Episode 086 - Jeffrey Bilbro

Speaker 0 00:00:07 Welcome to that makes total sense. A podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis resetting the Christian, aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same. Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice, but the house sometimes alludes us. That makes total sense is a way for us to get together posture ourselves as learners and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day. Hey everybody, I am just finishing up a brand new book. I'm looking at this. Jeff isn't even out yet. Speaker 1 00:00:46 No, it comes out beginning of may Speaker 0 00:00:49 At the beginning of may. I'm so excited. I'm with Jeffrey bill, bro. And he has written reading the times a literary and theological inquiry into the news, such an incredible timely book. Thanks for it, Jeff. Speaker 1 00:01:06 Yeah. Thank you. Can Speaker 0 00:01:08 You tell us, I want to get into where the book came from, but first, can you give us a little context for where you are and what you do besides, um, well, in the book you do say you read and write for a living. So can you give us a little context for what that looks like for you? Speaker 1 00:01:26 Sure. Uh, I'm an English professor, so I teach a lot of, uh, a lot of American literature and a lot of writing courses. Um, um, I'm headed to Grove city this year, so I'll be, uh, English, prophet Grove city this fall. And, uh, my first love, I guess you might say my, my main, uh, research interests revolve around Wendell Berry. Um, so this book is kind of my second book, I guess, on a, on a different topic, but most of my other work has been on Wendleberry and related questions. Speaker 0 00:01:59 So what, what drew you to Wendell Berry? Speaker 1 00:02:03 Uh, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and always enjoyed the outdoors and, um, was also Christian and, uh, cared about theology and creation. And, uh, there, there just, wasn't a lot of help and kind of linking theology of creation with my loves for that doors. And also with, uh, my affection, I guess, for rural communities, you know, a lot of writing about the outdoors is more mountain climbing and fishing and individuals in wilderness spaces. And Barry, uh, thinks a lot more about how humans are part of creation and how we can use creation. Well. So when I, when I stumbled upon a Wendleberry novel, um, he, he just sort of answered a lot of questions that were, uh, in my mind and my thinking in my mind. Um, and yeah, then I kind of fell in love. Speaker 0 00:02:55 No, that's great. I, you know, we live in Houston right now, but I grew up in Southern Oklahoma where I, you know, used to say jokingly that my family, um, my parents and my sister and I were pretty much the only ones out of my dad's side of the family who were kind of, and I'm using this in air quotes, kind of the city people. So our talent had the Walmart, but other than that, all of our, you know, aunts and uncles and cousins, they, you know, they were ranchers or they, you know, lived out in some of the surrounding, uh, not even the towns, right. There was a town close enough that had a school, but they had, you know, Anchorage and animals and all of that kind of thing. And, and I really, I'll just, I'll just comment that kind of growing up, um, from this small town that I grew up in, even to the rural parts where my cousins lived, it just felt very different, right. Speaker 0 00:03:51 Like it was just kind of a different world. And I have jokingly said about myself, like, I think I'm more suburban than I want to admit. I am like, I just kinda like to go to the store and buy my milk, you know, but I grew up with, you know, cousins who had the that's, how they got their eggs, was they had chickens, you know, and, and you went out to the pasture and you just had to watch for snakes. And that was just kind of the way that we, you know, that they grew up and that we knew when we went out there, it was just going to be a different, you know, kind of day or different kinds of weeds. Speaker 1 00:04:20 Yup. Yup. Well, I think Wendell Berry has a lot for both folks who live in the country, but also for, for, uh, people who, who love suburbia or are, are in suburbia regardless. So I think he he's widely applicable, but, but yeah, he is a remarkable guy. Speaker 0 00:04:34 Yeah. I loved his, um, the quotes that you included of his in this book. Um, but this book reading the times, it is, it is deep Jeff and, and I love it because it really is reflective. I think if we can, if we can read this book, well, I just kept feeling like I can use this too. Not as a checklist at all, but just kind of as a lens to help me view, how am I interacting with my world? How am I interacting with my news? How am I interacting with the people around me? And so before I kind of hijack that and kind of say some of the places where it really affected me, where did this book come from for you? What was the catalyst to you feeling like this was a message that needed to get out? Speaker 1 00:05:30 Yeah, well, I guess, you know, you, you write the books that you need to read, just like a preacher preaches the servants that he or she needs to hear. Um, so it's, you know, it's something that I've struggled