Newsworthy

There is this thing in our culture that says that it is an adult and responsible thing to watch the news. That a real adult is one who is up to date on current events and knows what is going on in the country and the world.  This seems appropriate since as children we remember not caring about these things at all and instead our media intake involved watching cartoons and playing video games.  But what is the actual content of the news and is it edifying for the believer to daily read it?

Newsworthy

The news today consists of articles and topics that editors deem as “newsworthy”. In general this will show sad, negative and dark things. Murders, serial killers, terrorists, wars and so on will generally lead local and national broadcasts.

I still haven’t decided if I think these things are good for us to hear about on a daily basis. I lean towards thinking that it is not good. I say this because in general it colors our outlook of the world. If we spend enough time reading about and thinking about serial killers and kidnappers then we may end up making decisions in our lives that are based on very isolated instances that don’t reflect the real risks associated with real life.

Even less gruesome news stories are designed to get reactions out of their readers.  Now that we live in the internet age a Headline is an article's only chance to be read, thus Headlines often are crafted using either anger or fear to get the reader to click the link and read the article.  Thus the avid reader of the news - particularly news about political or social issues - is regularly exposing themselves to anger and fear.

We know a tree by its fruit (Matthew 7:20) and we should really watch ourselves to see if we become more angry or afraid the more we read the news.  If it turns out to be true that it is having that affect on us then we should reduce our intake of it.  Proverbs 4:23 says "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life."  It is very important that we maintain a healthy diet for our soul.

The Place of Influence

The other issue I see with watching the news is that you are allowing human writers and editors to shape your worldview. It is easy to see that news organizations have a bent towards a certain understanding of the world and of the political party they favor. Most of the news organizations have a progressive liberal view of the world which in many cases has anti-Christian expressions. For the few news organizations that are conservative they generally lump all religions into one bucket and downplay the overall significance of faith in Jesus pointing to the “more important” battle of politics. While I would generally prefer organizations that don’t take outright shots against the faith I would still warn about allowing your understanding of the world to be shaped by people who don’t see the faith as being the thing of primary importance in life.

Jesus warned his disciples to be on guard against the "Leaven of Herod" (Mark 8:15).  This is a curious phrase until you break in apart.  Leaven is that which is put into bread that eventually changes the content of the entire dough.  Herod was the political ruler of Israel.  As such Jesus is warning his disciples to watch their hearts to make sure that the influence of politics didn't change the way they understood the world.

The Real News

What then is the real news? Is it important for us to know about every murder, war and injustice that happens in the world? Do we need to know all the dirt about the political opponents of the news outlet we read?

To arrive at the real news we need to consider the worldview given to us by Scripture. The world itself is broken and subject to corruption, decay and death. Immorality is in the heart of man and is generally only restrained by the punishment promised to those who break society’s laws.

But there is this beautiful thing called the Kingdom of Heaven. A world in and of itself. A world where God dwells in His fullness, where His Life is completely manifested and where His Justice is uninhibited. This world breaks into our world when the Christian utters prayers and declarations of faith in the Name of Jesus.

The sick are healed, the blind see, the deaf hear, those oppressed by demons are set free, wrong things are made right and the lost are saved whenever the Kingdom of Heaven manifests in our world.

This is what is truly newsworthy and what we as Christians should seek to hear stories of daily.