Parishioners and Partisans in the Polarized Age of Social Media

2020 has been quintessentially characterized by tumult and calamity. This year Americans have contemplated a third world war with Iran,[i] witnessed the slow-motion destruction of the Iowa Caucuses,[ii] been accosted by plague and despair at the hands of the global Coronavirus pandemic,[iii] looked on in terror as the so called “murder hornets” took up residency in Washington state,[iv] survived historic wildfires,[v] been battered by double hurricanes,[vi] begun to reckon anew with the systemic issues of racism and police brutality in our nation,[vii] and lost a supreme court justice at an inopportune moment – Oh my![viii] All this and more has served as the backdrop for what feels like the most contentious election in recent memory. The tension surrounding this election has been exacerbated in no small part by the growing polarization of the American electorate. Unfortunately, this pernicious polarization has infected the church in America and caused faithful men and women of all political persuasions to lambast their spiritual siblings who think differently than them, saying things like “you can’t be a Christian and vote for Donald Trump,”[ix] or that opposition to Trump is “demonic.”[x] With everything that is going on it is easy to see why people on the left and right, religious or not, are increasingly feeling like “the end of the world is near.”[xi] Understanding the recently acquired bent of the American electorate and church wherein the pitch and tenor of people’s felt experience has shifted towards that of terror and despair requires demonstrating that contemporary usage of social media, contributes to polarization in America and confuses the purpose of the church by altering a user's perception of self in relation to space, time, and society.PlanUnpacking the interrelations posited in the abovementioned thesis can be done by first defining the phenomena of ideological and group polarization, the concept of media, social media, and the church as media. Second, several useful categories for understanding history, time, the self, and the role of God’s people on earth will be suggested by the works of St. Augustine and MIT professor Dr. Sherry Turkle. Third, a marked shift in how individuals perceive those categories when they participate in social media will be explicated. Fourth and finally it will be possible to draw out implications for how the church ought to live and minister in light of the thesis.Definitions and Paradigms Understanding the broad phenomena of polarization in America and its church requires defining the interrelated specific concepts of ideological polarization and group polarization. From there, an examination of how the medium of social media impacts its users will reveal it to be a significant contributing factor to the harms inherent in the status quo. These harms will be further elucidated via an examination of the self, followed by an exposition of the church’s purpose and of its nature as a media. Taken together these concepts can be exemplified to demonstrate the negative shift which has resulted from the interrelation of social media with American society writ large and especially the church.Polarization and TribalismThere exists within contemporary academic discussion about polarization a clearly demarcated line between two interrelated concepts which are constantly attempting to secure dominance over the other as the primary definition of polarization. These concepts are the abovementioned ideas of ideological polarization and group polarization, the latter of which can be called tribalism. The term “ideological polarization” refers to the idea that some individuals are progressively moving towards the relative extremity of their political frameworks.[xii] This process is a necessary outworking of the fact that the nodes of cultural power which are able to superimpose structure and framing onto masses of individuals are the cultural elites who sit atop of significant cultural networks and institutions.[xiii] What this means is that as the elites, party leaders, elected officials, donors, et cetera, who define themselves in opposition to their counterparts in other parties construct progressively more ideologically extreme frames for perceiving cultural issues,[xiv] the lay people within the party are to an extend drug along into accepting those frameworks.[xv]Other academics reject the explanation of polarization presented above, claiming that most voters are not primarily motivated by ideology, and thus that it is impossible to account for electoral trends through the lens of ideological polarization or “tribalism”.[xvi] Rather, these scholars assert, individuals self-sort into groups of people with whom the find social commonality,[xvii] and that ideological sorting likely happens after partisans pick a team to identify with.[xviii] Several factors coordinate to impress the identity of the group onto and over the identity of the individual viz., the desire to belong to something bigger that oneself, the desire for unity within the entity which provides belonging, and negativity towards those outside the group and especially towards those in opposing groups. The first these three desires is met by what is called “reciprocity.” Reciprocity is “mutual respect for political argumentation,”[xix] or “good faith willingness to give reasons and respond to disagreement in dialogue with an open mind.”[xx] Thus it seems that people join groups to belong and manifest reciprocity to promote ingroup unity. At the same time elites promote group unity by framing issues in such a way as to generate negative outgroup reciprocity, which is hostility and an unwillingness to listen to anyone outside of the group.[xxi] This hostility develops as an outworking of how the issue framing presented by different groups tends to exacerbate existing incongruencies in group member’s different understandings of morality and reality.[xxii]In reality these two phenomena are likely interlinked. Ideological polarization exists as an outworking of elite issue framing. Individuals join groups and promote ingroup reciprocity and outgroup hostility. As people do this, they accept issue framing which is increasingly hostile towards those outside the group and increasingly ideologically extreme because extremity becomes a barometer for judging those in the group against those outside the group.[xxiii]Media and MediumsIn his landmark work Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman recalls the mantra of Marshall McLuhan wherein he says that “the medium is the message.”[xxiv] This means that regardless of the intention of whoever is transmitting a message the content of that message is necessarily impacted by the medium it inhabits. A message will thus be altered if it is shifted from the medium of text in a newspaper to a public oration, from speech to a video recording, from video to a meme, and so on and so forth. Additionally, inasmuch as “everything communicates,”[xxv] it is right to say that any transmission or reception of material and any interpretation of meaning is dealt with in the mediating milieux which comprise reality. Furthermore, because developments in media technology are “ecological” rather than “additive,” each new iteration of media interacts with and totally transforms the communicological landscape.[xxvi] Thus sociological, religious, and political landscapes were dramatically altered by the advent of print media,[xxvii] the telegraph,[xxviii] and television.[xxix] As mass media developed into the dominant force it is today, it has tended to contribute to both polarization and tribalism by making it easier for elites to frame issues for lay partisans and for people to further self-sort into their respective groups.