The Crowd and the Thoughtful
Let's start a revolution.
“More and more,
and more of less than ever before,
it’s just too much more for your mind to absorb.” - Mos Def
I know something of the crowdedness - and I think you do too, dear reader - that met Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem during the first Christmas. As Thomas Merton observed 70 years ago, our age is one of crowds where there is no room for Christ and those who come with Him.
The crowds have filled the inn. There is no more room and why? For Jesus, it was the season of the Roman census, a tradition which God had not been partial to in the days of Israel’s kings (2 Samuel 24). In droves the crowds came pouring over hills and into cities and the wheels of the empire turned, swallowing silence, filling space.
The newborn Jesus, however, lay on the fringes of this great machine, apart from the crowd and noise and chaos. Those who joined Him were also outsiders: the shepherds of the field, the star-gazing wise men who worked while the world slept. Those who weren’t invited to the royal census were invited to the birth of the King. The whole of the Nativity bordered the urgency of the world with the immediacy of Heaven. It had to in order for Jesus to infiltrate it with peace and goodwill to men - two things the Crowd lacks.
This Crowd is vacuous, insatiable quicksand. It announces itself with the attention-grabbing hollers of “desperation.” It supposes correctly that we have forgotten how to discern between what is urgent and false and what may be hard to reach but true. Emanating from the Crowd is the static and fuzz that disrupt our communication with one another. Like Arthur Koestler said in his famous essay The Nightmare That Is a Reality, “Our awareness seems to shrink in direct ratio as communications expand; the world is open to us as never before, and we walk about as prisoners, each in his private portable cage.” He wrote this before the advent of the cell phone (an all too honest name for it in light of Koestler’s observation). We become united in our division, one of the great ironies of the Crowd. Additionally, it has trained us to forget the old freedom of thought by imparting an obsession for news. And yet no news of the world remains relevant to the Crowd insofar as it changes them or spurs them to transformative action. In Merton’s words, the droning of our age is the place…
“Where each new announcement is the greatest of announcements, where every day’s disaster is beyond compare, every day’s danger demands the ultimate sacrifice, all news and all judgement is reduced to zero. News becomes merely a new noise in the mind briefly replacing the noise that went before it and yielding to the noise that comes after it, so that eventually everything blends into the same monotonous and meaningless rumor.”
For Jesus, in ancient Rome, the seedbed of worldviews that animated the Crowd has come to be called the Classical Era, “the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.” We, however, find our ranks on the battlefield of the Information Age in which our economic and technological cornerstone is information.
We face a new manifestation of the Crowd. The census of our era is daily, counting us every time we pick up our phones or go online. We are numbered among the masses of information and voices and news and tragedies and addictions and opinions and issues and notifications and updates and new technologies. The heckling of these digital voices threatens to ruin our inner sanctuaries and stamp out the clear light of God: the light of revelation, understanding. They prevent us from being thoughtful emissaries of Heaven. Remember Jesus driving the money changers and vendors out of the Temple? What must we do for our minds and souls now if our bodies have become the Temple? (Matthew 21:12-14) Who has infiltrated our Father’s house? Do we feel the din of the Crowd drowning out our heartbeat as it leeches from our interior lives, or have we grown so numb that we’ve forgotten how to look at stars?
This is the great tragedy: the noise of the Crowd makes such thoughtfulness nearly impossible. Yet still, there is a star in heaven for those with the patience to see it. It leads us to a better way - an ancient way - rooted in the wrestling and discovery of the meaning of our faith. It guides us out of the Crowd through the sanctified thoughtfulness of Christ.
Christian thoughtfulness is the careful ability to discern and expose the worldviews, beliefs, and presuppositions behind the ideas that shape our lives. It is not merely intelligence nor is it having an opinion on every issue—it is the ability to think critically and discern clearly in light of Scripture and Tradition and then to act accordingly.
With it we dislodge the dark hooks of the Crowd that limit us to earthly thinking. Such freedom enables us to ascend the hill of the Lord, set our minds on heavenly things, and fulfill the mandate of discipling the nations (Matthew 28:19). But, we have to leave the Crowd before it’s too late. It’s been done in Church history before, a few thoughtful men and women who, through prayer and disciplined minds, lift their heads above the chaos. I think we can do it again. And if we want history to remember us as a fruitful Church, I’m even more convinced that we at least need to try.