with. And I, and also in particular, see my students struggle with, um, as smartphones have kind of taken over their lives. Um, and, and I've been doing some research over the last few years on 19th century America and print culture and how, uh, the industrialization of shifted reading practices. So I've been, that's where my mind has been on this topic. You know, how previous technological shifts have changed the dynamics of the news and changed how we, uh, how people relate to the news. And, uh, one of my friends on Twitter, uh, tweeted that, uh, Christians really need a book about how to read the news and how to think about the news. And I thought, Oh, I could write that book. Uh, and so I kind of, you know, stewed on it for a little while and then corresponded with an editor IVP. And, um, and then I sat down and tried to, to, to write it out. Speaker 0 00:06:37 Yeah. I mean, it's, it's pretty incredible, but I will say that when you, when you, when I saw the title about how to read the news, what, and you kind of alluded to this in the book, like, what I got in this book was not really what I was expecting. Right. Like, and I alluded to earlier, I was kind of expecting like a little checklist, right? Like here are the things we kind of should be, and shouldn't be doing as Christians, but you really take this under, underneath the surface. Um, and, and talk about like, what's what is going on on the inside, what's going on in our minds? How, how have we been shaped and formed, um, by how we consume the news? Speaker 1 00:07:24 Yeah. In fact, one of my friends who read it in manuscripts, he doesn't really like the title. Um, in part, because of that, he's like, like, this is sort of disingenuous. Like you are thinking, people are going to approach this thinking. It's a very practical book. I hope that it is practical. Um, but he said, it's really a book about sort of Christian, Christian, spiritual formation. Um, and I think that's true, uh, because I, I really do think that the news has a lot to do with how our souls are shaped and not just as individuals, but how as a church and as placed communities, um, we relate to people around us or people, uh, who are our digital neighbors. So yeah, I think, I think the news becomes, uh, takes such a huge role in our lives right now. And yet we don't often think about all these far reaching ramifications that it has for spiritual formation for, um, how we imagine the world we live in and, and who we imagine to be our neighbors. Speaker 0 00:08:25 Yeah, no, that's right on. Can you, I'm hoping you can elaborate a little bit on, it was really the attention grabber for me was, um, the, now I admitted to you before we started recording that I totally read this book with an open dictionary. So I'm going to try on some of these words. Um, but the <inaudible> mind, can you like go into that because I was getting a visual picture and then the book actually has an illustration of what this, um, of what this looks like on the, on the road example. But can you talk about that as far as our formation and, and what's, and what's happened and what's happening in our minds as we consume? Speaker 1 00:09:09 Yeah. Yeah. I steal that from a throw Henry David Thoreau, and he, in a lecture that he wrote kind of as a follow-up to Walden, uh, he takes on this topic of, you know, kind of the, the increasing amounts of information then in the 19th century and how all of this trivia and news can, um, distract us from really thinking about what we want to do with our lives and what we should be doing with our lives. And he says, uh, that that's when we constantly attend to trivia, we <inaudible> our minds. And what he's doing there is, as you suggest is, uh, drawing a metaphor from this relatively new road construction technique that came out of this, came out of a guy in Scotland and engineering, Scotland, where, uh, instead of beginning with big stones, the bottom of the road, and then kind of working your way up, it's just little rocks. Speaker 1 00:10:03 It's basically a gravel all the way down. And it turns out that that's more resistant to buckling under frosts and wet and thought conditions. Um, but, but Thoreau's point is that we, when we don't attend to anything for very long, we just kind of flipped from topic to topic. Then, uh, the, that it's, I mean, he's basically making the point that a lot of people like Nicholas Carr and others more recently have made, uh, from a neuroscience perspective that our, our brains are plastic and that we actually change the way that we think. Uh, and we just think in these little tweet sized bits, uh, these little chunks and, and the danger is a thorough points out that then our minds become fairly wide open, uh, freeways for whatever, uh, ideas, you know, advertisers or politicians or others want this spin send spinning down, uh, the, the roadways of our minds. So we, we become less able to critically question or, uh, push back against, um, you know, the language, the memes that, that we think with, because, um, we haven't developed the mental muscles or the mental, um, you know, uh, structures to, to think deeply about things anymore. Speaker 0 00:11:29 Yeah. That was like, that was one of those places where I was