ChosenRebel's Blog

I was on my way to an early morning appointment, listening to NPR, getting their spin on world news. Later on I will switch to another news source, CNN or Fox news, usually both. At some point today, I will see the ABC News affiliate out of Charlotte, get the 1440 feed on the news in my email, get various bits and bytes of news from my social media feeds and at times be forced to fact check various contexts and sources of information. It’s complicated, but it is the only way that I think I can “interrogate my reality” with any competence. And that is a value that is important to me. I have learned over the years from others that a good question can “interrogate my reality” and show me that my thinking needs a course correction. 

When I was growing up one mile outside the city limits of Philadelphia, there was a Classical station, a Rock station, a Sinatra station, a WMMR FM radio station and WFIL AM. With Sirius Radio, today you can now get any genre of music from any age, anywhere in America. There is a church in California that has 27 different worship “venues” on any given weekend, all designed around the musical preference of particular people. You like Country, NASCAR-country, Cowboy-country, Hard Rock, Soft Rock, Contemporary Christian, Edgy Rock, Easy Listening, Classical, Hymns and Choruses, an 80’s bent or maybe 90’s—they have a service for you. What all this specialization does is increasingly segregate people into smaller and smaller niches of “similar tastes and sensibilities.” It divides people. It divides people into pleasurable but ultimately small-minded, myopic communities that are unable to appreciate or even see value in anyone outside of them. And it does so, inevitably. 

The same is now happening in our news digestion. Afraid of all that is outside of their established beliefs and narrative, some on the left and some on the right only listen or expose themselves to a narrow band of sources that comforts them in their present beliefs. It’s dangerous and disintegrative to culture. It is destructive to communal unity, to patience with one another, to empathy with and compassion for people different from us.

But God has not left us without direction or hope or power to combat the trend.

1.  Perspective and Goal

Psalm 133:1

Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!

2.  How We Get There

Ephesians 4:1-3, 11-16

¹I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³ eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ⁴ There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—

¹¹ And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, ¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴ so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. ¹⁵ Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love

1 Peter 3:8-9

⁸ Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. ⁹ Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.

2 Corinthians 5:17-19

¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. ¹⁸ All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Let’s be careful to pursue the ministry entrusted to us in every relationship, inside and outside the church. And let us be humble as we wield the truth everyday for the glory of our King and the joy of all peoples.