Revolution of Thoughtfulness
I want you to walk away from this essay knowing that within you lay dormant the tools to start a revolution of thoughtfulness. I want the tone of your voice and caliber of your thinking to be elevated and steeled against the ever-wavering norm. I want you to be inspired to slow down, think critically, ask questions and follow in the footsteps of those voices that have stood out among the Crowd in times past, like pillars of marble against the beating tides. I want us to dwell on the fringes of the Crowd, crying out as voices in the wilderness that there is a higher and better way. Why? Because at least some of the players involved in leveraging the technology and opportunities of our age should be godly, thoughtful, everyday followers of Christ. Our God-given love for the world expressed in our God-given mandate demand it to be so. But the Crowd which threatens us today is unlike any before. Its tools are more powerful, its reach is near limitless, and its methods more subtle. Before we revolt, we must understand against whom we are revolting.
The Crowd of the Information Age
We need to examine the specific threats that the Crowd of the Information Age poses. Most noticeable is the misuse and intrusion of the digital tools in every area of our lives.
Today the Crowd primarily manifests itself online, through the mechanisms of the Information Age. The majority of ideas and information that shape our world come through servers, through cables, via waves into space pinging off satellites and landing on the screen in front of our faces. As a result of their convenience and effectiveness these platforms are our public houses, our town squares, meeting halls, neighborhood gatherings, water cooler conversations. This is where we see and get exposed to new ideas.
Because these online platforms have become the Crowd’s chosen medium we may feel like they must be avoided. At the same time, though, they are now an indispensable tool for society, one that I believe God is eager to redeem and use. The problem of this juxtaposition is seen no more clearly than in the fact that these platforms are also businesses. Even though they deliver us information, they are not concerned with teaching us how to process that information, but rather stay engaged with it. And their methods for keeping us engaged often leverage our biology, namely our emotions, against us. The result? These emotions, not our reason, dictate our actions. We become like toddlers in the world’s greatest library being babysat by robots who’ve given us a box of matches. Tools for insight become fuel for commoditized rage.
And yet, as we’ll see, avoiding the digital world entirely is not the answer. It is impossible to discuss a return to thoughtfulness without addressing the challenges of the digital world. In doing so, however, we run the risk of sounding like an out of touch radical, claiming the nearness of the end and that we should all return to the good old days before phones existed. Our nostalgia for a pre-tech world, rooted in our inability to wield new tools with self-control offers only angst rather than solutions.
This is not a call to digital asceticism but to redemption. As ambassadors of Heaven, we must learn to engage thoughtfully, leveraging these tools and others to shape culture rather than allowing them to shape us. The solution is not retreat but transformation. To avoid such redemption leaves us either rejecting our divine ability to reason or refusing to obey God’s first mandate and Jesus’s final command:
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth - Genesis 1:28
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. - Matthew 28:18-20
Beneath all the din, the chief vice of the modern Crowd is its inevitable subversion of our ability to think critically - in other words, those who lead the Crowd want to do all the thinking for us - and we gladly accept, because of the aforementioned inability to wade through all the information thrown at us. It is fundamental to human nature to rigorously test the mettle of ideas against the harsh realities of daily life. That’s how we grow. As stated above, such a prohibition poses a new and serious threat to the Cultural Mandate as well as our calling to bear the image of God (Imago Dei). The ability to reason is a God-given human right. This is why God invited Israel through the prophet Isaiah, “Come, let us reason together,” (Isaiah 1:18) and why Paul encourages us to “Have the mind of Christ,” (Philippians 2:5-11) and that our transformation comes chiefly through the renewal of our mind (Romans 12:2).
If something or someone threatens to take away this unique ability - or as is often the case with algorithmic influence, lulls us into letting them do it for us - we should immediately resist it, knowing that we are coming against an enemy of God.
