Our World is Drowning in (Mis)Information

Dear Church in Persistent Information Overload,

Are you overwhelmed? If the Information Age began in the mid-20^th century and if the internet steered us all onto the information superhighway at the end of the century, surely we are now living in the era of information overload. Not only do we have humanity’s storehouse of knowledge at our fingertips, but we’re also regularly subjected to its shadow-sides, misinformation and disinformation. It’s no wonder so many of feel so overwhelmed. We find ourselves unable to keep up with the events, breakthroughs, and conflicts coming at us from around the world, much less to actually make sense of what sort of response they deserve from us.

It’s not just abstract information clamoring for our attention, is it? Have you noticed how quickly the rhythms and tools which make up your day-to-day life keep changing? My wife and I are parenting teenage and pre-teen sons who are surrounded by technologies we couldn’t have imagined at their ages. Do we let them have their own smartphones to help them learn how to use them thoughtfully while under our influence? Or do we limit their access to this technology given how it could negatively impact their mental health? The previously slower pace of technological change meant that earlier generations of caregivers could learn from their parents and grandparents about how best to care for their children. But no such help is available in a world which has sprinted from rotary phones to pocket-sized supercomputers within my own lifetime.

Information Overload Leads to Paralysis

The persistent overwhelmed feeling many of us have become accustomed to doesn’t only result from the fact of instant information and rapid change; the uncertainty about what to do with all of this change and information has left many of us exhausted and confused. Consider another technology my sons are facing, generative artificial intelligence (AI). With majorities of adolescents now using chatbots for help with homework and for companionship, I, a decidedly non-techy person, feel responsible to understand this technology, especially its implications for our sons. How should I think about its environmental impact? What about the inherent racial bias baked into AI? Will it be important for their career options that my junior high and high school sons dive into the ‘efficient’ world of AI, or do I point them to an understanding of work in which labor is not a problem to solve but a dignifying part of being human? And, while trying to hold my parental anxieties at bay, what about reporting showing that chatbots have provided instructions for “murder, self-mutilation, and devil-worship”?

I grapple with similar questions about my responsibility to the news captivating my attention from around the country and across the world. Is the US on the brink of a constitutional crisis and, if so, what might such a development require of this pastor on the south side of Chicago? As students gather on a nearby university campus to protest the war in Gaza, what role, if any, am I to play? My news feeds fill with grim reporting about public school funding cuts in our city and climate change-fueled catastrophes on the other side of the globe, and I’m left wondering whether I can be more than a spectator to these cataclysms. 

In this age of information overload, churches often trend in two vastly different directions:

1. Some churches respond to our collective ‘overwhelmed-ness’ by largely ignoring this swiftly shifting world. It’s all too much. Rather than trying to absorb and respond to society’s challenges and changes, these congregations focus inwardly. 

2. Other congregations move in the opposite direction, believing that faithfulness to Jesus requires engaging with the culture’s developments and media’s headlines to the fullest extent possible. 

If the first church feels like a spiritual retreat from the world, the second challenges its members to follow Jesus into the world.

Have you experienced this divergence? Does your own community lean in one of these two directions? The problem shared by both of these options is that they concede the power of constant change and the information overload that follows. Whether turning from the barrage or headlong into it, churches have organized themselves around our world’s urgencies. The detached piety and exhausted advocacy so many of us experience result from the same source.

Not only do we have humanity’s storehouse of knowledge at our fingertips, but we’re also regularly subjected to its shadow-sides, misinformation and disinformation. It’s no wonder so many of feel overwhelmed. Share on X

Communities of Wisdom

As we imagine the future, it seems unlikely that the rate of change or amount of information we face will abate. But while these circumstances may be inevitable, our response to them is not. Instead of organizing ourselves around our society’s frantic pace–whether by retreating from or engaging with constant, unpredictable change–we can choose something different. In an age of information overload, we can choose to become communities of wisdom.

Wisdom, like other forms of knowledge, does not ignore the vast amounts of information we are subject to. But unlike those ways of knowing, wisdom doesn’t begin with the data; wisdom begins with God. In Proverbs 8:22 we hear the voice of Lady Wisdom speak of her origins, “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.” Because of this divine beginning, preceding the rest of creation, there is something inherently active about wisdom. While it is possible to know or understand while remaining passive,¹For an example of this tendency to remain passive, consider the overwhelmed exhaustion or cynical detachment which often characterizes our age. wisdom requires a response.

Given that wisdom comes from God, it’s not surprising that Paul writes that “the wisdom of God in its rich variety” should be known through the church (See Ephesians 3:10). In a society filled with people overwhelmed by information, our churches are meant to be outposts of wise action. After all, our Savior is wise. As a child, Jesus gained a reputation for his wisdom (Luke 2:40, 52). His ministry was characterized by wisdom (Mark 6:2). Jesus is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24).

