Did you see what happened last night? Have you seen the news?

Thanks to smartphones and the internet, we have immediate access to news headlines like never before. But when we read the latest news cycle, we’re not simply gaining new information. While getting informed, we’re also being formed. Both the messages we hear and the ways we consume them shape our sense of connection to others, our assumptions about what is valuable or worth paying attention to, and even our brain function.

Christians can’t ignore what’s going on in the world and we shouldn’t throw out the daily news feed. But we do need to think deeply about how our habits of news consumption are shaping us. What does it mean to read the news well? In his recent book, Reading the Times, Jeffrey Bilbro addresses this and related questions by reflecting theologically on what the news is and how Christians can faithfully engage with it.

Join us for an interactive conversation with Dr. Bilbro, followed by Q&A.

Dr. Jeffrey Bilbro is an Associate Professor of English at Grove City College in Pennsylvania and the author of Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News, which recently won the 2022 Award of Merit in Culture & the Arts from Christianity Today’s Book Awards.

This event is made possible partially by the support of the John Templeton Foundation and a Higher Pursuits Project sub-grant.