So where can you get your news? In general, one can start with this chart to know the rough bias of the source:

I usually hit up the BBC for general news, then start cross referencing facts between varied sources on a particular subject to get the spectrum of the ‘facts’. If more than a few jive and come from sources on both sides of the left/right bias line – then I consider it credible. I don’t consider sources more than one tick from center to be credible without serious distortion of the facts.

Facebook posts, however, is news curated by your friends. I love you all, but we’re not the most unbiased nor always check our sources and facts when we post (myself included). I must consider my sources.

The comment chain is where you can lose faith in humanity. Some people like posting inflammatory stuff to “circle their wagons”. These things become pits to vilify others, feel better about themselves, as well as become an echo chamber to entrench and deepen their own opinions. I’ve seen downright sexism, racism, threats and recommendations of violence spewed from people on both sides of the far right AND left of the political spectrum. If you’re one of these people – it’s time to check yourself. If your posts are nothing but hate, rejoicing in the destruction of others, and tirades of outrage – you are not helping.

These comment chains are like nuclear reactors. You take enough radioactive material of the same kind together, and on its own, just being close to more of itself, it turns into lots of heat, pressure, and radiation that kills anyone coming near it. The end result is to make everyone reading it more polarized as your circle of ‘yes men’ entrenches – because you’re no longer being challenged to deal in a civil way with others that disagree with you. Not that things aren’t wrong. They are. But a real effect of this last election has been to damage genuine dialog that seeks to understand the other, learning how to make convincing arguments that respect others and might actually change the mind of a reasonable person via facts and logic or building bridges between people that disagree. If you truly no longer believe that’s possible, then please make some effort or find those to help because the other logical courses of action (besides talking) are destruction.

We can still have a very strong personal identity and mission. But just as the bias of these news sources – the way we convey even actual truth can take perfectly good news and make it completely useless or even wrong. Exercise: Take one actual event and find it on each of these sites. Witness how they change wording, titles, and commentary from far left to far right. It’s a fascinating exercise each of us should do. I often challenge myself by going left/right to see the opposite spin – the goal is learning how to listen to a take I don’t agree with but not flip out.

Being outraged is easy. Being angry is easy. Wanting to hurt others or see them hurt is easy. It is harder to use your brain. It’s harder to build a common good. If an article makes me incensed or angry, my ‘Am I being played?’ light comes on and I go to more sources. I practice not immediately been swept up (which makes you easy to control), but to internally learn how to question or make meaningful counter-arguments.

If you believe you’re ‘open minded’ because you consider yourself a Democrat/left-leaning/etc – then I’ll challenge you with the fact I’ve read at least one person I know here in Portland that claimed all these things yet believes they have a right to use whatever means (even physical violence) without punishment because ‘those people are just wrong and I need to resist with everything I have.’ Violence begets more violence – and only makes whoever is physically stronger and willing to do what others won’t ‘right’.

If we can’t learn how to get along and civilly dialog with those we don’t agree with – then we have no hope as a nation nor as a people looking for the common good. As my old history prof said, “Democracy is not about getting everyone to agree – that will never happen. What it does is give us a form of government in which everyone gets some of what they want – enough to get along – without having to kill the other side like we did for millennia.”  Instead, we are headed back to that attitude if it increasingly becomes all about ‘me’. It doesn’t help that our news has learned that outrage sells and fuels the idea of all-or-nothing ideals using inflammatory headlines. If we continue, we will pick even more and more radical people to lead us to our own destruction. All the while controlled and directed by a steady and constant fuel of ‘outrage’ that makes us act emotionally, not with our brains.

It is also not Christian. God does not delight in the death or destruction of even one sinner:

I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. – Lk 15:7

Christ came not to judge the world, but to call all to himself:

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.. – Jn 3:17

If our job is to continue the work of Christ, we do the same. We do not judge nor condemn but spread the good news. The news each can live in the light and truth without shame. That we do not need to live in the darkness of our past. It can be brought out and healed. We can live free from the darkness of the evil in our lives. Evil has a way of hurting us so that our decisions in the future are tainted by hiding from, or hiding the shame, of that hurt. It breaks up our relationships. And in the light, even if we fall again, that darkness can be healed and forgiven. Nobody is beyond forgiveness. Nobody is beyond hope.