like, Oh, it's me, that's, you know, that's, that's me. And I think, but, you know, in a way, it's in a way it's all of us to a degree in less, as you suggest we intentionally do something about it. We read full books, we read long form essays. We don't just read, you know, the, but I think even, you know, when I, um, where PC users and when I open a new tab on Microsoft, the first thing that I have is, is a little, uh, ticker where it's a headline and an arrow, right. Click, click, click through, and I can see twenty-five news headlines in 25 seconds or less. Right. Just by clicking through. And then I can, I can see everything that's going on, that the ship has moved today out of the Suez canal. Speaker 0 00:12:23 I saw that. Right. I didn't even, I didn't even read the, you know, the, the entire story. Right. I just saw, you know, yesterday I was like, Oh dear, it's still there. And today I was like, Oh, okay. I guess it's moved. And this is like, you know, things that are affecting major parts of global trade. And for me, I look through and I go, Oh, it moved. Okay. Right. Like these, these very tiny news snippets that I think I have been, you know, kind of unaware. Yeah. They're kind of like building this foundation and it's like, what really do I, and it's, and I'm not being intentional about that. Right. But if I could choose what would I choose my, my kind of mental foundation to be built upon in my, in my spiritual formation to be built upon. Speaker 1 00:13:13 Yeah. And I think as you suggest, I mean, it's kind of the world we all swim in and we tend not to think about the formative aspects of those habits, that, uh, when we get our news and these little chunks, that's actually training our minds to attend and those kinds of discrete small units, uh, and then we become less able to think long thoughts or to try to, to try to stitch these different, uh, random bits of our lives together into some coherent hole. Um, so yeah, the, the, the way we think becomes different and that should, you know, on the one hand, I think it should trouble us, but also I think it should give us hope and that, uh, we're not passive. And we have the opportunity to take action and, and form our minds and our souls in different ways. Uh, and you know, that's why I throw says, this has this aphorism in that essay, that the title of my book comes from read, not the times, read the attorneys, um, that if you read things that are old and that have lasted, um, you, you can reform your mind and, um, make it more, uh, healthy. Speaker 0 00:14:21 Right. You, I, I want to, I'm probably going to get the source of the quote wrong, but it might've been CS Lewis that you were quoting about. Um, you know, Y Y like when you were talking about, why do we re need to read old things, right. Is it, is it because, you know, somehow their, their problems were better or something, I don't remember exactly the way that you phrased it, but it's just basically like, no, they were wrong. They were just wrong in different ways. Right. And so if we only read contemporary things, we're reading kind of people who reflect us in some way and of reflect our mistakes in some way. But if we read old long views from people of different times, then we get to see their mistakes and perspectives in a different way in that. And we bring that into our time and our formation. Speaker 1 00:15:07 Yeah, yeah. That is just Lewis. And I just think his point about, you know, yeah, they have blind spots too, but there are different blind spots, and we're not, we're unlikely, you know, when we read some old author who's racist or sexist or whatever, we're, we're pretty likely to be able to be like, Oh, that's a mistake. That's a problem. Right. And yet, uh, you know, maybe they, they have a ways of revealing our blind spots that our culture, uh, often doesn't help us see. So, uh, you know, Alan Jacobs has a recent book breaking bread with the dead on this theme as well. Uh, that's quite good. And just the, the importance of reading people who were wrong in different ways than we're wrong, um, and how that can really give us the kind of balance we need to, um, engage the contemporary issues of our day with greater discernment and wisdom and, and, you know, have something to say and think about what's going on now, as opposed to just what, what the general trends are. Speaker 0 00:16:05 Yeah. Um, I kind of want to go from there because I think my mind is kind of swirling around, you know, the blind spots that we have in our, um, in our current time. And, you know, to, I'm just going to repeat, and everyone is saying this right. There's a, there's a lot of polarization, uh, right now. And so it's really, we're really quick to say, well, can't you see this blind spot? Or can't, can't you see you're wrong on this. Right. Can't you see I'm right on this, but a couple of places in the book, actually, I think it was in the prologue. I'm like, Oh my goodness, you, you say belonging well, precedes thinking, well, and then near the end, you, um, talk about Augustine where he says that before he learns to think, rightly he has to learn to love rightly. And so how does that, like, when we're talking about forming, um, you know, being able to form the way we think informing