[xxx]Social MediaSocial media, while definitely a distinct medium, revolutionized the landscape of communications in ways somewhat analogous to other iterations of new technologies. Much like the invention of the printing press allowed for information to be preserved and disseminated with greater efficacy, so too did social media (and the internet writ large). To be sure the, telegraph represented “the annihilation of space,”[xxxi] but social media goes even further in allowing for instantaneous exchange to occur anywhere there is service. If television inaugurated an entertainment saturated “age of show business,”[xxxii] it seems fair to say that social media has further promulgated a pervasive pattern of media consumption where entertainment is the dominant factor motivating consumers. Postman’s critique of television news wherein he asserts it is entertainment based, context free, and trying to sell the consumer something seems even more apt when applied to social media,[xxxiii] which is troubling inasmuch as a majority of Americans get their news from social media.[xxxiv]The Church as MediaEven though God has used myriad mediums to communicate to his people throughout history,[xxxv] the incarnate Christ is God’s expression of his nature par excellence. Scripture calls Christ the λογος or “word” of God.[xxxvi] Just as words allow man to outwardly express the inward framing of his being, so too does Christ as λογος serve as “the independent personified expression of God.”[xxxvii] While Christ is manifestly with Christian in a real and literal sense,[xxxviii] his most tangible presence on earth is the communicative form of his church. Christians understand the church to be the “body” of Christ,[xxxix] comprised of all believers throughout time and space.[xl] The church, while universal, is also made manifest locally by specific communities of faithful believers who assemble together.[xli] Inasmuch as Christ is “the founder and perfector of our faith,”[xlii] the primary source which must inform the church as to its purpose is the testimony of Christ and his apostles as preserved in scripture. Much like Christ came “to seek and to save the lost,”[xliii] he has charged his church to be about the business of proclaiming his gospel and welcoming new sinners into the communion of the saints through baptism and discipleship.[xliv] Additionally, through his death and resurrection Christ has redeemed his people and inaugurated the forthcoming resurrection of the cosmos.[xlv] Much like how the church is charged to continue Christ’s work of seeking out lost souls, it is intended to build upon the foundation which is Christ by working to inbreak the impending renewed cosmos by progressively conforming the world to God’s coming kingdom.[xlvi]These tasks are important, to be sure, but also important is the question of how these things are to be done. According to scripture, the church is tasked to remember and proclaim Christ’s death and resurrection until he comes again.[xlvii] It was an internalization of this imperative to remember and proclaim which incited several Catholic scholars to begin developing many of the modern expressions of communications theory which exist today. Catholic ecumenist Yves Congar, who famously contributed to the understanding of tradition adopted by the second Vatican Council, spoke of the acts of remembering and proclaiming Christ with the language of “transmitting” the “deposit” received in scripture and tradition from God.[xlviii] In his view, both scripture and tradition are authoritative revelation from God which communicate a normative vision for the church.[xlix] This view was of course adopted by second Vatican Council who while “following, then, in the steps of the councils of Trent and Vatican I,”[l] asserted that the tradition of the was one of the ways God reveals himself to the world.[li]At this juncture it bears noting that Christ specifically desired that his church pursue its aims in a quintessentially unified manner, going so far as to petition his father on the precipice of his passion that “they [the church] may all be one, just as you, father, are in me, and I in you.”[lii] His heart in asking this was clearly explicated by his sating that this would serve to make it “so that the world may believe.”[liii] Unfortunately, the insistence of the Catholics that tradition is authoritative, and the accompanying perspective that the church is necessarily hierarchical which developed at Trent and was reaffirmed at latter councils proved too much for Protestants and other skeptics of the Catholic line of reasoning.[liv] Protestants largely recognize the early councils as valuable contributions to the history of the church, but stop short of ascribing to them any level of divine authority.[lv] Instead, they largely hold to the belief that scripture is the only authoritative source which establishes doctrine and normative patterns for the Christian and the church.[lvi] With that distinction in mind it is possible to briefly examine Catholic teaching about media and consider an ecumenical response palatable to Protestants before briefly examining pertinent parts of the Eastern Orthodox perspective.Vatican II’s comments on media begins by noting that the church should take a healthy interest in new ways of communicating to people.[lvii] It then goes on to assert that proper engagement with mass media requires thinking faithfully about it,[lviii] and that it should be used by the Christian to “form public opinion.”[lix] Thus, the officially promulgated documents suggest a mostly positive, if not slightly outdated, view of mass media which should in no way be disagreeable to protestants. McLuhan contributes to this dialogue by asserting that the only hope of the church is “apocalypse,”[lx] which is to say that it must serve to reveal or inbreak God’s reality unto and over ordinary space and time. he also recognizes an inherent danger in adopting new technology without considering its theological ramifications.[lxi] Since these aspects of McLuhan perspective seem similarly acceptable to Protestants, the church universal ought to go about thinking of itself along these lines while prioritizing unity and critically building on the model of Vatican II’s comments about ecumenism and maintaining appropriate distinctions.[lxii] That is to say that the church as media ought to express ecumenical unity aimed at lovingly participating in Christ’s work by progressively renewing the world in anticipation of his second coming. Choices about how that end is pursued ought to be framed as apocalyptic attempts to express theological truth wisely in light of what can be know about the mediums available and their impact on the content of a message.Likewise, though the tradition of the Easter Orthodox communion is distinct, a brief examination of their Christology and eschatology will elucidate enough points of similarity to warrant a consensus on the above stated propositions. For the Orthodox believer a primary framing which colors doctrinal interpretation and religious life is the importance of the work of the Holy Spirit as he is felt presently and directly by individuals.[lxiii] Closely related to this is their understanding of God as a presences and “nearness” which emanates from God and his action intervening into the human experience.[lxiv] Communicatively speaking, while Orthodox theologians recognize the church to be a structure uniquely situated to mediate God’s presence,[lxv] they subscribe to a “panentheism” as it were, seeing God and his mediated nature in everything.