Breaking The Digital Spell

In the last decade, churches have been on the back foot when it comes to responding to changes in the technology and media landscape. There are too many things changing far too fast, and as soon as a trend appears, it ends as quickly as it came. And yet, churches easily feel the worst effects of this rapidly changing landscape: distraction, confusion, and above all, polarization and division among its members. Our pastors and ministry leaders cannot compete with the number of voices available to disciple us, nor the amount of time we spend with them each week. But what if fighting information with information, and tribalism with tribalism, wasn't the only option on the table? What if cutting through polarization and division was less about giving people better information, and more about giving people a better identity? What if many of the solutions posited for polarization and division were solutions that churches - and Christianity - are uniquely positioned to provide? After three episodes of bad news and diagnosing serious problems, now it's time for solutions - and this time, churches have the advantage.

Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/how-churches-can-break-the-social-media-prism
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Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism" and check out the Polarization Lab!
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism”  on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube

Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: [email protected]

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Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/internet-trolls-and-the-quest-for

The amplification of extremists and the muting of moderates. When it comes to social media's impact on American politics (and many other subjects), Chris Bail argues the two biggest effects of the social media prism feed into each other, making political extremists embolden and empowered to troll anyone they can and for moderates to give up hope that nuanced political dialogue and opinions are possible anymore. What drives Internet trolls to be trolls? What gives moderates the impression that discussing controversial topics online is so risky despite being the largest voting bloc in the country? What if both Internet trolls and the average American use social media in completely different ways because they're both looking for the same thing - and what if a Christian writer named C.S. Lewis had something to say about all this more than 80 years ago?

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Buy Me a Coffee and keep Breaking the Digital Spell a high quality ad-free experience! Leave a one-time tip (without making an account) or unlock exclusive content with a $5 monthly membership at buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell!

Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism" and check out the Polarization Lab!
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism”  on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube

Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: [email protected]

Support the show (http://buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell) 

Support the show

Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/distorted-beyond-the-funhouse-mirror

When you stand in front of a funhouse mirror, your image in distorted in some bizarre and unusual way. Whether you get huge legs or a giant head, you know a funhouse mirror is not meant to give you a true reflection of yourself the way a normal mirror does. But what happens when a society or culture mistakes a funhouse mirror for a mirror capable of accurately reflecting culture and society around us? What if social media gives us outsized views of polarization, extremism, or other distortions of ourselves while pretending to be a truthful mirror, and what if - unlike a normal funhouse mirror - those distortions we see in social media stay with us even after we've stopped looking in the mirror? What direction do those distortions go, and how do they change how we see ourselves and those we disagree with? 

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Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism" and check out the Polarization Lab!
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism”  on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube

Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: [email protected]

Support the show (http://buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell) 

Support the show

Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/stepping-on-the-glass-of-broken-echo

Political polarization and tribalism are on the rise, and social media appears to be the chief culprit. The ability to customize our social media feeds to only hear the voices we want to hear has lead us into echo chambers of increasingly one-sided viewpoints and unchecked misinformation - at least, that's what cultural wisdom suggests. But is that actually true? What actually happens when people step outside their "echo chambers"? Is information really the driving force behind the rise of political polarization, radical viewpoints, and extreme behavior on social media? Or, as secular sociologist Chris Bail and Christian philosopher James K.A. Smith both argue, are our behaviors and actions driven by something deeper than simply what we think - and how does the Gospel give the church an advantage in addressing polarization?

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Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism" and check out the Polarization Lab!
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism”  on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube

Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: [email protected]

Support the show (http://buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell) 

Support the show

When the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook knew that Instagram was toxic and harmful to teen girls, it lit up a firestorm greater than any of the other stories the Journal would break in it’s “Facebook Files” series. Nick Clegg, VP of Global Affairs, recently went on to CNN to discuss the Journal’s report and revealed that Instagram would be rolling out several features that will help curb Instagram’s harmful impact on teenage mental health. But will things like warning labels for harmful content or nudges to “take a break” actually make a difference? Is Facebook’s emphasis on problematic content a sincere attempt to fix the issue, or a diversion from the true source of the problem?

Episodes like this are an example of the bonus content you can expect with a Buy Me a Coffee membership to Breaking the Digital Spell. For $5/mo, you can support the podcast and receive extra episodes, commentary, behind-the-scenes previews, and more. Media literacy is the biggest gaping hole in our discipleship, and every dollar of your support (even a one-time tip!) goes towards creating content and (one day) resources that will help close that gap!

