“The fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created.” That is how Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described his company’s efforts to curtail the spread of misinformation for the better part of a decade. So, instead of an army of third-party Meta fact-checkers, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads will move to an X-style community notes form of moderation for most of their content.

Illegal activity, hate speech, pornography, and other clear violations of their content rules will still be taken down, but they are largely trying to move away from policing political and cultural views that are simply matters of free speech.

The news came as a welcome sign of sanity to many on the right, while those on the left tended to view it as a capitulation to the incoming Trump administration and harbinger of hate speech, conspiracy theories, and a host of other perceived ills. However, like most of the overly politicized trends in our culture today, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Zuckerberg went on to acknowledge as much, noting that there will be a “tradeoff” where “we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.” He’s decided that tradeoff is worth it, and those close to him say it reflects “an evolved return to his political origins.”

While that sentiment may sound unlikely to those who have watched Facebook grow increasingly restrictive toward views that don’t align with the mainstream or political left, Zuckerberg’s reasons ultimately matter less than the new reality they will usher in. And, in a sign that Meta’s CEO is serious about these changes, that new reality will be guided by a host of new faces as well.

What are Meta’s motivations?

The most famous of those faces is likely UFC President and CEO Dana White, who joined the Board of Directors earlier this week. White is also a close ally to Trump, and introduced the President before his speech at last year’s Republican National Convention.

However, of those Zuckerberg has brought into the fold to guide this transition, Joel Kaplan—a longtime Republican lobbyist and President George W. Bush’s former chief of staff—is likely to play the most prominent role. Kaplan was named Chief of Global Affairs and replaced Nick Clegg, a former deputy prime minister from Britain who’d been in charge of Meta’s policy and regulatory stances since 2018.

In an interview with Fox earlier this week, Kaplan stated that the third-party fact-checkers Meta employed were “well-intentioned at the outset but there’s just been too much political bias in what they choose to fact-check and how.” He also noted that much of that change has occurred over the last four years, arguing that “We saw a lot of societal and political pressure, all in the direction of more content moderation, more censorship, and we’ve got a real opportunity.”

These moves have led many to claim that Meta is simply trying to curry favor with the incoming Trump administration. If that’s the case, it seems to be working. Following Kaplan’s interview, Trump said that Meta has “come a long way.”

Meta’s ability to be an ally rather than an enemy of the government will be essential going forward given that another of Zuckerberg’s stated goals is to combat the even greater levels of censorship found in Europe, Latin America, and China. And as Conner Jones and Micah Tomasella discussed on the inaugural episode of Culture Brief—Denison Forum’s newest podcast—large parts of the world could be primed to join that fight.

Ultimately, time will tell to what extent these changes are effective and how seriously Meta’s platforms are taking the notion of letting their users moderate one another rather than doing it for them. However, this news is yet another example of how the need for discernment has seldom been higher. And that represents an important opportunity for Christians today.

Opportunities we can’t afford to waste

The desire to go back to a time when you could trust what you saw on the news and when people believed their politicians were telling them the truth remains a common refrain among many. To be sure, there was (relatively) less division in our society when people were unable to anonymously yell at strangers from around the world.

However, much of the rise in consternation over the state of public discourse today is due to our ability to know how much of what is said is either incomplete or simply not true. That we’re more aware of the lies we’re told today doesn’t mean that people lied less in previous eras. The lies were simply harder to spot because the implicit trust in media, politicians, and other authority figures was higher.

While the current state of media and social discourse is certainly filled with its pitfalls and problems, it also gives us the ability to test what we’re told to see if it’s true to a level that, in many ways, really is unique to this point in human history. Doing so takes more work, but the potential rewards are much greater as well.

As Christians empowered by the Holy Spirit, we should be better positioned than most to practice such discernment. And just think of the difference it would make if we became known as a group of people others could trust and look to for guidance.

As people who worship the God who is Truth and are tasked with sharing a message that Paul warned would be considered “folly” by those who haven’t believed (1 Corinthians 1:18), discernment is among the most essential traits for us to master. Thankfully, each day presents us with endless opportunities to do just that; opportunities we can’t afford to waste.