our brains and this, um, McAdams minds that we, that we tend to, how does community and belonging and loving affect that and kind of vice versa? Speaker 1 00:17:24 Yeah. I mean, obviously it's a very fraught and complicated issue, but part of what I wanted to unpack is how I think it's kind of reciprocal, you know, like, uh, the, the media ecosystem, we didn't have, it tends to produce, um, the kind of polarization that we experience. And, uh, and then the kind of polarized communities tend to degrade our media ecosystem further. So it's this cycle. And I think one of the challenges is because we're individualistic culture, we tend to think, I need to come up with the right life hacks that will allow me individually to think all the right thoughts and to, you know, get the right lay of the land. And so we, we want to, you know, not be fooled and we want to do the right fact checking, and we want to, uh, diversify our news feed and we want to do all these things so that we can navigate the system as individuals as well. Speaker 1 00:18:22 Um, but yeah, I think, I think we have to recognize, uh, and I draw on yeah, people like Augustine and got them, or, and, you know, a long tradition that then is, has been sort of repackaged and, um, updated, I guess, with, uh, social science today. And, and people like Jonathan hit, uh, height and, um, uh, Daniel Kinnaman, um, on how humans actually are not in good at thinking individually and rationally, that we all rely upon these heuristics and biases and stereotypes that come from, uh, the communities we belong to. And that's just how we all are. And, you know, you can, you can have a PhD, you can, you can be an academic and think for a living, and you're still going to rely on the community that you imagined yourself to be part of. And it's judgements, you know, it tells you this is good and this is bad, or this is a reliable, and this is not reliable. And we just, as individuals don't have the capacity to really think critically and rationally about every bit of news or every, uh, fact, uh, that we're asked to accept. So we have to, I think, um, recognize that, and then seek ways to belong well to one another, so that we're more likely to have the right effective or intuitive responses, um, to the news that we encounter every day. Speaker 0 00:19:51 Yeah. There was a story that you mentioned, um, in the second part of your book, and I have to admit, I hadn't, I hadn't heard of it. I, it was like faintly. I could like faintly recall it. Um, but it came out before the pandemic and that was before I joined Twitter. So I saw, I was like, anything, anything free March, 2020 for me, if it was, if it was like, you know, viral on Twitter, I totally missed it. But, um, but it was the story about the, um, the teenage boy from the Catholic high school who was, you know, supposedly he was smirking at this native American who was protesting. And, and I actually, I pulled it up as I was reading the book because I kind of wanted a little bit of context for it and sure enough, you know, it popped right up and you could, you could find all of these, um, all of these things about it, but, and I want you to talk about it a bit, but as I was, I just thought, Oh dear, like, we've completely lost the ability to engage in nuance, like entirely. And, um, and Oh, I want, I want you to kind of tell a little bit about that story. And then I want to say what the news anchor said as, as I was finishing up watching this interview with this kid. Speaker 1 00:21:08 Well, it's funny you bring that up because my editor, I went back and forth on whether I should include that. Um, because he's, he's like, you need an example, but the problem is any example you pick will be so dated. Uh, and you know, who knows if that's in the book comes out, anyone will remember it, you know, because, because we live in this time where these particular stories, like the ship and the Suez canal, right. Which you mentioned, uh, you know, just sort of takes over the public consciousness. And then I, you know, I dunno in six months or 12 months only a few people probably will remember it, uh, because it was so easily, so quickly forgotten because it's yeah. So I think that's, that's part of the, it's indicative of the problem that we face. But yeah, I think that story in some ways is typical in that, uh, you know, w you get some sort of initial reports, a lot of, you know, shaky cell phone footage of this event. Speaker 1 00:22:02 And so quickly, some people are like, Oh, uh, these, you know, these white boys with the Trump hats, the mega hats are the evil people. And, uh, you know, these other people are the good people and that's the narrative. And then quickly the opposite take, you know, the almost immediate there's the counter take, right? Oh, no, the white boys with the mag hats, they're the heroes and they're oppressed and it's the other, you know, and it's just so predictable and nobody, I shouldn't say nobody, but two ought to few people want to just wait, like, eh, you know, I think that whole thing wasn't really newsworthy. It was just a couple of people in an encounter, uh, in a public space like you get every day. Um, and if it hadn't been for the cell phone footage that that quickly