[lxvi] Like other Christians, Orthodox believers see Christ as the communicative action par excellence of God,[lxvii] mediating and manifesting the relationship between God and man.[lxviii] Man likewise exists in a duality somewhat analogous to Christ’s hypostatic disposition in that he is charged with physical and spiritual reality and bridges the two realities together in his being.[lxix] Unlike the Catholics and Protestants, Orthodoxy values scripture but falls short of believing that is can be authoritatively exposited in a universally applicable manner.[lxx] Additionally, they recognize certain church councils and early eastern fathers as authoritative sources of revelation, even though they acknowledge that these sources at times contradict each other.[lxxi] Thus, the Orthodox perspective, while again ought to be noted for its distinction from Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, may for the purposes of this inquiry submit to the same principles and practices.Frames from Augustine and TurkleHaving established that Christ is the communicative expression par excellence of God’s nature, and that the church is charged with participating in his work, it becomes necessary to explicate a few useful frames for understanding history, time, the self, and how the people of God ought to live so as to determine how it these concepts are impacted by the communicological shifts of social media.Augustine’s concepts of history, love, the self, and the cities of God and man St. Augustine of Hippo represents an excellent starting point for Christian reflection on history, the self, and public life because the depth and breadth of his contribution to the topics at hand is unparalleled by his contemporaries in the early church. While Augustine never wrote an explicitly political tract per se,^[lxxii] his writing in general and especially his magnum opus, The City of God, suggest helpful frames for conceiving of history, will as directed love, the self, and how the faithful ought to live in public life. The City of God was written after Rome was sacked by the Visigoths and was offered as a defense to various pagan elites who suggested that it was because of Christianity’s influence on Rome that such calamity had befallen the world’s greatest empire.[lxxiii] Augustine’s method for defending Christianity involved critiquing religious philosophic system of Rome’s pagan elite and then suggesting alternative ways of perceiving reality.This pattern is exemplified by Augustine’s view of history. Augustine’s rhetorical opponents believed that history was controlled by the movement of celestial bodies manipulating the “fate” of human affairs.[lxxiv] He responded by demonstrating that human affairs are indifferent to the movement of spacy spheres and criticized Christian’s who had adopted this pagan perspective.[lxxv] Similarly, there were many who believed that the world continuously plays out a set of cycles wherein events are constantly repeated and cosmological conditions reset upon the completion of said cycles.[lxxvi] Against this view Augustine argued that a cyclical historiography denies humans free will and consequently any possibility for human happiness.[lxxvii] Additionally, he noted that Christ was crucified once for all mankind and rejected the idea that he would need to repeat his action in a future cycle.[lxxviii] In place of these flawed frameworks, Augustine presented a “eschatology translated into a theology of history,”[lxxix] wherein history is viewed as a universal, providential, progressive expression of God’s soteriological and Christological program.[lxxx] God, acting as the author and sustainer of all created reality, is the source from which all meaning and being flows. Thus, it is the case that history is universal inasmuch as God is the source of history universally producing and sustaining it.[lxxxi] Similarly, history is providential because God is always working to achieve his will through it, even when men are unable to perceive this action.[lxxxii] Lastly, and most significantly for this discussion of polarization, Augustine recognized that history cannot be cyclical but rather is progressive because it moves to and from the resurrection of Christ.[lxxxiii] Through this lens, Augustine traces soteriological history from creation and the fall of man,[lxxxiv] to the resurrection,[lxxxv] and to the second coming of Christ.[lxxxvi]  At this juncture it is important to note that history is perceived by mankind to pass linearly through the experience of time. Time originated at the instigation of creation and is a common milieu which frames human experience.[lxxxvii] The realization of God’s soteriological plan past, present, and future, is framed through Augustine’s metaphor of the cities of God and man. Understanding the implications of this metaphor, which will become significant to the discussion of how social media impacts polarization in the church, will require understanding Augustine’s concepts of love and the self because ““two loves make up these cities: love of God maketh Jerusalem, love of the world maketh Babylon [man or the world].”[lxxxviii]Augustine had, relative to his peers, a remarkably robust conception of the inner self. He understood the self to be comprised of an intellectual interior, will as expressed through the energy of will and love, stained by sin, and implicitly tragic.[lxxxix] For Augustine, the intellectual interior of the self can be primarily understood through spatial metaphors wherein conforming to Christ is akin to moving upwards through a cave towards the actual presence of God and becoming less like Christ is conversely like movement down and away from God.[xc] The intellectual self is fully and best realized by loving God and others.[xci] Love then enters the discussion as an action and affection of the will. In Augustinian literature, the concept of will is somewhat difficult to pin down because it can at different times refer to different things.[xcii] Will can mean “free choice and consent, free will, will as energy, the will’s basic energy as love, the two wills or loves at war in history as in each of us,” which are the love which define the kingdoms mentioned above and further explicated below.[xciii] Augustine held that at its most fundamental level, will is love directed at an object or aim.[xciv] Being rightly aligned with God means that God is the ultimate aim or object of man’s will, which is actually his directed love and affection. Within this framework, it is possible to love other things or entities, so longs as those loves are subordinated to the love of God.[xcv] Augustine believed that in his natural state man acted as an imager bearer of God by being predisposed to love him,[xcvi] but that sin has stained man so as to corrupt his will and taint his affection, often causing the love of other things to supersede God and idolatrously take his place.[xcvii] In this view, sin is not only a moral failing but is rather a systematic distortion of the whole ordered self.[xcviii] When rightly ordered the Christian expresses a quintessential concern for his neighbor,[xcix] something a selfishly distorted person ought to be more inclined to disregard. Moreover, he acknowledge that while love and will are an expression of choice, they are shaped and influenced by habits and practice.[c] Augustine’s eschatological metaphor of the two cities can be understood through this framework of ordered loves progressing through history.One of Augustine’s primary goals in employing his metaphor of the two cities was to suggest an alternative to the models proposed by the philosophic systems popular with the pagan elite of his day. Plato was concerned with finding an ideal way to organize human society,[ci] Aristotle wanted to know what motivated people to associate together,[cii] and Cicero sought to frame society as a way of understanding people coming together around public virtues, most especially the “common good.”