So the next time you get ready to open Facebook, Instagram, X, or whatever social media platform you favor, start by asking God to help you discern the truth from the lies. And be sure to say that prayer again before liking, sharing, or otherwise engaging with the content you find.

The Holy Spirit is ready and waiting to help you do just that.

Will you let him?

The latest from Denison Forum:

• Joe Rogan interviews Wesley Huff, a Christian apologist
• Reflecting on the funeral of Jimmy Carter
• Celebrities losing their homes in the Los Angeles wildfires
• Making Jesus king of our new year
• More life vs the afterlife

Quote of the day:

“Truth will ultimately prevail where pains is taken to bring it to light.” — George Washington

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President-elect Donald Trump has been in the news a lot in recent days.

He asked the US Supreme Court to block his New York hush money sentencing scheduled for tomorrow. Since winning the election, he has repeatedly raised the idea of taking over the Panama Canal from Panama and taking control of Greenland from Denmark. He has also said that Canada should become the 51^st US state.

Meanwhile, the remains of former President Jimmy Carter were brought into the US Capitol on Tuesday, where the public has paid their respects ahead of his funeral at the Washington National Cathedral later today. The service begins at 10 a.m. EST; his remains will later be transported to Plains, Georgia, for a private interment this evening at 5:20 p.m.

How to know your neighbors’ politics

Reactions to all of the above have been as partisan as you might expect. Many of Mr. Trump’s supporters believe in his legal innocence and applaud his desire to expand America’s geopolitical reach. Many of his critics have written and said just the opposite. Mr. Carter’s supporters and critics have likewise been vocal in their responses regarding his death and larger legacy.

The rancor of the political Left and Right against each other has seldom been so vividly on display at one time.

Our partisan divisions are clearly reflected in a new Gallup report that shows a record-low percentage of Americans are satisfied with the way democracy is working in the US. In 1984, 60 percent of us said we were satisfied with our democracy; the number currently stands at 28 percent, fewer than ever before.

A new real estate platform now allows homebuyers to access their neighbors’ political affiliations. Customers can view block-by-block political data pulled from election results, campaign contributions, and licensable commercial reports. This will make it even easier for us to live in community with only those with whom we agree on political and cultural issues.

These trends are symptomatic of a larger issue at work in our society, a factor that should evoke both grave concern and empowering spiritual hope for us today.

“Bound together in a common fate”

Longtime readers know of my great appreciation for the work of University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter. His magnum opus, To Change the World, explains cultural transformation better than any resource I have yet seen. I have commented on it and recommended it widely over the years.

In a recent article, Hunter takes his analysis further. He references the “culture wars” of recent decades (he actually coined the term in a 1991 book by that title), noting “the apparent polarization” and “seemingly incommensurable differences” of our society.

However, he states, “We increasingly inhabit a common culture.”

In his view, this culture is “chillingly nihilistic,” a fundamental belief that our cultural opponents are the enemies of all that is good and that we are their victims. Our shared beliefs and community (what he calls “tribal affiliations”) are fashioned in large part in reaction to the perceived injuries inflicted on us by other “tribes.”

Hunter illustrates: “For evangelical Christians, all that was wrong with the world could be traced back to ‘secular humanism.’ Or, to take a different example, for those on the left, all that impeded progress and social justice could be laid at the feet of capitalism and racism.”

Our “politicized identity” is therefore “formed and sustained by way of negation.” As a result, we seek “revenge that renders forgiveness or even democratic compromise impossible” out of a “desire for a purity that cannot abide the existence of the other.” In Hunter’s view, it is vital that we respond by “refusing to see our political opponents as enemies but instead choosing to see them as fellow citizens with whom we are bound together in a common fate” (his emphasis).