was analyzed across social media, it wouldn't, it's not even a news event. Speaker 1 00:22:51 You know, it really shouldn't affect how I live my life, uh, and interact with my neighbors and, and make decisions here. Um, but our, our media ecosystem is primed to make those kinds of stories go viral because they are, they're so easy for people on opposite sides of the culture war in this case to, um, to kind of read it through their narrative and hold it up as one more example of why their narrative explains everything and the other side's narratives wrong. So I think it's, and in that respect, it's all too typical and kind of, kind of sad and depressing, Speaker 0 00:23:26 Right. And, and at the end of this particular interview that I watched, it was, I dunno, on an NBC or something like that. They actually interviewed the kid. Right. And, and they're asking, asking him these questions and I'm thinking, Oh dear, he's probably like 16 or something like that. Right. And he's on national news, you know, getting a one-on-one interview at this like major, you know, news hosts and, um, you know, network, right. Not even cable. And at the end, the host was kind of talking with her co-host and kind of rehashing some of it. And she said something that really struck me, and I don't remember her exact quote, but she basically said, you know, it was on video. And basically everybody has the right to make their own judgment about what happened. And I thought, Oh dear, that's exactly what's wrong with this situation. Speaker 0 00:24:11 In my opinion, is that we don't actually, in my opinion, have the right to see this 32nd video that someone took and make our own judgements based on what we saw. And I actually thought whoever, you know, prime to the kid, or, you know, maybe he was, you know, coming up with these answers on his own, but she was asking him things. And he was saying, well, you know, first he answered by saying, people have seen this video and made a lot of assumptions about me. And then she was asking questions. Well, what about so-and-so or what about Mr so-and-so? And he said, well, that question would require me to make a lot of assumptions about him. And I don't actually want to do that. Right. And I thought, Oh dear, here we are like this, kid's in the middle of a culture war. And he's actually saying what we all kind of should be saying, right. Which is this 32nd clip. We don't really have the quote, the right to make a judgment on him based on our assumptions or on the other gentleman who was in, you know, the video with him. But you're right. This was a completely unused worthy event that, um, turned into something major that a year and a half later or whatever, it takes me 15 seconds on Google and I can pull up a hundred interviews. Speaker 1 00:25:23 Yeah. And that is a really telling comment by the, by the commentator about, it's almost kind of like the alternative facts thing, right. Like, right. Uh, you can, you can choose how you want to, how you want to understand and what facts you want to lose about this. And I think that's, uh, probably not very healthy. We probably don't want a world in which we can all on the basis of incomplete information, uh, assert that our, our interpretation of the facts is the one that, um, that we're going to operate on. Like that's maybe not a healthy environment, but, but, but unfortunately I think people on both sides of the political spectrum, um, often tend to tend to operate that way. Speaker 0 00:26:02 Yeah. I mean, it's, it's crazy. And, and, and on that, I mean, I'm, I'm with I'm with the comment that you had earlier with your friend who read the manuscript like this, this is a formative book. And, and in that, um, realm of spiritual formation, it is really practical, like where you can, you can take, um, an event like that. And instead of going own, instead of only saying, this is what happened, how awful we get to say the next time, an opportunity like that arises, how might I respond? Because, because the next time that opportunity arises is now, and it's in five minutes and it's on the next thing that's viral on Twitter and it's on, you know, the next thing that I clicked through on, um, on MSN and you had, you have quite a few of them. I mean, you basically, like you said, you end a resection, you know, with something like that. And I kind of had my favorite, but, but before we, before I ask you to talk about that, talk about, um, where that, where the practical part of this came from for you, because I can see the importance in, in how to think about this, but, but in the formation part, how important is it that we act with our beings? Speaker 1 00:27:23 Yeah, well, I mean, if, uh, the news consumption habits we have are formative, then, then part of the task is perhaps, uh, being more deliberate about our habits and when we're necessary, uh, adopting new habits, I think I've been really heartened, um, by the, the increasing attention to habits and practices and the kind of Christian theological world. I mean, I, it goes way back, of course. Uh, it's not a new idea, but it's been kind of recovered, I think, in the last 10 or 15 years by people like Jamie Smith or, uh, to share some Warren or many others. Um, so, so I kind of take