attention

This calendar year almost 800 Christians have been slaughtered in Nigeria.

Easter Sunday more than 250 people were murdered in Sri Lanka when churches and hotels were bombed. Hotels were chosen equally with churches because Christians struggle to get building permits, so they rent conference rooms in local hotels.

More than 1,000 crosses have been demolished at churches in just one province in China this year, complete with a ban which forbids anyone under the age of eighteen entering the sanctuary, plus other stringent measures seeking to crush Christian worship in China.

Christians in Iran are captured, isolated, tortured and left in isolation. Pakistani pastors are receiving fresh threats. Another pastor was refused re-entry into Turkey this week. The list continues.

This week I had a thought provoking epiphany.

We live in an age where three clicks into any web search and we can KNOW any of this information for ourselves. But our media is dominated with news that has a certain third-grade level repetitive mantra. A talking head comes on, tells us what we will learn this hour which we desperately “need” to know. The music is sinister, but exciting. It’s a themed tune … so much so that our African Grey Parrot knew the opening music to BBC when she flew in our window and joined the family by accident … but that’s another story.

The Talking Head has a cutting edge voice, while images of the worst possibly collection of the days most terrible events flash before you. Anyone not stopped in their tracks by cars exploding on highways, bridges crumbling in floods, or police being dragged by hit and runs is certainly callous indeed. During the news hour, these scenes will replay several times, intermittent with advertisements that are incongruently grating. Weather and sports are equally valued.. And, apart from the news channels being obviously owned and run by one political bent, the information is tentatively valuable for us to know.

I mean, who would count themselves caring or educated and not follow what’s going on in the world?

But do we?

Do we really know what’s going on?

Why is our news so void of the details of what’s really happening? If we have such global access to information, why isn’t it at least proportionate? Do you know how many women and children fled the DRC today? How Christians are doing in Yemen? How families returning to Mosul are faring? What it’s like to live in Kurdistan? Or North Korea?

I think we are habitually satiated with a crafted dose of “news” that inoculates us against true information. There’s only so many times my soul can cope with the fourth replay of a school shooting and I don’t feel like eating my supper. But then I do eat supper, because it’s supper time. And so I’ve had a little dose of callousness; a little hardening of my heart. And while I can’t say I know what exactly to edit out of the news selection, I know what we are not hearing about.

Perhaps you are savvy and already take the time to find out what’s really going on. If so, I commend you. I want to pay better attention to those who have little voices, and faint chance of screen time.

Because, ultimately, the reason I learn about what’s going on is to pray about it.

And perhaps preventing us from hearing the truth about persecution in Yemen, or starvation in Zimbabwe, or children being sold for sex in Cambodia is part of the tactic of lulling us into not having the emotional energy to hear about more than what will be served up the next time the news comes on. If we can’t care, we won’t pray … and that would keep us Christians right where the enemy wants us … ineffective.