"In the eyes of many people, love of the poor seems better expressed and incarnated by socialists than by Christians.” (Ellul, Violence)

There was a moment, quite a number of years ago, that signalled a fairly significant change in my life. It was a decision that marked the end of over a decade of working within the structural church. During my time there, I had committed to cultivating a love for others that inspired action—in both myself and those I worked with. Yet I kept bumping up against a tension that I didn't quite know what to do with. It seemed clear that Christianity was well positioned to provide care for individuals suffering from injustice or oppression; but in the face of the economic and social systems that caused that injustice, it felt painfully inadequate.

Now, this is a weighty topic that I'm not about to solve. What I wanted to offer here was a personal reflection around this tension that signalled a change in my life. One that led me from the church into other spaces. It was not a decision that I came to lazily or out of some crisis of faith. If anything, it was driven by idealism. It's also something I am still wrestling with. I claim no definitive answer to these questions.

My goal in reading through Ellul (along with some other authors right now) is to spend some time reflecting on the 21st century (North American) church in light of current events and what seems like a massive betrayal of the faith they claim to hold.

"What troubles me is not that the opinions of Christians change, nor that their opinions are shaped by the problems of the times; on the contrary, that is good. What troubles me is that Christians conform to the trend of the moment without introducing into it anything specifically Christian. Their convictions are determined by their social milieu, not by faith in the revelation; they lack the uniqueness which ought to be the expression of that faith. Thus theologies become mechanical exercises that justify the positions adopted, and justify them on grounds that are absolutely not Christian."

Violence, Jacques Ellul

"The major challenge to neighbourhood, as a demographic-physical construct as well as a viable social network, comes from organizations and institutions (firms and bureaucracies) whose routine functioning reorganizes urban space. The stranger to fear may not be the man of different ethnicity on the street corner, but a bank president or property management executive far from view.”

From Logan and Molotch.

My prof used to say something similar around how the person to fear is not the individual suffering from mental health illness on the corner but the executives in their big shiny buildings. This is why it's always important to be able to read the power dynamics of a community through the lens of who suffers and who benefits.

"When social media users do encounter misinformation, they largely follow accounts with whom they are likely to agree and consume outlets that reflect their perspectives. As a result, digital misinformation generally preaches to the choir, potentially making attitudes or behaviors more extreme but not acting as vectors of mass influence or persuasion. If anything, the causal arrows may face in the opposite directions: beliefs may explain digital misinformation consumption more than the other way around." (Source)

Connected to yesterday's post on one-sided conversations. This is an interesting article exploring the overall failure in how we've handled misinformation. Basically we understand what misinformation is, how it spreads, and who is most susceptible; but attempts to fact check it have been futile. The article suggests that this is due to a failure to fully and properly understand the role of this sort of communication. Rather than thinking of this as a problem between true and false, we need to be understanding how communication more broadly impacts identity, trust, and polarization.

It's a good article that touches on several things I've been thinking about lately, including what the role of helpful communication needs to be moving forward. Check it out.

"Progressives really got to figure out how to deal with this buzzkill problem." (Marc Maron, 2025)

It's a hard thing, I think, to figure out how to balance the deep anxiety and uncertainty many of us feel towards the state of the world with finding joy and appreciation in the present moment. The desperation and despair of it all often finds us turning the simplest conversations with friends and family into soap-box like diatribes, screaming about the injustices and dangers perpetuated by one's choice of hand soap. As Maron continues in his latest special, "no one can ruin a bbq quicker than a liberal."

He's not wrong.

A few years ago, I wrote a thing for an environmental coalition on how not to ruin parties by taking a more hopeful posture in these conversations rather than a doom-centric one. I might go further if I were to rewrite that today. I think the thing that Maron is addressing in this new special is that talk isn't actually making any difference. If anything, it might be making things worse. This seems to be—at least in part—why he is ending his long running podcast this year. But if talking is no longer helpful, what does that mean and what can be done?

I wonder if part of the problem is that we're all just having one-sided conversations. Now, this isn't me saying that I think we need to get better at listening—though I do. It's also not me saying that I think we need break down our silos and learn to build community across differences—though I also do. Rather, what I'm getting at here is the way we have all become pseudo-experts at sharing ourselves and our ideas as content. We've spent years now honing our ability to take a thought, craft it to compete in the attention economy, and make it connect with people based on likes and reshares. Curated personalities and opinions. It's not conversation, it's marketing.

I'm not sure if Maron would say that's what he's been doing, but he does make some pointed comments about his fans and the specific type of people who would be at one of his shows. The audience laughs. He knows who he's talking to. Which is exactly the point. Good marketing is about reaching the right audience. The ones who already want what you're selling. What it rarely does is make any meaningful change.

So much of everything right now feels like this. As though it's been made just for content. Even conversations with people can come across as either a testing ground for content or a repeating of content, like if this hasn't already been posted, it will be. But content is not designed for real conversation. It's meant to be consumed.

And the attention economy has an unyielding appetite.

I'm struggling to define what I think is needed as an alternative or resistance to this. It's not to say that no conversation can ever be helpful. But I think part of it is that we need to embrace embodiment. To inhabit our values and ideals in such a way that they are evident in how we live our lives. To practice them instead of preaching them. There's an old wisdom here that I think we have forgotten because of how disembodied our culture has become. I believe we need to reclaim the truth of it. That actions do speak louder than words.

Another part of embodiment to me is simply being more present in the world. It's about turning off and tuning out the unending deluge of content that competes for our attention and reconnecting with the natural world. Again, an ancient wisdom that is getting forgotten. Our minds and bodies need the slowness that comes with being unplugged and just experiencing the world as it is around us.

Now, will any of this make progressives more fun to be around? Probably not, but it might help us deal with some of our own anxieties about everything and move us closer to a healthier place.