my cue from that whole conversation. Um, and yeah, I just try to suggest maybe some that are some practices that might be counter-intuitive or maybe a better way to say it, that don't seem related to the news. Speaker 1 00:28:17 I mean, some of them are obvious. Like I talk about the goods of, of reading long books are long essays, you know, um, if you want to understand a particular issue like climate change or racial injustice, don't just read the days, uh, short stories or the tweets, but find some books, find some longer essays that will put these complex issues, uh, you know, and, and, and more and more clarity and, and help you think about them better. But I also try to accomplice some practices that might seem unrelated to the news, because I think it really does, uh, the, the kind of shortened attention spans and, um, the kind of antagonistic framing where we are, are so, um, partisan and the way that we interpret what goes on around us. I think these have these kind of ripple out in our lives and affect us in, in surprising ways. Speaker 1 00:29:12 So, you know, one I want to talk about and the intention section is, uh, cultivated craft, you know, do, do something with your hands, um, because when you are making something with your hands or learning a new manual skill, it forces you to attend to the world in a way that's radically different from the way that you attend to your Twitter feed. And, you know, look, you can be a skilled, a woodworker or a skilled, you know, seamstress, or you can, you can have a, a skilled hand craft and still be a terrible news consumer. So I'm not suggesting as to like magic, but I do think, uh, you know, like the practice of patiently growing a garden and learning to attend to the news of your garden each morning and looking out for weeds and looking out for pests and watching the flowers ripe and that, that can, should form your soul to attend to the news differently too. Um, and hopefully, um, it might make us less quick to, to jump on the latest viral, uh, bandwagon. Speaker 0 00:30:22 No, I'm so glad you brought that one up, because that was, that was where I was, I was hoping to go, because that was my favorite one, because I really did think, like, I, I don't really see where he's going with this, but I'm, but I'm anxious to find out. And part of what you talk about in that section is that, you know, how we, how we tend to the world around us, it, it is this, um, you know, this kingdom mentality of, of kingdom now and not yet. And that we get to take what is around us, this limited materials that are around us and somehow with our hands and with our, with our bodies, we get to work toward, even if it's in a pattern, right? Like work toward the work of redemption that God is doing. And even though it was so silly, I was reading this over the weekend and we had had kind of a crazy week with like car trouble and, you know, different school schedules and things like that. Speaker 0 00:31:25 And so by the time it got to the end of the week, it was kind of like, Oh dear, we're not exactly sure what's for dinner, but there's definitely stuff in the fridge. And so we're just going to have to figure it out. Right. And so that evening we have, we have four kids, two boys and two girls. And so my husband and I just kind of, we said, okay, well, let's split it. Um, you take whatever's here and make something for you and the boys, and I'll take whatever's here and make something for me and the girls. And we'll all sit down and eat it together. But I had this, um, this picture in my head from just having finished that portion of your book. And I was like, I'm taking this like limited material objects that I happen to have in my fridge. Speaker 0 00:32:07 And I'm using my body, I'm using my hands and my mind and this creative nature that God has given me. And I am creating something that is going to sustain, you know, my family from now until, you know, the next time that we eat. And I know it sounds silly because it's leftovers, but it really, you know, it helped me bring those, those Plains kind of, um, together into one, into one place, if that makes sense. And to start to even just hopefully training my mind right. To think about things in different ways was so helpful in that time. Speaker 1 00:32:49 Yeah. I think that's exactly, exactly what I would hope, you know, that, that you would, and of course, part of it is even just being in, being intentional about what was the practice is important too. Right. But yeah, the idea that you can take what's in the fridge is the headline, right? And, and you're not responding passively, you're responding with creativity and thinking about how this relates to, uh, your neighbors in this case, your kids and, and how you can, uh, respond to this reality in a way that's creative and redemptive and active, because so often we tend to be merely passive consumers, right. And then of course, that's a corollary of say, um, it's been a busy week, uh, I'm tired, let's just do takeout. Um, and that's the kind of easy, uh, option, but that tends to, to put, to keep us in the role of, uh, of the consumer, the passive consumer and, and ultimately, uh, we're created to be, you know, to bear the image of God and to be co-creators