Bonnie KristianCritiques

This book dares to go where many won't - the interplay of politics and religion when politics gets messy and makes faith even messier. The book was digestible and made lots of excellent and logical points. The only reason I didn't rate it a 5 is because it addresses a lot of thought provoking content, which can be overwhelming at times. It is a great book to prompt the faith-centered reader to consider the role of politics and society and their impact on our faith lives.

Untrustworthy is a book that we need in our broken society. The author does a commendable job analyzing the chaotic nature of politics, news, social media and personal interactions. While the entire book is worth a read, it would be great if the majority of society would at least give the last 10-20 pages a read. This section focuses on practical ways Christians (and non-Christians really) can adapt to produce better social interactions with those around them, especially those with whom they disagree.

Summary: A discussion of the epistemic crisis that has swept our society, riven our politics, and undermined our Christian community, and steps one may take to cultivate epistemic virtue and live discerningly.

We’ve all lived through it the last number of years. The “fake news” we encountered on social media and the resistance to fact-checkers, equally accused of being “fake” or biased or wrong. We’ve watched friends go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, of the left or the right. We’ve watched or even participated in the arguments about who do you trust for pandemic information. We’ve watched a sizable part of the country believe in a “stolen election” even though no actionable evidence has met the standards of proof required by a court of law (and recently learned of admissions that even news outlets who promoted these ideas didn’t actually believe them). We’ve watched conflicts over matters like masking policies rip apart churches, places where we are taught to love and submit to one another.

In short, we are faced with what many have called an “epistemic crisis.” We are not longer sure how we know, and how we may know the truth and left in little tribal groups and echo chambers where all we can say is “you have your truth and I have mine” and agree to a world of “alternate facts” and “alternate truths.” Bonnie Kristian is a seasoned journalist who grew up in a conservative Christian, Late Great Planet Earth Background. In Untrustworthy, she explores how we have gotten to this place, and what we may do, particularly in the Christian community, to live with epistemic virtue and discernment, even if we are unable to change the broader landscape.

She begins with looking at what’s wrong with the news from the bias of mainstream media to the profit and entertainment bias that has come to dominate many news outlets. She argues for the effort to do unbiased reporting along older models with a high commitment to admitting errors and publishing corrections. She also notes the deleterious effects of online media, underscored by Nicholas Carr’s Atlantic critique: that it encourages distraction rather than focus, it’s tailored to our taste my algorithms, it modifies our real-world interactions, and serves to solidify our views making us less likely to consider other evidence. From this, she moves to one of the most disturbing phenomena of the online world, the punishing of views that transgress by cancellation, threatening both the personal and job security of the cancelled, with no place for forgiveness or restoration. From “mobs” we move to “schemes” and how our online media feed conspiracy thinking. Addressing Christians she makes three modest proposals: “(1) don’t argue; (2) look at the fruit the mindset is bearing; and (3) don’t seek a false sense of security that doesn’t come from God.” Finally, she discusses skepticism and the death of expertise, where a Google search is as valid as years of training and research in a specific field. She’s candid about the ways experts undermine trust while recognizing how dependent we are on expertise in so many dimensions of our modern life. She notes that even experts are constantly learning and that revised expert advice can be a good thing because it reflects that learning.

She turns, then to how people change their views, and it is not through argument. She cites Jonathan Haidt’s analogy of the rider (reason) and the elephant (emotion), and that the rider is going to go where the elephant wants to go. The issue is redeemed emotion, where love supplants fear. She also discusses identitarian deference which means when discussing matters of race, class, disability, and gender and sexuality, we must defer to those with the particular status in question. This can lead to a highly Balkanized society and denies that we can understand another whose lived experience is different and forecloses discussion. She calls for a middle ground, still allowing for someone to “speak as an X” upholding the example of Esau McCaulley, among others, who does speak as a Black scholar, humbly and with integrity, but wishes to be taken seriously for good scholarship from a Black perspective, not just because he is Black.

Chapters 8 and 9 on developing epistemic virtue and making a plan are worth the price of the book. She asserts that truth is knowable, that we can know it, but not all of it, and that humility is a requisite virtue. She asserts that epistemic virtue requires one to be studious while limiting our focus (we can’t know everything), intellectually honest, wise in our use of that knowledge, cultivating an epistemology of love and a hermeneutic of obedience. Practically, she calls for a look at our habits: our devices and desires, our space and our subscriptions, our social media use, and our news consumption. She suggests how we may both strengthen the rider and become aware of the elephant. She concludes with inviting us to choose better things and holds up 1 Peter as an example of doing so.

While discussing the landscape of media in society and larger social trends, the book focuses not on finger-pointing but self-assessment, asking us how we have been affected by the ways we engage with various forms of news and online media, how we have allowed the epistemic crisis to corrode our own epistemic virtue. She recognizes that people are going to keep doing all the things that have led to this crisis but that the challenge for us, particularly in the Christian community, is the development of virtues that make us, if not immune, then certainly more discerning. Setting boundaries on media consumption and choosing real social engagements with our families and Christian community also acts as a check on the extremes.