[ciii] It is this stimulant of seeking a common good which solicits the most direct response from Augustine at the beginning and end of his City of God.[civ] In his conclusion, Augustine suggests that the commonality which actually orders people within society is “a common agreement as to what [are] the objects of their love.”[cv] With this commonality centered historiography Augustine traced the development of his two cities through time. His metaphor suggests that the city of God is comprised of those who subordinate their loves to the highest good viz., to God.[cvi] While there is obviously overlap between the two institutions, Augustine’s position should not be misconstrued so as to suggest that physical presence or association with the temporal church is what warrants being identified a citizen of God’s kingdom, but rather he believed that all who have been called into union with Christ or who have subordinated their loves to a love of God are the true citizens of the heavenly kingdom.[cvii] The earthly kingdom, on the other hand, is composed of wicked men and women whose wills have been disordered by sin and who’s loves are subordinated under something other than a love of God.[cviii] In both the case of the heavenly city and the earthly city, love is the commonality which determines citizenship.[cix] Christians have always existed in tension between these two cities, dwelling in and contributing towards the earthly one while manifesting and awaiting the heavenly one.[cx] Taken together Augustine’s contribution to this discussion is a Christian framework for understanding temporal and soteriological history, the self, and society. His framework is fundamentally Christological, soteriological, and eschatological. It recognizes the tension between present reality and the coming ultimate reality which is inbreaking contemporary time and space. Lastly, it prescribes a path forward for how Christians ought to live inasmuch as it suggests contributing to the common good of society by conforming it to the contours of God’s image.[cxi]Turkle’s mechanized expansion of the selfDr. Sherry Turkle was in many ways at the forefront of thought and inquiry into the nature of the self and its relationship to technology when she penned The Second Self. Turkle’s research sought to answer questions about how children and adults perceived machines and to explore how usage of contemporary technology shifts self-perception.[cxii] Her finding suggest that the line between man and machine blurs as definitions demarcating distinction between animate and inanimate objects degrade. Initially, intellect seems a good indicator of conscious life,[cxiii] an instinct which gives way to a standard concerned with emotion,[cxiv] and eventually to the ability to make a choice via autonomous will.[cxv] Other factors are considered such as how does the machine originate and can it reproduce,[cxvi] but ultimately it is the questions of will, choice, and consciousness which matter most.[cxvii] Thus, a machine or program which can do a convincing job at imitating will, emotion, intellect, and the ability to make an autonomous choice seems to some very much alive. This muddles the water of self-perception by suggesting that humanity is not necessarily tied to being human. While most people are still able to draw clear distinctions between humanity and a program, this fuzzy space in between opens many up to expanding their self-perception to include machines they use in their definition of themselves or to see man as simply a machine.[cxviii] This framework suggests that the mind is just a computer and the body just its mechanical components.[cxix] Once adopted, this line of reasoning causes it adherents to “recenter” their perception of self so as to include other machines they interact with or express themselves through.[cxx] Moreover, if a computer or program is somehow equivalent to a human, interaction with an artificial intelligence may be perceived to be somewhat akin to interpersonal interaction.[cxxi]Social media and the shift in self-perception explicated The implications of Dr. Turkle’s findings are significant if they are extrapolated so as to consider social media. If the line between man and machine is blurred and people project themselves onto and through the mechanized media they interact with and operate it bears examining what social media does to its users. As established previously, the communicative bias of social media is to make communications instantaneous, effectively abolish space and locality, promulgate entertainment feigning as information, and to ideologically and interpersonally sort its users. These effects become more immanently felt when the user grows increasingly unable to distinguish any distinction between reality as it is and reality as it is presented by social media. Moreover, as users begin to feel that their interactions online with strangers are equivalent to interactions they might have in real life with another person, they become further imbedded in the mediated experience.Exemplification of Thesis With these definitions and paradigms established, it is possible to succinctly demonstrate that contemporary usage of social media, contributes to polarization in America and confuses the purpose of the church by altering a user's perception of self in relation to space, time, and society. Towards that end comments will be made briefly about how social media contributes to polarization in America and more extensively about how it has impacted the church and to how those two things are related.In American Public LifeRecall the abovementioned observation that over half of American’s get their at least some of their news from social media. While it seems patently unfortunate that so many people look to a medium with such a clear entertainment bias for their news, the perils of this plight are further elucidated by a basic awareness of the fact that social media platforms such as Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter use algorithms which unintentionally promote polarization and tribalism by biasing the content people see through a filter bubble so as to give them more of what they want and to keep them from seeing contrary information or potentially offensive challenges to their opinions.^[cxxii] Moreover, inasmuch as social media gives elites instantaneous access to lay partisans it further contributes to partisan polarization by making elite framing more readily accessible to the masses.^[cxxiii] Similarly, by gamifying intergroup interaction social media promotes tribalism by rewarding parties and partisans who dunk on the opposition.^[cxxiv] Oddly enough, the particular manifestation of these phenomena in the form of social media simultaneously realizes the entertainment driven Huxleyan horror show anticipated by Postman and a distinctly Orwellian “rage.”^[cxxv] It should then come as no surprise that this system has contributed to ideological and group polarization in America. As users have come to perceive platforms of elite framing as analogous or equivalent to reality, they have more readily accepted ideological shifts and more distinctly sorted into partisan tribes.In the American ChurchAs Christian religious affiliation dwindles and social media usage grows more prevalently stable,[cxxvi] it is worth briefly considering the history of the church before turning an eye to the ways social media exacerbates existing issues. Immediately after Christ’s death Christianity began to simultaneously experience rapid growth and significant persecution.