Faith and Fake News?

I’m a librarian and for over 10 years I have spent my career teaching students to find and evaluate information. Being a librarian means connecting people to information. And I love what I do.

But over the past year I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of information around me. About Covid-19, about racial injustice, about current events. And I figure if I am getting overwhelmed as an information professional, surely others are as well.

As a person of faith, it’s also obvious to me that the way I consume information is connected my faith. I believe that we are called to love our neighbors and spreading misinformation is not loving. We are called to live at peace with one another and sharing articles out of spite or commenting rudely is not peacemaking. Only seeking to validate ourselves and our opinions is not caring about the world God created.

In the classes I teach at churches I hope to create spaces that give people tools to evaluate information and also have space to reflect on the ways they interact with information. I ask people to reflect on how they can be mindful in online spaces. I hope to share some of those ideas on this blog.

Follow along. Learn some tools. Think about how you consume information. Reflect on whether your faith has anything to do with it.

More to come.