Two things I would like to see her address in the future. One is steps toward restoring a commitment to reporting that is closer to the objective standard once set by journalism, perhaps more self-aware given our understandings of bias. The other is the steps one may take to address Carr’s analysis of how the internet has broken our minds, and in what ways we might grow in our capacity for extended discussions, focused inquiry, and long form journalism and reading. That’s for another book, perhaps, and her practical advice in this one points in those directions. This is a worthy book to consider for those engaged in adult education and Christian formation, where one would hope the virtues basic to epistemic virtue might be developed. Educators also might give attention to this in understanding more of the challenges they face in forming virtuous learners. Clearly, an important book.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Note: this review is of the advanced reading copy, not final text.

Untrustworthy put into words a some of the thoughts and concerns that I have felt about today's society. I found it refreshing to hear just as much responsibility put on the methods that we gather knowledge as well as how individuals process and internalize the information. For each discussion point, bible references are provided to highlight the way Christians should approach and respond to the people and events occurring around us.

While unfortunately, no silver bullet was found to eliminate the subject crisis, the author does provide what I believe to a simple, though not easy, method of dealing with the irrational behavior in the people that mean the most to us. It is said that "knowledge is power" and "knowing is half the battle", then any who read this book is well on their way to becoming wise in the ways of the corrupting influence of our current culture.

I would recommend this book to anyone seeking self-improvement by understanding the forces and mechanisms that are used to sway our opinions, beliefs, and actions.

This is a deep, thought provoking book. That being said, I couldn't get interested in it. I tried several times, from different points in the book.

This journalist takes a look at how the proliferation of fake news affects our nation, more especially the Christian community.

[This review is of the advance reader copy of “Untrustworthy” by Bonnie Kristian]

Finally, I’ve found a competent writer to help me see why communications between liberal and conservative have become virtually impossible. The word I needed to begin to understand, as Kristian states early in this work, is ‘epistemology’, or what is knowledge, what do we know, and how do we know it. This “knowledge of knowledge” is where we seem to break down today.
Kristian is a gifted writer, making this detailed study of the problem - how the problem reveals itself, and what we might do (and not do) to get past it - both enjoyable and educational. I found myself writing margin notes to flag ideas for working in my church community to help close this left-right gulf.
The balance between 1) detailing the problem and its effects and 2) useful tools for striving to close the gap seems about right. Kristian’s organized and clear style allows readers to greatly improve our understanding of the problem, and also gives us reason to believe that we can work within our communities to establish a constructive dialogue between conservatives & liberals.
I’ll be using this over the next year or so to get some healing going in my community.
Os.½

Nearly one hundred years ago Albert Schweitzer made this observation, "He (man) is so engaged in the strenuous work of registering the never ending tumult of events and impressions that he is no longer able to be himself and live his own life. He no longer has a home for his soul." If the onslaught of information disturbed a profound thinker like Schweitzer one hundred years ago what would he have to say about the state of man in the information age? One might hazard a guess that a good deal of his thoughts might mirror those of the writer of this title. Though I think the author is far to forgiving of the media, and down plays the real divide between a very liberal media and the more conservative general population most of her observations and suggestions are worth the time to read this volume.

In a time of partisan politics, social malaise, and post-modernism, the author attempts to discern truth and `the truth shall set you free.' There is a crisis in that partisans retreat to their communal isolation and are oblivious to critical thinking, rationality, and factual information. The author addresses how to find truth and retrieve Christianity from the sidelines.

The story here is how bad the Orange Monster is and how Christian non-45 people really are. The work starts off with a story from the 2020 election and how if Donald Trump did not win the country would rapidly decline. Well, it did. There are at least two additional wars (potentially leading to WW III) although no wars started with 45 and Trump decimated ISIS, the economy tanked, more people died with Chinese COVID, the open border permitted millions to cross the border unchecked, crime escalated, inflation grew out of control, and problems exponentially increased. Maybe not to the extent that the mythical Trump supporter "Jim" thought but the author incorrectly identified a knowledge crisis as the culprit. Unwittingly, the author supports the regime line that 6 Jan. was a "storming of the U.S. Capitol." Not a single person was charged with insurrection and that's just a fact. There was no storming, no insurrection, and no attempt to overthrow the government. 45 urged people to "peacefully and patriotically" march which is their Constitutional right. In the melee, the evidence of most of which is still unseen, two unarmed protesting American citizens were killed. Documentation exists now to demonstrate that the death hysteria that was whipped up by government outlets were false. No one else, thankfully, died.

Oddly, when another troublesome area arose, that of defining the denominational stance on homosexuality, the author relates, "I'm gearing up to move eight hundred miles away" so without explanation won't be involved. I thought the work was about Christian community? Previously, the author related how closely the community had grown up together. Maybe not so much.