The book of James — written by the brother of Jesus, a man who watched his sibling become the savior of the world up close — has a sentence that might be the most aggressively unfollowed verse in the New Testament:
“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” (James 1:19)
Read that sentence and then open Twitter. Or Facebook. Or your group chat. Or watch cable news. Or listen to a podcast. Or, frankly, sit with yourself for ten minutes the next time a story breaks and notice what your gut is doing.
We have built an entire culture — and to my deep grief, an entire American church culture — on the precise inversion of that verse.
Slow to listen. Quick to speak. Quick to become angry.
That’s not a bug in the system. That’s the entire business model of the system.
The platforms shaping your faith are designed to reward the exact opposite of what Jesus said discipleship looks like.
The attention economy has a theology
I want you to hear me on this. The apps on your phone are not neutral. The algorithms feeding you content are not neutral. They are trained — billions of dollars of engineering spent training them — to do one thing: keep your eyes on the screen.
And the fastest way to keep your eyes on the screen is to make you feel something. The fastest emotion to manufacture is outrage. So the platforms feed you outrage, and they feed you more outrage, and pretty soon you’re in a state of low-grade rage all day long without ever quite knowing why.
Your phone has a theology. The theology is: the fastest take wins. The hottest tweet. The most cutting comment. The most viral dunk.
Jesus has a theology too. His theology is: the slowest love wins. Sit with the leper long enough to actually see him. Stop in the middle of the road for the woman with the bleeding disorder. Take three years to hand-pick twelve people. Spend an entire night in prayer before making a decision. Don’t speak before you’ve listened, and don’t act before you’ve discerned.
Those two theologies cannot coexist in your soul.
You’re going to be discipled by one of them. The one you spend the most time with wins.
The specific sins of the hot take
Let me name what hot-take culture is actually doing to us.
It’s destroying our witness. When Christians dunk on viral controversies before knowing the facts — and we do this constantly, on both sides of the political aisle — the watching world doesn’t see Jesus. They see a tribe scoring points. The damage to gospel credibility from one badly-aimed Christian thread is more than a thousand thoughtful sermons can repair.
It’s poisoning our discernment. Every time you react to a headline before reading the article, every time you retweet before verifying, every time you form a strong opinion based on a 12-second clip — you’re training yourself to be incapable of careful thought. You’re building neural pathways that physically cannot slow down.
It’s stealing our attention from the actual people in front of us. I have watched marriages slowly die because both people spent more emotional energy on internet strangers than on each other. I have watched parents disengage from their kids while doom-scrolling about a culture they’re losing. I have watched pastors — myself, sometimes — get more worked up about an online controversy than about the real human suffering in our own congregation.
The hot take is killing us, and most of us don’t even know we’re sick.
Both sides do it
This is not a left-or-right problem. It’s a human problem. But because we’re talking about the church, let me name how it shows up on each side.
The Right’s version: The instant a progressive cultural moment happens — a drag queen story hour, a controversial classroom curriculum, a celebrity coming out — there’s a wave of Christian commentary that’s certain, furious, and almost always poorly informed. Half the details are wrong. The proportion is way off. The tone has more in common with talk radio than with Jesus. Nobody is converted. The other side is hardened. The home crowd cheers. We tell ourselves we were defending the faith.
The Left’s version: The instant a conservative figure says something stupid — and they often do — there’s a wave of progressive Christian commentary that’s certain, furious, and equally poorly informed. The same dunk. The same hot take. The same zero discernment. The same nobody-is-converted result. The same self-congratulatory feeling of having been on the right side of history.
Two tribes. One dynamic. Both poisoning the well.
What slow looks like
Want to know what slow-to-speak Christianity actually looks like in practice? It’s deeply unfashionable. Here it is:
It looks like waiting 24 hours before commenting on a viral story. Most of the time, by the time 24 hours have passed, the story has totally changed. Half the “facts” everyone was certain about turn out to be wrong. The original outrage looks ridiculous in hindsight. The Christian who waited a day looks like the only adult in the room.
It looks like reading the actual article before sharing it. I know. Wild concept.
It looks like asking, before posting: Is this true? Is this kind? Is this necessary? Three filters. Hardly anything passes all three.
It looks like leaving things unsaid. This is the hardest one. The instinct to chime in on everything is so strong it feels like a moral duty. It isn’t. Most of what we feel compelled to say doesn’t need saying. The world doesn’t need our take. It needs our presence.
It looks like asking questions before delivering verdicts. When was the last time you asked a question of someone you disagreed with — out of genuine curiosity, not as a setup? That muscle has atrophied in most of us. It’s worth rebuilding.
A question to sit with
This week, try something brave. Pick one cultural controversy that’s currently making you angry. Now do the following:
- Don’t post about it.
- Don’t text about it.
- Don’t bring it up in conversation.
- Don’t even react to other people’s takes on it.
Just sit with your own response. Ask: Why does this make me so angry? Whose interpretation am I trusting? What would I think if my tribe held the opposite position? What does Jesus actually say about this — not what does my favorite voice say Jesus says?
Slow it down. See what surfaces.
Most of what’s making us angry isn’t actually about the issue. It’s about the speed at which we’ve been forced to form an opinion.
Next week: Suspicious of Power, Faithful in Weakness. Why both political tribes have the same idol — and why Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem on purpose.
Tell me in the comments — what’s the hardest part of slowing down? What controversy have you weighed in on lately and now wish you hadn’t? I’ve got a list. Happy to go first.
Share this with someone whose hot takes have been worrying you. (Gently. Slowly. After 24 hours.)