In our return to thoughtfulness we must become a unified front of Spirit-led, Crowd-expatriates. Let us follow the example of those who were on the fringes at the time of Christ’s birth that we may hear His voice and respond. The academic, the scholarly, the priestly among us, as well as the gritty, sleeves-rolled-up, everyday shepherds. The Nativity story shows us that the opportunity to discover Jesus apart from the Crowd is not limited by education or class. We simply need within ourselves the conviction and clarity of mind to leave the Crowd and go out into the wilderness. There we can cultivate silence within us, detoxing from the noise so that we can generate signal. “Silence is the mother of speech and gives way for the great Declaration.” We have to remove ourselves from the Crowd so that the Crowd may be removed from within us.
But what exactly is Christian thoughtfulness and how does it relate to the Cultural Mandate? In a day-to-day sense? Before you read on, pause. What comes to mind when you hear the phrase 'Christian thoughtfulness'? Are your instincts shaped by the Crowd’s hurried vocabulary, or by the deeper wisdom of Christ?
A Return to Thoughtfulness
As stated above, Christian thoughtfulness is that careful ability to discern and expose the worldviews, beliefs and presuppositions behind ideas that are in practice all around us. The threads between what we say we believe and what we do are often frayed and knotted. It’s seldom a conscious choice (that’s called hypocrisy, which also happens) which is why it’s difficult to detect. Rather, it’s often the fruit of ignorance, the result of a broken Church structure, and a weakness the Crowd is quick to exploit. Sadly, this isn’t uncommon in history. A haunting example comes from Nazi Germany and the state church that the Third Reich created. It was woven with humanistic anti-biblical ideas, but coated with all the trappings of a familiar Christianity. As a result Germans embraced it and even died defending it.
“Through many dark hour I been thinkin' about this,
That Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss,
But I can't think for you, you'll have to decide,
Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side.” - Bob Dylan
If we aren’t careful we end up doing the work of Satan, thinking that God has our backs. This is what’s at stake if we lack thoughtfulness.
We need to, as a community of engaged Believers, do the work of drawing out the implications of what we believe.
From the wages our teachers are paid, to the way we treat our spouse. From the decisions congress members make to the way trash is managed. From caring for the elderly to national border security. From labor markets to school lunches, music theory to gene editing. All these things that make up our culture come from values and beliefs that the participants have assimilated through various influences.
However, due to the undulations and frenzy of the Crowd, many of us are denied the right to step back and interrogate what our culture calls “normal.” Only then would we be able to discover that many of our ideas are rooted in an incoherent, if not unbiblical worldview. In doing so, we then are granted the opportunity to nurture seeds of biblical ideas that become rooted in our culture’s soil to grow and produce godly fruit, blessing all who partake in it, whether Christian or not. That’s the goal.
Pause for a moment. Let’s apply what we’ve been discussing. If you’re American—or even Western—you likely read that list of issues and felt a burden, as if the responsibility to find all the answers rests entirely on your shoulders. This is because we come from a culture that values the individual over the collective. The presupposition we have in America is that I is greater than we. While aspects of that idea are Biblical - in the sense that we all bear God’s image, therefore we all have divine value based on nothing less than our humanness - take it to an extreme and we lose the benefit of the diversity of the Body of Christ. St. Paul addressed this in His letters to the churches in Corinth and Rome. We’re all different parts of one body. The above list of issues that demand examination is on our shoulders as the Body of Christ. If each one of us, or pockets of us chose one of those issues and commit to knowing God’s ways in them, if in the process of doing so we meet together to encourage one another to remain faithful, not get swayed by the ways of the world, to stay unified in our pursuit and the fruit we produce… well that would sound a lot like the purpose of Church to me. Let’s keep this idea of community in mind as we continue.
What Thoughtfulness Is Not
Now, before we explore the specifics on how to live thoughtfully, we must first understand what thoughtfulness is not—and avoid the easy traps the Crowd sets for us. Thoughtfulness is not just developing an opinion on everything that’s happening in the world. It’s not even necessarily having to be informed on everything that’s happening in the world. If you feel that impulse, you’re feeling the Crowd. Remember, its goal is to overwhelm you into a frenzy that forces you to rely on your animal brain rather than your divine mind of Christ. When it comes to information, accessibility does not determine necessity.
