned Businesses Bless Atlanta

Sign Language Bible Complete After 39 Years

News

The Next Mission Field Is a Game

News

Who Will Help Gen Z with Anxiety, Depression, Suicide? Youth Pastors Turn to Counseling.

News

Gleanings: October 2020

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When It Comes to Sacrifice, God Doesn’t Play Fair

The Best Way to Memorize Scripture Has Little to Do with Learning Words

Testimony

I Took Drugs to a Church Conference. Then God Found Me.

Your Devotional Is Not a Bible

Excerpt

Churches: Don’t Worship—or Serve—Until You’re Blue in the Face

Editorial

Christianity Is About Systemic Change

Our October Issue: Atlanta’s Black Church

Good News: Tomorrow We Die

Pursuing Racial Justice Requires More Than Lament, but Never Less

Review

Marilynne Robinson’s Latest Novel Probes the Mysteries of Predestination and Grace

Review

Jesus Is Your Lord and Savior. Is He Also Your Philosopher King?

New & Noteworthy Books

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The Bulletin welcomes Lucy Jones for a conversation with Clarissa Moll on the neuroscience and social transformation of motherhood. 

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I Demolished My Faith for ‘My Best Life.’ It Only Led to Despair.

Queer love, polyamory, and drugs ruined me. That’s where Jesus found me.

The Book Screwtape Feared Most

Once a bedrock Christian classic, Boethius’s “Consolation of Philosophy” has been neglected for decades. It’s time for a revival.

Being Human

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The Song of Mary Still Echoes Today

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The Surprising Arrival of a Servant

Jesus’ introduction of justice through gentleness.

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