[cxxvii] This persecution did not hinder the growth of the church, rather it lead to expansive multiplication as the faithful recalled the words of the apostle Paul who said “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”[cxxviii] As Christianity grew it became less politically tenable to suppress it until eventually it was legalized by Rome,[cxxix] and then subsequently made the state religion. This transition from minority culture to a major political force necessarily shifted the relationship of the church and state, going so far as to mingle the two together.[cxxx] This shift dramatically altered the way that the church interpreted Jesus’s message in that many saw the mission of the church as moving “from martyrdom to government.”[cxxxi] The communicative nature of this ought not be understated inasmuch as it represents a departure from remembering and proclaiming Christ’s worth through sharing with his suffering.While it is certainly true that the church continued to acknowledge Christ as the mean of salvation, the practice of many faithful began to communicate that conviction less and less. This process, wherein the affections and expectations which rightly ought to be directed to God shifted to the state is a phenomena William T. Cavanaugh calls the “Migrations of the Holy.”[cxxxii] Where previously the resurrection had been the hope of renewal, civic reform came to be perceived as the way to pursue renewal. God’s kingdom became more ethereal as the personal ambitions and political gamesmanship of governance intermingled with the church polis which lead to the confusing state of affairs which characterized Christian Europe. Many middling Christian kings fought under the guise of advancing God’s kingdom when in reality they were striving to build their own kingdoms. Perhaps most importantly the unity which was supposed to draw people to know Christ was broken as national churches and nationalism began to rise across the Christian world. As this happened the voluntary nature of association with Christ through the church largely fell away as the state saw Christianization as a way to coerce people into being better, more loyal citizens.[cxxxiii]While the era of church and state functioning as one existed for a time, it is not the contemporary experience of most modern peoples. For most people in the west, modernity and postmodernity have thus far been characterized by secularism. Secularism is a somewhat ambiguous term inasmuch as it can refer to a variety of things such as the idea that the church is separate from the state, the idea that God is now separate from the public sphere, or the idea that the conditions of belief for most people have so shifted that while in the past faith was assumed, now it is seen as one viable alternative to an infinite number of other viable epistemological options.[cxxxiv] It is within this milieu of secularity wherein the church remembers the dominant position it previously held that the medium of social media enters the scene.As social media has caused parishioners to become partisans it has shifted the way that many congregants perceived the abovementioned Augustinian frames by superimposing the phenomena Turkle described over and onto their felt experience. While it might be the desire of some to pretend that patterns of social media usage don’t shape how people of faith believe and act, this position is naive and unhelpful inasmuch as it is untrue.[cxxxv] Even though most contemporary Christians would likely nominally ascent to the Christological historiography of Augustine, they have in practice subscribed to a cyclical view not unlike the one he argued against. Many modern Christians tacitly act as though the cycle of American elections is the ultimate event to and which history flows from. Social media further predisposes its users towards this inclination by allowing elites who are invested in the outcome of elections to drive their lay partisans to increasingly care about the ideological and tribalistic concerns of electoral components. Moreover, since the task of remembering and proclaiming the gospel is key to the church, it is important to consider how social media effects the ability of the church to remember. Social media simultaneously destroys memory by overloading people through overstimulation and creates a situation where nothing can be forgotten because it is preserved online.[cxxxvi] This is pernicious in that by destroying memory, social media causes the church to fail in its ability to recall the work of Christ accurately and as a unique event in history. Moreover, while the coming kingdom of God will be such that pain is forgotten and every tear wiped away,[cxxxvii] forgetting all evil perhaps distracts Christ’s church from working to correct it and conform the world to his kingdom. Similarly, by preserving an eternal record of wrongs, social media seems to act as God in his role of judge and arbiter while preventing Christians from forgetting at times when it might be healthy.[cxxxviii]Similarly, social media twists the loves of men so as to mis-order them. By gamifying interpersonal interaction spread over a decentralized mediated space plagued by tribalism and polarization social media trains people to love their party more than God. Christians who are willing to say things like those mentioned above lambasting the faith of their spiritual siblings have clearly failed to love the church. Scripture asserts that those who do not love their brother do not love God,[cxxxix] which suggests that many partisans in church no longer love God as they ought to. Cavanaugh’s motif which suggests that the affections of the holy have migrated from the church to the state is almost right, but it seems more accurate to say that rather than loving the state many Christians have subordinated their loves to their love for their party. Social media’s subtle sorting of individuals into likeminded and polarizing groups contributes to this mis-ordered loves and thus harms the church’s ability to act as the medium of God’s self-expression. When the church allows social media to fragment its unity, it fails to communicate Christ’s desired unity. Social media as a medium for news causes Christians to be less charitable and less Christlike by becoming more politically polarized and more hostile towards the neighbor. Lastly, as a result of this misconception and mis-ordering of loves, many Christians seem to have confused an impulse to manifest the policy agenda of their preferred party with the command to manifest God’s kingdom. The city of man had thus been confused for the city of God. People of faith recall the church’s previously dominant state and struggle to understand its position of plausibility in secular society. Social media and the power struggles of partisanship which it promulgates represents offer a tempting narrative to parishioners wherein they are deceived to believe that by using their party to seize the power of the state they may bludgeon their opposition into submission and solve for societies ills. This misplaced soteriological and eschatological hope makes the church an impotent failure.Towards Rightly Remembering and Reimagining the Self and the Purpose of the Church in Public LifeThus, it has been demonstrated that social media has contributed to the polarization and tribalism of the American electorate and the church in America. It has colonized and corrupted the mind of many faithful people with pagan precepts, misconstruing memory, eschatology, soteriology, and love. The effect of this