sub creators, at least, um, actively involved and unfolding the goodness of creation. So, um, being formed into this kind of passive consumer mindset where the news is just one more kind of entertainment to distract or, um, outrage or, or whatever, uh, as part of the broader, uh, consumer culture we inhabit that can be so toxic to healthy spiritual formation. Speaker 0 00:34:17 Yeah. I mean, as you were, as you were talking about that, I'm just thinking, it's like, it's, like you said, you can be, you can be an avid gardener and still be really terrible at how you and how you consume the news. And I think, you know, we can, um, we can, the last part I'm kind of, I'm hoping we can, we can go, that I just think is so important for right now is like, and we can also consume as you talk about, we can consume the, the right things in, in, in the things that are true, right. The facts, the factual things, and we can consume, um, a variety of things, um, from the news, but that, those things alone, those, those, I don't want to say practices, but yeah, but those, those habits alone will not make us better consumers of the news or better neighbors. And in some cases, they, those habits actually reinforce kind of the things that we're wanting to undo or to do differently, um, as we, as we consume the news and interact. So can you talk about that for a minute? Speaker 1 00:35:25 Yeah. So I, that goes back to this idea that we sort of inhabit, uh, uh, immediate ecosystem. And this is, I tried briefly to trace a history. I don't think it's necessarily a thing. I think it goes back at least several hundred years, uh, where the public sphere has become such that it tends to host conversations, um, that aren't, aren't around a particular topic aren't around a particular place to community. Um, and, and, and are of the moment to the secular moment rather than, uh, sort of connected to this long in our case, Christian tradition, um, and the digital media ecosystem just kind of amplifies these tendencies. And so, you know, some of the kind of quick fixes that we look to to tweak the margins and make it better, won't kind of fundamentally remedy the fact that the reality, uh, that so many of the conversations we participate in, uh, are doomed to, to not form healthy longterm communities. Speaker 1 00:36:33 And it's that kind of community we need to be part of, if we're to have the right intuitive responses to events, uh, to have the right kind of prejudices, uh, when things happen, I know that's a bad word, but I think we are prejudice. And so the, the, the reality is we need to have good prejudices instead of no prejudices. Um, and, and then perhaps as Christians, you know, most that the ultimate goal should be, and then to respond lovingly and redemptively, you know, how, how has God calling us to respond to these conversations that we're part of? And, um, so, you know, so often we, we, the way we consume the news is such that it's really hard for us to imagine acting on the news. So, um, to, to my mind then that suggests we're maybe consuming the wrong news or consuming it in the wrong way, because, uh, the point of sort of being informed about what's going on should be that we are better able to love our neighbor and, and meet their particular needs. So, um, thinking about who is our neighbor, who do we belong to and what they need from us. And then, then from that, we can begin to imagine what we might need to know in order to, uh, to meet those needs. Speaker 0 00:37:51 Wow. I was thinking about my actual neighbors, as you were saying that, you know, and it's like, um, I can spend all morning on Twitter or I can spend all morning, um, reading the times and not really have anything that helps me to love them better. Right. Like, I, I can, I can do that. Um, I guess this weekend, we had some friends over and the husband of this couple, I rarely see him get up in arms about anything in the news. Rarely. It's almost never, I would say, and he's aware. Um, but it just doesn't seem to like affect his day, you know, but one of the things he was, he was with us is he's pretty involved, was able to be pretty involved in this like kind of local, um, political. And I don't mean partisan by that, but this kind of local political project that was really, it's really going to for, for hopefully for years and generations really help affect in a positive way, some populations in our city. Speaker 0 00:38:59 And he was so excited to tell us about it. And, and, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, sitting there with my head in my hands, just, just so enthusiastically listening to him, tell me about this. And at the same time, I'm having these things from your books spinning around in my head and going, this is what matters, right? Like I can get up in arms and be fussy about all of the politics that are going on in the news, but what really matters is the kind of stuff that my friend is doing on the ground that he needs to be aware. Sure. And I like how you reiterate that over and over again in the book. It's not that it's not that we're saying let's put our head in the sand. It's not that we're saying we don't need to be aware of what's happening around us. That's a good thing, but how are we responding