In a world which increasingly outsources understanding to experts, we need these scriptural reminders about our access to wisdom. The philosopher’s pessimism in Ecclesiastes 8:17 sounds a lot like our culture’s resignation: No one “can find out what is happening under the sun. However much they may toil in seeking, they will not find it out.” But to this exhausted cynicism, the church as a community of wisdom has a life-giving word. We have not been abandoned to the manufactures of misinformation. We are not captive to the corporations which mine our personal information for profit. In a world of deepfakes, chatbot-generated fraud, and politically motivated deception, wisdom can still be found.

Whether turning from the barrage or headlong into it, churches have organized themselves around our world’s urgencies. The detached piety and exhausted advocacy so many of us experience result from the same source. Share on X

Choosing Wisdom

Scripture presents wisdom as a gift to receive (James 1:5) and a treasure we seek (Proverbs 3:13). Churches which desire to become communities of wisdom express this receiving-seeking dynamic by making some counter-cultural choices. You will undoubtedly think of your own wisdom-nurturing choices, but here are four to get us started:

1. Prioritize Worship: According to Psalm 111:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Wisdom, as we’ve said, doesn’t come from our ability to sort and make meaning of the information constantly bombarding us; it is created by God.  This means that communities of wisdom will prioritize worship. “The higher goal of spiritual living,” once wrote Rabbi Abraham Joshuah Heschel, “is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.”

According to Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 8, one way we prioritize worshipping God is by renouncing our tendency to worship money. “Take my instruction instead of silver and knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is better than jewels.” (Proverbs 8:10-11) In a consumer capitalist society, many of the cultural shifts we face are designed to extract our time, attention, and resources. A community of wisdom will notice this extractive impulse, and by resisting the forces of accumulation, free space to worship the God who wants to make us wise.

2. Embrace Limits: One way to defend ourselves from the confusion and exhaustion of information overload is to regularly admit how much we don’t–and simply can’t –know. To be human is to have partial understanding. By embracing the limits inherent to humanity, a church opens itself to God’s wisdom. 

Embracing limits begins with nourishing deep roots in our particular places. The breaking news coming from around the globe tempts our attention to bounce from one place to the next, never fully understanding the stories and developments competing for our attention. But a deeply rooted community will learn to give their collective attention to the quieter and closer events which can be impacted by their faithful presence. Such a community may not be expert about the conflict on the other side of the world or the latest breakthrough in Silicon Valley, but they will demonstrate holistic wisdom about the things directly impacting their neighbors on a local level.

3. Schedule Reflection: Busyness is a thief. When we move quickly from one breaking-news headline to the next or one seismic cultural shift to the next, we lose the ability to reflect thoughtfully. Remembering what he learned from his time in Latin America, Henri Nowen wrote that spiritual discernment comes from the balance found in “an active and reflective faith.”²Henri Nouwen, Discernment (New York: HarperOne, 2015), 172. A community of wisdom, as it encounters the dilemmas and challenges common to our information overload age, will balance activity with reflection.

Not long ago, our church gathered with another local congregation for a few hours of learning, prayer, and conversation. Each church was feeling the pressures of contemporary US politics and felt the need to seek wisdom. During our time together, we heard presentations about churches at other times and in other places who responded wisely to difficult circumstances. We then talked together in small groups about how the faithfulness of those previous generations of saints could inform our own response to current events. While our gathering didn’t provide specific action steps, setting aside a morning for reflection opened new wells of wisdom for our communities to draw from.

4. Accept Foolishness: In I Corinthians 1:20 Paul asks, “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” Paradoxically, the more our churches choose the way of wisdom, the more foolish we will appear in the eyes of the world. The wisdom we receive comes from the One who renounced societal authority, who chose the simplicity of service to demonstrate the power of God, who endured the shame of crucifixion for us and our salvation. 

So, to a society obsessed with change and enamored with information, those who belong to communities of wisdom will look like fools. But by accepting our designation as the culture’s “fools,” we are freed to make the sorts of countercultural decisions which allow us to receive God’s gift of wisdom.

In these overwhelming days of information overload, we don’t have to retreat into ignorance nor over-engage into exhaustion. Instead, we can become wise. Jesus, the embodiment and source of wisdom, wants to make us wise. And though our choices to grow in wisdom will often appear foolish, a weary and confused generation will find in our communities of wisdom an invitation to the God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

~Rev. Dr. David Swanson

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*Editorial Note: Letters to the Church is Missio Alliance’s newest long-form series. The latest letter to our growing collection will go live each Friday throughout the rest of 2025. We invite you to prayerfully listen to the Spirit as you read, asking God what you might say to the Church in your own voice. ~CK

“Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what God is saying to the churches.” (Revelation 2:29)

Embracing limits begins with nourishing deep roots in our particular places. A deeply rooted community will learn to give their collective attention to the quieter and closer events which can be impacted by their faithful presence. Share on X