medium has been decidedly negative and perniciously insidious in disrupting the purpose of the church as the media of God. The solution to these problems is clear, if not easy. People of faith must stop using social media for news. Attempting to use social media for news fails to acknowledge the entertainment bias of the medium and has demonstrably resulted in the harms herein outlined. Moreover, the church must intentionally reassert its traditional Christological historiography, the necessity of loving God before country or party, and the imperative it bears to manifest the kingdom of God in anticipation of a resurrected cosmos. Unless individuals and churches have the fortitude and wherewithal to stop using social media and reframe the mission for contemporary ministry, they will increasingly fail to remember and proclaim the death and resurrection of Christ accurately and powerfully.Towards the creative realization of these ideas I present the following popular level composition.Historically, God has always called his people to cast off idolatry and to love him above all else. Often times, this challenge has manifest itself in the form of outside pressures who attempted to coerce  believers into accepting their idols; be they pagan deities, a supersized state, or some other person or institution thought too highly of. From time to time though a divergent form of idolatry, more subtle and insidious than its aforementioned counterpart, creeps into the popular consciousness of the church.  This idolatrous inclination is characterized not by acquiescing to outside pressure to worship an object, but by an internal compromise wherein supporting some person, thing, or idea comes to be seen as inseparable from following God and his gospel with unmatched love. The freedom afforded people in this country has long precluded the development of a scenario where citizens might be forced to convert to a specific religion, but it has not warded off the other type of idolatry. On the contrary, many aspects of the church in America have long struggled with an impulse to assume some part of the American identity into their imagination of what it is to be a Christ follower. From manifest destiny to American exceptionalism the idea that being an American somehow represents a God given superiority is as old as the nation itself. While aspects of those specific examples still linger, for the most part the object of idolatry has shifted from membership in the subset of people known as Americans to an equally offensive polarized partisanship.Many Christians are inclined to look towards politics as the solution to real problems. Those on the right lament the tragic prevalence of abortion in this nation and, burning with a righteous anger, align themselves with a party that promises to stop murdering children. Similarly, Christian’s on the left are moved with passion at the blight of racial injustice which has long afflicted our land and they look to a party which promises to right the wrongs of our fathers and build a just society for the future.  Both perspectives play to a biblical impulse concerned with partnering with God and seeking to secure justice for the lease of these. Unfortunately, the parties themselves are largely not nearly as concerned with the interests of the Christians who affiliate with them as they are with maintaining the allegiance of their partisans. It would be bad enough if partisan politics was just duping well intentioned Christians into supporting the party apparatus, but unfortunately the desire of partisan elites for dominance over their counterparts across the aisle has driven them to partake in polarizing practices.Polarization manifests in two ways: ideologically, and through groups. Ideological polarization happens when party elites pass progressively more extreme ways of viewing issues and the world on to their lay partisans. Group polarization occurs when members of a group come to view the group as the primary place where meaning and belonging are found. Additionally, group polarization tends to encourage members of groups to treat people outside of their group as hostile and to be unwilling to dialogue in good faith with those who they consider to be “other.” America, and her church, has grown more polarized as mass media has allowed for party elites to promulgate their issue framing with increasing ease and simultaneously encourage their partisans to become more hostile towards their opponents. As social media usage has grown more prevalent, it has come to represent a progressively greater force exacerbating polarization. By allowing party elites to have unfettered access to lay people through their phones under the guise of providing news many parishioners have fallen into the trap of seeing their party, rather than their God, as the provider of salvation, solution to societal ills, and entity in which belonging resides.In seeking to do justice, the people of God have mistaken the policy planks of their party for the manifestation of God’s coming kingdom. In looking to heal a broken society they have introduced fractious disharmony to the communion of the saints locally expressed as the church in America. In pursing what they perceive to be purity of praxis they have disregarded the unity of the body. Christ’s desire for unity in his body is motivated by his love for mankind, a love which is displayed in excellency when believers are as one. Christians in America must recall to mind this vision and reimagine what it looks like to participate in American civil society. Moreover, they must recapture a commitment to Christ that looks past the petty paradigms of partisanship by realizing the corrosive nature of the media they consume, especially of social media. That is to say that curbing polarization requires that parishioners stop going to the poisoned well of social media for their news.[i] Fisher, Max. “Is There a Risk of Wider War With Iran?” The New York Times, January 3, 2020, sec. World. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/world/middleeast/us-iran-war.html.[ii] Goldmacher, Shane, and Nick Corasaniti. “‘A Systemwide Disaster’: How the Iowa Caucuses Melted Down.” The New York Times, February 4, 2020, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/us/politics/what-happened-iowa-caucuses.html.[iii] Taylor, Derrick Bryson. “A Timeline of the Coronavirus Pandemic.” The New York Times, August 6, 2020, sec. World. https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-timeline.html.[iv] Levenson, Michael. “Murder Hornet Nest, First in U.S., Is Removed in Washington State.” The New York Times, October 26, 2020, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/us/-murder-hornet-nest-washington.html.[v] Arango, Tim, Ivan Penn, and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs. “90,000 Told to Flee as California Fires Nearly Double in Size.” The New York Times, October 27, 2020, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/us/california-fires-updates.html.[vi] Rojas, Rick, and Christina Morales. “Louisiana Braces as Hurricane Marco Approaches With a Stronger Storm Right Behind It.” The New York Times, September 15, 2020, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/us/tropical-storm-laura-marco-louisiana.html.[vii] Callimachi, Rukmini, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, John Eligon, and Will Wright. “Fired Officer Is Indicted in Breonna Taylor Case; Protesters Wanted Stronger Charges.” The New York Times, September 24, 2020, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/us/breonna-taylor-officer-indicted.html.; Fernandez, Manny, and Audra D. S. Burch. “George Floyd, From ‘I Want to Touch the World’ to ‘I Can’t Breathe.’” The New York Times, November 5, 2020, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/article/george-floyd-who-is.html.; cf. Rogers, Katie. “Trump Continues Criticism of Movement to Defund the Police.” The New York Times, July 13, 2020, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/us/politics/trump-police-reform.html.