Every congregation pursues its mission within a specific culture, and in the US today, that culture is deeply polarized.
The Congregations and Polarization Project spent its first 18 months asking pastors which issue they found most polarizing in their congregations or in the larger community they served. We created focus groups of pastors all over Indiana based on location, congregational size, and polarizing issues.
We heard many different answers about polarization, including the issues most people would expect: Racism, economic inequality, abortion, gender identity, immigration. We always pressed harder, hoping to learn how the pastors dealt with conflict over these issues either among their members or between their members and the larger community.
As we listened, we discovered another critical component of their congregations’ environment.
At one point we asked, “If you had one magic wish to help you deal with polarizing issues, what would that be?” Overwhelmingly the pastors said, “I would get my members off of cable news and social media.” The specific phrasing often goes like this: “They watch television and look at Facebook for 20 or more hours every week, and then I get them once a week for 20 minutes.” Every time we repeat this truism in other settings, pastors tell us they relate to it, they “feel seen.”
Pastors feel the squeeze of the constant, fast cycles of information and misinformation meant to generate visceral responses. This is likely exacerbated by the high average age of congregation members in Indiana, as across the US, since older people have more time to watch television and use social media.
“Overwhelmingly, the pastors said, “I would get my members off of cable news and social media.”
Why This is Important for Congregations
The first thing to say to pastors experiencing the same issue is: You are not alone. Conservative, liberal, and moderate pastors all face a barrage of information and misinformation way out of scale to anything they can do to counter it.
The next thing to say, however, is that cable television, streaming services, and social media are only reflections of the 60-year trend toward self-actualization or self-realization as the driving force in human activity. The relentless pursuit of “self” shows up in myriad forms of individualism. We are driven “inward” psychologically, but technological change also nudges us to spend more time literally “inside” our self-curated environment, spending less time on true social interaction.
Step one for pastors is acknowledging the scale of the problem. They may hope to wean their members off the polarizing influence of cable news or social media, but in all likelihood, that only treats a symptom. The disease is social isolation and the antidote is more time spent practicing the give-and-take of living in community. Perhaps the next step is continuing to build a congregational culture that invites that kind of community.