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Buy Me a Coffee and keep Breaking the Digital Spell a high quality ad-free experience! Leave a one-time tip (without making an account) or unlock exclusive content with a $5 monthly membership at buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell!

Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism"
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism”  on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube

Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: [email protected]

Support the show (http://buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell)

Support the show

The Bible gives us a framework for understanding and navigating a world dominated by social media: Christians are to live as faithfully obedient exiles in the midst of Digital Babylon. This is the claim we explored on the prior episode of Breaking the Digital Spell, and we ended the episode open to pushback or objections to this idea. In this bonus episode, Austin sits down with Jacob Cates, executive pastor of Redeemer Christian Church, to talk through some good questions and objections to the “Digital Babylon” framework. Are there other analogies that are more helpful to us? How could the “Digital Babylon” framework be improved? But most importantly: If social media is truly akin to Digital Babylon, shouldn’t Christians try to come out of that empire and get off social completely?

Clarification: many of Jacob's comments on individualism/identity come from Carl Trueman's "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self." As it is with all the books we've featured on BtDS, quoting an author favorably on one point does not mean an endorsement of everything an author says or does elsewhere.

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Buy Me a Coffee and keep Breaking the Digital Spell a high quality ad-free experience! Leave a one-time tip (without making an account) or unlock exclusive content with a $5 monthly membership at buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell!

Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism"
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism”  on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube

Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: [email protected]

Support the show

The Babylonian exile is arguably the most important event in the history of the Old Testament. Israel's long descent into apostasy ends with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, and the people of God are forcibly relocated to a pagan nation that they did not want to live in. But the Babylonian exile is more than just a date and time in history - it is a framework, used by New Testament writers and by Christians for millennia, that helps us understand what faithful obedience to God looks like in a sinful world.  In this episode of Breaking the Digital Spell, we look at the Babylonian Exile and the lives of Esther and Daniel and how these can help us understand what faithful obedience to God looks like not just in a sinful world, but a digital world - in Digital Babylon. How would applying this biblical framework to our social media world shape our understanding of the world that we currently live in and how we are called to live in it? Like the exiles who asked "how do we live in Babylon?", how do we live in Digital Babylon?

Full episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/on-esther-daniel-and-exile-in-digital

Chapter Divisions

• Part One: The Top of the Rabbit Hole - 1:10
• Part Two: Introducing Digital Babylon - 29:58
• Part Three: The Reality of Exile - 43:23
• Part Four: Engagement in Exile - 51:23
• Part Five: Providence in Exile - 1:16:58

Tanak Order Reading List

• The introduction of "A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the Old Testament", ed. by Miles V. Van Pelt.
• "Dominion and Dynasty" by Stephen Dempster 
• "Know How We Got Our Bible" by Ryan M. Reeves and Charles Hill

Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism"

Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell:

• Twitter: @gravley_austin and @DigitalSpell
• Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
• Email: [email protected]

Support the show

Media literacy is the biggest gaping hole in our discipleship. We can feel its effects in our churches and our lives in the same way we can feel the effects of poor financial stewardship or failing marriages in our churches. Plenty of courses and programs exist for churches to address financial literacy and building healthy marriages, but what about for media literacy? The problem has festered for so long feels so overwhelming; it's hard to know where to start! In this episode of Breaking the Digital Spell, we look at one particular resource, Brett McCracken's "The Wisdom Pyramid", and report from the field of trying to fill the gap with some high school students - and offer some helpful perspective on why doing something imperfectly is better than doing nothing at all.

Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.

Support the show

Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/sa1-the-asterisk-year

When 2020 began, none of us factored in the possibility of a pandemic being the defining reality of our year. Our plans and predictions for the world were thrown into chaos, and our sense of "normal" upended overnight as we embraced a strong sense of uncertainty about our future. But how "normal" was our pre-pandemic "normal"? What exactly did Covid-19 change, and how lasting are those changes? How should we think about our confidence in our ability to plan, predict, and control or understand our future in a world armed with tools and techniques aimed at giving us confidence (or dread) about what tomorrow holds? Is there a better way forward?

Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.

Support the show

Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e13-is-to-break-the-spell

Our love for the technology and media in our lives has left us held under a spell that leads us to believe there is nothing worth seeing or experiencing beyond the screen in front of our face. On the season finale of Breaking the Digital Spell, we look at what it means to live our lives with the digital spell broken.

Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.

Support the show