[viii] Greenhouse, Linda. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court’s Feminist Icon, Is Dead at 87.” The New York Times, September 18, 2020, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/us/ruth-bader-ginsburg-dead.html.[ix] Pieper, Christopher, and Matt Henderson. “10 Reasons You Can’t Be a Christian and Vote for Donald Trump.” Dallas News, November 6, 2016, sec. Commentary. https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2016/11/06/10-reasons-you-cant-be-a-christian-and-vote-for-donald-trump/.[x] Brown, Jon. “‘Demonic Power’: Franklin Graham Claims Supernatural Element behind Attacks on Trump.” Accessed March 23, 2020. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/franklin-graham-claims-demonic-power-behind-attacks-on-trump.[xi] Dias, Elizabeth. “The Apocalypse as an ‘Unveiling’: What Religion Teaches Us About the End Times.” The New York Times, April 2, 2020, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/coronavirus-apocalypse-religion.html.[xii] Abramowitz, Alan I., and Kyle L. Saunders. “Is Polarization a Myth?” The Journal of Politics 70, no. 2 (2008): 542–55. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022381608080493. 542[xiii] Hunter, James Davison. To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. 1 edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 34-35, 38, 41-44[xiv] Abramowitz, Alan, and Steven Webster. “All Politics Is National: The Rise of Negative Partisanship and the Nationalization of U.S. House and Senate Elections in the 21st Century.” Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Ill, April 16, 2015. http://stevenwwebster.com/research/all_politics_is_national.pdf. 1, 5-11,[xv] Abramowitz and Saunders “Is Polarization a Myth” 543, 555[xvi] Strickler, Ryan. “Partisan Polarization, Social Identity, and Deliberative Democracy in the United States.” University of South Carolina, n.d. 2-3[xvii] Klein, Ezra. Why We’re Polarized. Illustrated Edition. Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 2020. 71, 74[xviii] Strickler “Partisan Polarization, Social Identity, and Deliberative Democracy in the United States.” 71[xix] Strickler “Partisan Polarization, Social Identity, and Deliberative Democracy in the United States.” Iv[xx] Strickler, Ryan. “Deliberate with the Enemy? Polarization, Social Identity, and Attitudes toward Disagreement.” Political Research Quarterly 71, no. 1 (March 2018): 3–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912917721371. 4[xxi] Klein 60-79; Strickler “Partisan Polarization, Social Identity, and Deliberative Democracy in the United States.” 73-74[xxii] Hunter, James Davison. Culture Wars: The Struggle To Control The Family, Art, Education, Law, And Politics In America. Memphis, Tenn., 2004. 42[xxiii] Cf. interrelation noted by Strickler “Partisan Polarization, Social Identity, and Deliberative Democracy in the United States.” 17-22[xxiv] Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Anniversary Edition. New York, N.Y., U.S.A: Penguin Books, 2005. 8-9, 15[xxv] Brian Kammerzelt, "Ministry Media Matters," Communications Theory, Theology, and Culture (class Notes, Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, IL, 2020).  9[xxvi] Kammerzelt 26; cf. Postman 9-10[xxvii] Congar, Yves, Patrick Madrid, and Jeff Cavins. Tradition and Traditions: The Biblical, Historical, and Theological Evidence for Catholic Teaching on Tradition. 2nd edition. San Diego, CA : Needham Heights, MA: Ginn Pr, 1997. 139[xxviii] Postman 64-70[xxix] Ibid. 83-85[xxx] Klein 144-150; Hunter “Culture Wars” 161-163[xxxi] Postman 66[xxxii] Ibid. 87; cf. 83-98[xxxiii] Postman, Neil, and Steve Powers. How to Watch TV News: Revised Edition. Revised ed. edition. New York, N.Y: Penguin Books, 2008. 11-27[xxxiv] Gottfried, Jeffrey, and Elisa Shearer. “News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2016.” Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project (blog), May 26, 2016. https://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/.[xxxv] Crossway, ESV Bibles by. ESV Single Column Personal Size Bible. Lea edition. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2017. Heb. 1:1-4[xxxvi] Nestle, Eberhard, and Kurt Aland. Novum Testamentum Graece With Dictionary: Nestle-Aland. Edited by Erwin Nestle, Barbara Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulus, Carlo M. Martini, Bruce M. Metzger, and Holger Strutwolf. Revised, Bilingual edition. German Bible Society, 2012. 1 Jn. 1:1; cf. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BDAG), 3rd Edition, ed. Frederick William Danker, 3rd edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). 599 1, a, α; Lk. 24:19; Acts 7:22; Rom. 15:18[xxxvii] BDAG 601, 3[xxxviii] Rom. 8:10; 2 Cor. 13:5; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 3:17[xxxix] 1 Cor. 12-31; Eph. 4:1-16; Col. 1:18[xl] Church, U. S. Catholic. Catechism of the Catholic Church: Second Edition. 2nd edition. New York: Double Day, 2003.; 781-782; Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, An Introduction to Ecclesiology: Ecumenical, Historical & Global Perspectives (IVP Academic, 2009). 51-54; cf. covenantal language in Gen. 12; 15; 17[xli] Heb. 10:25[xlii] Heb. 12:1[xliii] Lk. 19:10[xliv] Mt. 28:16-20[xlv] Rom. 6:24; Col. 3:1[xlvi] Wright, N. T. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. HarperOne, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2018., 44-46; Mk. 1:15; Lk. 11:20; 17:20ff; cf. Bruce, F.F. New Testament History. Graden City, NY: Doubleday-Galilee, 1980. 170-173; Harnack, Adolf von. What Is Christianity? Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, n.d. 52-56[xlvii] Lk. 22:14-23; 1 Cor. 11:17-34[xlviii] Congar 4, 8, 10-15, 19-22, ad infinitum ad nauseum [xlix] Ibid. 168[l] Flannery, Austin. Vatican Council II: Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations. Revised edition. Northport, NY: Costello Pub Co, 1996. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation 97[li] Ibid. 101; Cf. CCC 77-83[lii] Jn. 17:21a[liii] Jn. 17:21b[liv] Bireley, Robert. The Reframing of Catholicism, 14500-1700. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999.; Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution on the Church 25-43; Cf. Flannery, Austin, ed. Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Postconciliar Documents. Revised edition. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1996. 369-387[lv] Kärkkäinen 17, 39[lvi] Cf. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt, Edition ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011). 79-81; John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Revised edition (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2007). Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England: Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan Academic, 1994). 127-131; 30-32; Martin Luther, “Address to the Nobility” Basic Luther (Springfield, IL: Templegate Publishers, 1994). 29-31; Wilhelm Pauck, ed., “Loci Communes Theologici” Melancthon and Bucer (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1969). 19; Pauck “De Regno Christi” Melancthon and Bucer 226[lvii] Vatican II Decree on Mass Media 539[lviii] Ibid. 540[lix] Ibid. 542[lx] McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion. Eugene, Or.: Wipf and Stock, 2010. 