Thoughtfulness is not just a set of habits we have in our online lives so that we can appear to ourselves or others as “deep” people, or in control of our screen time. This thoughtfulness is a state of consciousness that exists whether we are in the digital world or not. Christian thoughtfulness isn’t just posting our Christian opinion and supportive Bible verses online. Though we’re talking about all this in the context of the digital era it doesn’t mean we only engage in digital spaces. Rather, we’re practicing this in spite of digital tools and outside of the digital arenas first so that it may in turn inform us how and when we should use these tools, if at all. This is the method through which we will have a seat at the table and become a meaningful voice in the conversations of today.
How?
So, how do we create space between us and the Crowd? How do we lift our voices to shake people awake without adding to the hum? How do we communicate at a different frequency so as not to be lost in the shuffle? How do we create signal where there has only been noise? What thoughtfulness is required to be that voice shouting in the wilderness that the arrival of God’s kingdom as a usurper to the Crowd is possible and imminent?
The Crowd is a dangerous place to be and though infiltrate it we must, great caution and awareness are required. We will be behind enemy lines. Though the tides may be shifting, we are still among the rare few that are developing actual substance to contribute to the conversation. The more we stand to oppose the pull of the Crowd, the more we will feel its opposition. We will be turning to face the headwaters of a raging river. Like Odysseus among the sirens, we need a mast to tie ourselves to that we might remain thoughtful and instructive. So, what might that be?
Much of our discussions and posts going forward are going to tackle this question. But if I didn’t offer at least some initial suggestions I’d be committing one of the sins of the Crowd: diagnosis without treatment.
Practical Suggestions
Agere Contra
There’s something instructive about those who were invited to the birth of Christ. The astronomer-priests and shepherds, though vastly different in status and vocation, shared a common practice: they were familiar with Creation and, in order to do their work well, often had to separate from the Crowd. Their habit of detachment aligns with what the old Latin Fathers and Mothers called agere contra, meaning ‘to act against.’ This practice is not about aimless rebellion, but a deliberate resistance to the forces that dull our spiritual perception. Whether by choice or because of vocational requirements, they missed the census of the largest empire on earth. Instead, positioning themselves on the outskirts of societal urgency, they witnessed the arrival of the King. In our quest to reclaim thoughtfulness, we would do well to mimic their example.
Just like Jesus’ guests had customs and rhythms that were contrary to the general public, just like the Desert Fathers had to separate from civilization once Christianity became institutionalized, so we need a practice of detachment in order to see things clearly. This separation affords us the time and silence necessary to hear the whispers of things to come. Though it positions us among the hills, often away from relevance, though our diet and our dress may turn us into a spectacle (Matthew 3:1-6), this is what it can look like to host Heaven on Earth.
However, as I mentioned before, detachment does not mean complete withdrawal. As ambassadors of Heaven, we are called not to become digital monks who remove ourselves entirely from the world but to cultivate a thoughtful distance that enables discernment and wise engagement. Consider St. Paul, who used the Roman highway networks to distribute his letters to the Early Church. He didn’t abandon the tools of his time; he used them for God’s purposes without being mastered by them. Likewise, we must develop practices that allow us to engage with digital spaces thoughtfully rather than reactively.
So how do we practice this in the modern world? What does agere contra look like in an age dominated by digital influence? I’d like to propose a simple framework: DEEP.
Practical Steps: DEEP
Detach
The first step to agere contra is resistance. This is where we drive out the moneylenders from the temple and reclaim the sacred space of our souls. This is the step that most people confuse with the digital asceticism I’ve warned of. If resisting technology is our only step toward thoughtfulness, we’ll never actually be free of it—ironically, it will consume our focus just the same. St. Paul said our battle is not against flesh and blood and today we’d be wise to note it is also not against hardware and software, but the spiritual powers that have chosen this arena as their battlefield. There are several books, podcasts, Substack pages, YouTube channels, I can recommend to help us with this process, all of which will be linked below. Check them out and see what works for you. Just remember this detachment is the first step, not the only.
Engage
The second step is to embrace practices and habits that foster thoughtfulness. While there are many habits we can discuss in future posts, the cornerstone must be silence - an endangered species in our modern world. Take time each day to experience what it’s like to live without input. No music, no podcast, no news, no noise save for the world around you and God’s Spirit within you. Once we attune our hearts to the whispers of God we’ll begin to hear the mournful groans of the Crowd and better discern which we’re following.
