"Reading the Times" (Jeffrey Bilbro)

TITLE: Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News
AUTHOR: Jeffrey Lyle Bilbro
PUBLISHER: Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2021, (208 pages).
 

A few decades ago, we receive news via the radio or the daily printed newspaper. We hear the daily digest or news bites with the radio and for more details, we open up the editorial pages or the news reports for both local and foreign news. Then comes the Internet. Our hunger for news and information remains but the medium we use differs. This also coincides with the cellphone revolution accompanied by the rise of social media platforms. The new technological landscape has also broken up the dominion of the humble newspaper or printed magazines. Now, we read news snippets via short texts such as Instagram, Tik-Tok or Twitter; and longer pieces via blogs or websites. For information that matters to friends, we might opt for FaceBook. We look for jobs via LinkedIn, read books on electronic devices, do quick updates on Twitter, and watch videos on YouTube, and many more. When freedom of the press meets freedom of individual expression, everybody becomes a reporter, an editor, and sometimes, an expert. In such a decentralized environment, it becomes more challenging to sieve out the truth from falsehood. Even celebrity gossip and news opinions have become so decentralized that the world sees only specific angles from any one social media user. On the topic of news, Bilbro raises several specific questions on reading the news. Underlying these is a growing awareness that our daily habits are more effective than what we say or believe. 

• What do we need to know on how to love our neighbours?
• What do we need to attend to on faithful living in our present era?
• How do we experience time?
• How should we belong to one another?

Part One of the book describes the present news landscape and why they are inadequate for neighbourly living. Bilbro begins with Thoreau's insights of a "macadamized mind," a mind that reeks of fragmented attention, susceptible to advertising gimmicks, and inability to sympathize with neighbors. He traces how "attention" is linked to the same Indo-European roots that mean "to stretch." The danger is that our minds could be altered when we allow them to attend to trivial things. He helps us understand this attention via the example of Marc Chagall's "Solitude" which is a visual expression on one who meditates on the Law day and night. In contrast to the fleeting images of our modern world which comes and goes, meditation is a spiritual discipline that helps us focus and remain rooted in something bigger than ourselves. This calls for cultivating habits of attention and discipline such as avoiding checking social media first thing in the morning or having the TV constantly running throughout the day. Refuse intellectual candy or temporal gratification. Differentiate between satisfying our appetites versus fulfilling deep longings. Filled with suggestions on how to improve our attentiveness, readers will be challenged to go against the status quo of reading modern media uncritically.

Part Two offers a theological response. Part Three suggests some practical ways in which we could read news constructively and respond appropriately. This calls for a paradigm shift from seeing time merely as chronos time but kairos time. This is like observing clock time vs compass time respectively. The former just go through the motions of the day while the latter learns to keep pace according to the level of importance and sense of call. Bilbro fills us in with historical examples that go beyond mere liberalism vs conservatism or the political left vs right battles. Truth is, both sides have glimpses of what is true plenty of biased news that tend toward falsehood. It takes a discerning mind to tell the difference. Gradually, we are guided toward the holy significance of kairos, that the "arc of history" is tilted not toward Roman nor liberal regimes, but captive to the risen Word. He calls us Christians not to replace the Word with the world. They should also resist substituting morning prayers with the newspaper. These are basic practices for the Christian to remain attentive to God's kairos. 

Part Three deals with our interactions with the public. Bilbro reminds us that our tendency toward partisanism and superficial relationships is because of our lack of community. Our social belonging is increasingly being molded by the world, especially the news we hear and read. Bilbro sketches a history of how the different media technologies have changed our social links; how we unwittingly fall into the "rationalist delusion" and that truth is found mainly in the news we read or hear. If we are not careful, our "warped dependence" on the news of today will not only tear apart the social fabric of our remaining relationships, it would damage our own sense of perception about what is Truth. 

My Thoughts

This is perhaps one of the most important books ever written to pushback on the rising militancy of radical news and social media that feeds on an illusion of "moral majority." Marshall McLuhan's "The Media is the Message" has become more pronounced than ever. The fear is that the media has evolved beyond mere message but is masqueraded as Truth. For believers to spend more time on social and mass media would be indoctrinating themselves subconsciously with the worldly values that seek to disenfranchise oneself and the community. News divides people easily into the left or the right. Even the most centralist person would tend to lean toward one side when pressed. We need to rise up against the falsehood of numbers or democratic overtures that put the benefit of the doubt on the majority. As we have known from the biblical story of the two spies (Joshua and Caleb) who said yes on entering the Promised Land, and the ten spies who said no, the majority is not always right. Jesus himself was in the minority. In fact, he was alone as he went to the cross. Standing up for the Truth is risky, and for Jesus, it is fatal. There is a raging battle going on right now. Christians need to wake up to this reality. They ought to wake up from any slumber and to be equipped with the tools as taught in the Scriptures. whether it is the armour of God, the fruit of the Spirit, the spiritual gifts, etc., the important thing is to be filled with God's Word amid the dizzying array of opinions and pluralistic thoughts. I am glad that Bilbro reminds us about morning prayers, the need to keep the Word above all else, and the practice of spiritual attention to God's timing. His liturgies of attention, of Christian time, and of Christian belonging form the trinity of what it means to read the times of today. 

Of attention, he urges us to read beyond the times of today and to embrace the significance of eternity. That means learning to be patient and not be distracted by the sensationalism of the modern press.  Learn to notice what is important. Learn to read well by cultivating an inner disposition toward significance instead of sensation. Of Christian Time, the first step is to recognize our patterns of dependence to chronos lifestyle. The next step is to move away from this paradigm toward biblical patterns. Appreciate art. Learn from history. Develop a discipline. Of Christian Belonging, take a walk to appreciate the nature of God's creation. Much of our world have been lived online, which is only a snippet of reality. 

The famous German theologian Karl Barth used to say: "Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible." That is past wisdom that continues to be relevant today. While traditional mainstream media have been roughly divided into camps on the Right, the Middle, or the Left, it is more challenging to try to classify the diverse voices in social media. Perhaps, we should rise above all of these labels and let God speak. Let God be God and everyone else, liars. May this book be a powerful resource to equip more people to discern from the Bible about Truth. Then and only then, can we truly be set free. Whether one calls this book a wake-up call or a paradigm shake-up, every Christian who uses social media or consumers modern media should read this book. For many of us, it will wake us up to see the flaws of the news we consume. For some of us, we badly need a shakeup to start realizing that the Truth is not out there in the news but to be discerned with the Word of God.

Jeffrey Bilbro is an Associate Professor of English at Spring Arbor University and an editor at the Front Porch Republic.

Rating: 4.75 stars of 5.

conrade

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This book has been provided courtesy of InterVarsity Press and NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.