59[lxi] Ibid. 114-115[lxii] Vatican II Decree on Ecumenism 499-522; Cf. the ecumenical work presented in George, Timothy, and Thomas Guarino, eds. Evangelicals and Catholics Together at Twenty: Vital Statements on Contested Topics, n.d.[lxiii] Kallistos Ware, Bishop of Diokleia. The Orthodox Way. St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012. 8[lxiv] Ibid. 22[lxv] Louth, Andrew. Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2013. 93-95[lxvi] Ware 46[lxvii] Louth 84[lxviii] Ware. 70[lxix] Ibid. 49-50[lxx] Louth 9[lxxi] Ibid. 13-15[lxxii] Otten, Willemien, and Susan E. Schreiner, eds. Augustine Our Contemporary: Examining the Self in Past and Present. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2018. 293[lxxiii] Augustine. The City of God. Translated by Marcus Dods. Hendrickson Publishers, 2013. 1.1; Augustine. The Retractations. Translated by Sr Mary Inez Bogan R.S.M. The Catholic University of America Press, 1999. https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzQ5ODgxNl9fQU41?sid=39be3da1-5dc2-433f-912b-d5b355889627@pdc-v-sessmgr05&vid=0&format=EB&rid=1. 209-210; Barnes, Peter. “Augustine’s View of History in His City of God.” The Reformed Theological Review 71, no. 2 (August 2012): 90–108. 92; Chadwick, Henry. Augustine: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 103[lxxiv] Augustine, City of God 5.1[lxxv] Ibid. 5.2-5, 8; 12.6[lxxvi] Ibid. 12.10; 12.12; 12.14; cf. Aristotle, Aristotle: Meteorologica, trans. H. D. P. Lee, Illustrated Edition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952). 1.352a; Thucydides, Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner, 1st thus (Harmondsworth, Eng., Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1954). 48; Plato, Plato: Timaeus, Critias, Cleitophon, Menexenus, Epistles, trans. R. G. Bury (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1929). 1.22D; 1.23A[lxxvii] Ibid. 12.21; Victor Dias, “St. Augustine on the Structure and Meaning of History” (Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Concordia University, 1996), 73-75[lxxviii] Augustine, City of God 12.14[lxxix] Fitzgerald, Allan D., ed. Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia. First Edition. Eerdmans Pub Co, 1999. 317[lxxx] Barns 94[lxxxi] John A Maxfield, “Divine Providence, History, and Progress in Saint Augustine’s City of God,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 66, no. 4 (October 2002): 339–60. 345[lxxxii] Augustine, City of God 5.1; Barnes 102; Maxfield 148[lxxxiii] Maxfield 148[lxxxiv] Augustine, City of God 12-14; cf. Fitzgerald 433[lxxxv] Augustine, City of God 17.18; 20.6[lxxxvi]  Augustine, City of God 20.6-7; cf. Fitzgerald 433[lxxxvii] Augustine, City of God 12.14-15; cf. Fitzgerald 433[lxxxviii] Alexander Roberts et al., eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: First Series, 2nd edition, 14 vols. Vol. 8, Augustine, Exposition on the Psalms (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Pub, 1996). 268, cf. Augustine, City of God 14.28[lxxxix] Otten and Schreiner 27[xc] Ibid. 28[xci] Ibid. 28[xcii] Ibid. 35[xciii] Ibid. 36[xciv] Ibid. 39; Smith, James K. A. Desiring the Kingdom. Illustrated edition. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2009. 46-55[xcv] Chadwick 106; Fitzgerald 514[xcvi] Augustine, City of God 12.3; cf. Alexander Roberts et al., eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: First Series, 2nd edition, 14 vols. Vol. 7, Augustine, Exposition on the Psalms (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Pub, 1996). 503[xcvii] Otten and Schreiner 41[xcviii] Ibid. 48-49[xcix] Fitzgerald 60; cf. Mk. 12:31[c] Otten and Schreiner 38; Smith, Desiring the Kingdom 57-62[ci] Plato, Republic (New York, NY: Barnes & Noble, 2004). 2.368-369[cii] Downey 36; Aristotle, The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon, Reprint Edition (New York: Modern Library, 2001). 1274b[ciii] Cicero, Cicero: De Re Publica, trans. Clinton W. Keyes (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1928). 1.25[civ] Augustin, City of God 2.21; 19.24; cf.  Gregory W Lee, “Republics and Their Loves: Rereading City of God 19,” Modern Theology 27, no. 4 (October 2011): 553–81. 556[cv] Augustine, City of God 19.24[cvi] Ibid. 11.1; 13.21; 14.28; cf. Lee 570[cvii] Augustine, City of God 1.35[cviii] Ibid. 11.1; 14.1; 14.28[cix] Fitzgerald 194-195[cx] Barnes 108; Smith, James K. A. Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology. Illustrated edition. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2017. 54-56, 215-216; Cf. Fitzgerald 169[cxi] Chadwick 111, Otten and Schreiner 304-306[cxii] Turkle, Sherry. The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. Twentieth Anniversary Edition. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2005. 33-36, 250[cxiii] Ibid. 49[cxiv] Ibid. 50-51[cxv] Ibid. 53- 55[cxvi] Ibid. 55-58[cxvii] Ibid. 59-64[cxviii] Ibid. 260-262[cxix] Ibid. 267[cxx] Ibid. 266-267[cxxi] Ibid. 280, 284-285[cxxii] Cinelli, Matteo, Gianmarco De Francisci Morales, Alessandro Galeazzi, Walter Quattrociocchi, and Michele Starnini. “Echo Chambers on Social Media: A Comparative Analysis.” ArXiv:2004.09603 [Physics], April 20, 2020. http://arxiv.org/abs/2004.09603. 1-2, 5-6[cxxiii] Hemphill, Libby, Aron Culotta, and Matthew Heston. “Framing in Social Media: How the US Congress Uses Twitter Hashtags to Frame Political Issues.” SSRN Electronic Journal, January 1, 2013. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2317335. 9-18[cxxiv] Goldberg, Jonah. Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy. New York: Crown Forum, 2018. 323; Cf. Klein 127[cxxv] Orwell, George. 1984. New York, N.Y., U.S.A: Signet, 1977. 11-17; Postman 155-163[cxxvi] Perrin, Andrew, and Monica Anderson. “Share of U.S. Adults Using Social Media, Including Facebook, Is Mostly Unchanged since 2018.” Pew Research Center (blog). Accessed November 17, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/10/share-of-u-s-adults-using-social-media-including-facebook-is-mostly-unchanged-since-2018/.; Pew. “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace.” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project (blog), October 17, 2019. https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/.[cxxvii] Acts 7:54-60; 19:21-40; Hunter, To Change the World 49[cxxviii] 2 Tim. 3:12[cxxix] Francis S. Betten, “The Milan Decree of A. D. 313: Translation and Comment,” The Catholic Historical Review 8, no. 2 (1922): 191–97.192-194[cxxx] Cavanaugh, William T. Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the Church, NEW STIFF WRAPS edition (Grand Rapids, Mich: Wm. B. Eerdmans-Lightning Source, 2011)., 122; cf. O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 217-218[cxxxi] Ibid. 128[cxxxii] Ibid. 1[cxxxiii] Cf. Westhelle, Vítor. After Heresy: Colonial Practices and Post-Colonial Theologies. Eugene, Or: Wipf & Stock Pub, 2010. 15-16[cxxxiv] Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age, Reprint edition (Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 2018)., 1-3; cf. Butler, Judith, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, Cornel West, and Craig Calhoun. The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere. Edited by Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen. 5th PRINTING edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. 36[cxxxv] Smith, James K. A. Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works. New ed. edition. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2013. 137-150[cxxxvi] Cf. the introduction as an example of stimuli overload resulting from social media[cxxxvii] Rev. 21:4[cxxxviii] Volf, Miroslav. The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans Pub Co, 2006. 132-135[cxxxix] 1 Jn. 4:20