
Are we prisoners of our own ‘echo chambers?’
Click on the arrow below to listen to this story
|
I found this story written by Mark West at Awake to Freedom to be personally challenging. It was written several years ago, but is highly relevant to the situations we face in 2020.
I’ll admit that I often ignore and turn off voices conveying opinions that differ from mine. But, like Mark notes, I am the one to suffer by confining myself inside my own echo chamber where I hear the same voices, ideas and opinions over and over.
We are encouraged to continuously grow in our thinking. Yes, the only reason to maintain an open mind is to wrap it around something solid, like the unmistakable need for Jesus in our lives.
However, could the reason the United States and world seem stuck in an never-ending cycle of gridlock be due to our unwillingness to compromise on major issues? We tend to cling to well-established ideas without considering any input from others.
It’s that input that could lead to compromises and solutions we have been praying to receive for many years.
Perhaps one of the biggest reasons for remaining locked in our own echo chamber is that it discourages the formation of new relationships with people outside our own network.
I blogged on that a few weeks ago in asking how could I not be racist seeing that I don’t have any minority friends, have never heard their stories, and don’t understand where they are coming from?
This is a good article to keep and review every year.
Yes, there are issues that we simply cannot compromise on, such as abortion on demand and freedom to worship God as we desire. But, that doesn’t prevent us from coming together to address and resolve some serious issues facing America today.