Examine
Here is where we pursue the issues and topics God places before us and engage with a community of fellow believers who are united in their pursuit of Christ-like thoughtfulness. Of all steps, this has to be the most unhurried because it’s where the reasoning happens. It’s where information and revelation are partnered.
People over Platforms
Thoughtfulness is not a solitary pursuit and at the end of the day, our ideas should be a blessing to people. We cannot be stuck in theoryland and the only way to ensure that is by interacting with humans face to face. As the Body of Christ, we are called to work together, each contributing our unique gifts. Form communities committed to exploring and applying God’s wisdom to specific issues. In addition, seek out opportunities to serve those affected by the area you’re focusing on. If you’re focusing on abortion, find local alternative care centers for expecting mothers. If it’s education, ask God to show you opportunities to tutor or assist with after school programs. The list goes on.
Serving other human beings in person will keep our hearts tender and not lost in the battle of concepts. Remember, even though the Crowd loves pontificating on these issues, we’re not concerned with their rhetoric. We’re interested in meeting the broken-hearted, the marginalized where they are and offering a better way. That happens in the messy, manger-like intimacy of person to person connection, not just online among the faceless masses. If we want to see thoughtfulness fulfilled, then we will connect with those around us.
My desire, and I think it is God’s too, is for us to have a seat at the table - a voice in the global conversation that is happening right now and will direct the course of human history. Where are the godly voices in the conversations around crypto-currency, gene editing, the singularity of AI and humanity, the ethics and boundaries of environmental stewardship? Who is sharing the Christian perspective on how we should go about becoming an interplanetary species when Elon Musk eventually succeeds in colonizing Mars? Where are the godly men and women looking for renewable energy? The ones developing solutions to the fentanyl epidemic? Or discovering and promoting, in detail, a framework for biblical immigration policies? These are the puppet strings that animate the Crowd into frenzies when different sides of the issues need a mob. Who among us can cut the strings? Where are the gentle and informed saints who have married information with revelation, patiently standing at society’s gates like Lady Wisdom speaking of a better way (Proverbs 8:1-5)? Or has our intellectual complacency, disguised as “faith in God’s plan,” led to our deception and absorption into the Crowd? We have been called ambassadors - not just of a Kingdom, but of the Kingdom. Even though Heaven is our ultimate reality, Scripture makes it painfully obvious that this life on Earth is not about holding out for the big payoff one day. “To whom much is given, much is required.” I fear many of us in American Christianity just don’t realize how much we’ve been given, yet it’s often the case that the Enemy does.
It’s easiest to make a case for what God is prioritizing in a generation by observing what Satan is targeting. Why is thoughtfulness so important? If it is being driven to extinction then we can deduce that it is the silver bullet for the battles of our day. And beyond the battle, our ability to think critically is what allows us to co-labor with God so that we may disciple nations.
By assimilating to the Crowd we remove ourselves from these crucial conversations. There is no longer a representative of Christ at the table of society’s decision makers. Our nation’s town square is bereft of Divine insight and while the discourse being had today may not affect us, the impact of their decisions tomorrow certainly will. It’s not that God’s will can’t be discovered without our input, but simply that it may not be discovered. It is necessary, even if not wholly sufficient for Christians to be present at the time of history’s doors swinging, offering to those who would hear a better way.
This idea of God’s Kingdom being near should not inspire an apathy to remain sidelined, waiting for Him to fulfill His plan without us (as if a Father would want to exclude His children from His greatest passion). The nearness spoken of hints at the great possibility of seeing Heaven on Earth. Heaven is near to earth, therefore it is possible that we should stretch out our hands and with fervency pull it down, rending the Heavens until the two become one.
It will take a revolution for us to see this kind of consciousness at scale - and that revolution begins with a gentle return to thoughtfulness in each of us. We are the star-gazers, the manger-dwellers, the thoughtful few who are calling out for a better way. We need to rediscover the application of God’s ancient truth to our modern day problems, lest our opportunity be lost, the responsibility falling on the next generation. Yet it doesn’t have to, for you’ve just seen a star. Will you follow it?
🔧 Tools For Overcoming Screen Addiction:
📽️ How to Turn Your Smartphone Into A Dumbphone
📲 Freedom.to - a highly recommended app and browser tool to help limit screen time
🔗Catherine Price's substack, author of "How To Break Up With Your Phone"