to it? How is that helping us? How are we loving our neighbors better because of that? Or are we, um, and, and looking at this through the lens of eternity, um, as you and throw say, instead of just, um, through the lens of today's news. Speaker 1 00:40:08 Yeah. Amen. And I think, you know, one of the other, other, uh, people I draw on to, to try to help make sense of that, because I think it is such a prevalent problem. Uh, it's Charles Dickens in, uh, one of his novels. He has this character, uh, Mrs. Jellyby, who is so fixated on, you know, the orphans in Africa that her own kids are running, wondering around totally uncared for and on their own. And, uh, and he talks about it in terms of telescopic morality, you know, that she is so fixated on this distant problem. And yet in a, in a sense she's making her own children orphans. And the point of course is not that we should not care about, uh, injustice in Africa or, or, you know, some, somewhere far away, uh, but that it has to be proportional. And that, that then maybe the standard should be, um, where are we responsible to act? Speaker 1 00:41:00 And maybe there are ways that we can act that, that, uh, address distant to us problems and that's good, but, uh, we should be careful of not over-investing our emotional and intellectual energies and problems that, um, we really can't, aren't responsible, aren't able to respond, uh, to, so to me, that's the end. And of course our whole media ecosystem is designed to collapse all those distinctions, right. That, you know, on your social media feed, uh, it might be your, your next door neighbor or your, you know, your family member what's going on with their life, what they're reading. But then of course, it's also, you know, news about the ship stuck in the canal. Um, which I, yeah, it's probably not, not likely to have anything that you should do in regards to that problem. It's a real problem, but there's not much that we, as in, as we, you know, as individuals, uh, need to or can do about that. Speaker 0 00:41:57 Yeah, no, that's good. Um, Jeff, before we wrap up, I want to ask you one last question, which is, what is the question you wish I would have asked? Where's the place that you wish, uh, I would've gone and we just, and we just didn't and then take us there in the last few minutes we have. Speaker 1 00:42:16 Well, I mean, you got to, I think, I think what, you know, the last point you raised about, um, your friend and his investment in a particular political challenge in his community, to my mind, those are the people who give me hope and who, who challenged me and who made me think, ah, what are the ways in which I am falling short here? What are the ways in which I am, uh, you know, passively consuming rather than trying to learn, uh, as part of my call to the love. Um, so to me, it's those kinds of people who, uh, give me hope and, um, and also prophetically challenged me, uh, to, to, to be more active myself. But I think also, um, it's important that we not get too despairing, I guess, about this situation is a big problem. And, uh, you know, we're as individuals unlikely to significantly change the technological systems that, uh, deliver and monetize the news, but we remain, I think, um, able to take action in our own lives and in our own communities, you know, uh, with our families and, uh, at our churches that, that we can, uh, understand for ourselves and then hopefully, um, encourage others to be more deliberate and more, um, questioning of the kind of habits are technologies that are, that tend to, um, become sort of taken for granted and how we consume and respond to the news. Speaker 1 00:43:50 So it's, it's not determined we have, uh, we have options and, uh, you know, maybe one of the ways that we are, are called to respond to the news is to, um, is to change our own habits and our, and encourage, uh, communal change regarding how, how much and how we engage with it. Speaker 0 00:44:11 Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. That's perfect. Um, the book is reading the times a literary and theological inquiry into the news. It is published by IVP, which I'm just like loving so much of the stuff that, that IVP is putting out these days are doing a great job. Um, it's coming out in may, but can pre-order it now, right? Absolutely. Yeah. It's available. And then speaking of all of these Twitter, bite-sized things, can we follow you on Twitter? Speaker 1 00:44:39 I guess you can. Yes. Where are you on Twitter? Uh, just at Jeff underscore Bilborough um, Speaker 0 00:44:46 All right. Awesome. Thank you so much, Jeff. I really appreciate it. This has been such a helpful book and a helpful tool for me, and I'm just hoping that the more hands this gets in that we can, that we can challenge ourselves and that we can challenge each other in community and how to read the news better. Speaker 1 00:45:05 Well, thanks so much, Alexis. I really, really appreciate your, uh, your thoughtful questions here. Speaker 0 00:45:11 The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show notes, music, and podcast production by Seth B SETI. Be sure to give us a review on iTunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app, you can also visit [email protected].