“Beggars helping beggars find bread”

This is where Christianity can play a crucial role in our national future. Here’s why:

• We believe that all people, whatever their political persuasions, are created by God in his image (Genesis 1:27) and individuals for whom Jesus died (Romans 5:8). As St. Augustine famously noted, God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.
• We believe that all people, whatever their beliefs or challenges, are capable of being transformed by God’s grace into his children (John 1:12) as a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). For any individual, it is always too soon to give up on God.
• We also believe that we are just as sinful as any sinner (Romans 3:23), that we are just as much in need of God’s saving grace (Ephesians 2:8–9), and that we are therefore “beggars helping beggars find bread.”
• And we believe that loving our neighbors as ourselves is both our mandate as followers of Christ (Matthew 22:39; John 13:34–35) and our appropriate response to his love for us (1 John 4:19). Such compassion demonstrates the reality and relevance of our faith and draws a skeptical world closer to our Lord. (For more, see my latest website article, “Firefighters battling ‘unprecedented’ fires in California: The urgency and power of true compassion.”

“To solve man’s basic problem”

Jesus identified the source of our struggles: “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person” (Matthew 15:19–20). In response, pastor and author Paul Powell noted:

“To solve man’s basic problem we must give him a new heart. We must change the seat of his moral, spiritual, and intellectual being. He must be made right on the inside.”

This is what Jesus—and only Jesus—can do. No other person, religion, political party, or worldview can give us a “new birth” (John 3:3).

In First15, our ministry’s daily devotional, we read:

We were created with an insatiable thirst for relationship with God. We were made to experience true rest and satisfaction in one place and from one relationship: intimacy with the Father. In Jesus we find what our hearts have been looking for from our first breath. In Jesus we find a pathway to the Father not formed by our exploration or wandering, but by his steadfast love and unceasing pursuit.

Will you “experience true rest and satisfaction” today?

NOTE: The first episode of Denison Forum’s new podcast, Culture Brief, is out now on all podcast platforms! Join Conner Jones and Micah Tomasella as they unpack the week’s biggest cultural stories, exploring the latest trends and topics through a Christian lens. I believe they will be helpful in guiding you through politics, sports, technology, and other culture-dominating topics. Listen to the first episode now on your favorite podcast platform. New episodes will be released every Thursday. Make sure to follow the show so you never miss an episode.

Thursday news to know:

• Palisades Fire torches 1,000 structures, most destructive in Los Angeles history
• Israel, Hezbollah fighting stretches a cease-fire deal to the limit
• Iran releases Italian journalist Cecilia Sala
• The polar vortex readies to dump snow on Texas and its neighbors
• On this day in 2007: Steve Jobs debuts the iPhone

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“The greatest conversion called for by Jesus is to move from belonging to the world to belonging to God.” —Henri Nouwen

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What the growing interest in reincarnation says about our culture

In a recent article for the New York Times, Saskia Solomon profiled the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS), a parapsychology research unit that is part of the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine. DOPS was started in 1967 by Dr. Ian Stevenson and has spent the better part of sixty years investigating the stories of children who claim to remember a past life. The team has logged hundreds of cases from “all continents except Antarctica,” and Dr. Jim Tucker, who led DOPS until his retirement in 2015, said the frozen locale’s exclusion is “only because we haven’t looked for cases there.”

The eight-person team at DOPS is one of a few labs around the world investigating such phenomena, with the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh the most notable of their peers. Yet despite its affiliation with the University of Virginia’s medical school, DOPS’s research has been something of a behind-the-scenes pursuit since its inception, and that’s largely to the benefit of both the school and DOPS.

When Dr. Stevenson started the group, he was wary of their work becoming more of a carnival show than science. As such, they meet a couple of miles away from the school in a series of would-be condominiums inside a residential building. But while their work was—and, to an extent, still is—largely maligned within the scientific community, the notion of reincarnation and the remembrance of past lives is having something of a revival in the larger culture.

“This is not just a pointless existence”

A 2023 Pew Research Study found that “About one-quarter of adults say it is definitely or probably true that the dead can be reincarnated (i.e., reborn again and again in this world).” So while Solomon reports that the most frequently reported cases of a remembered past life come from South Asia, where the belief in reincarnation is more culturally and religiously prevalent, the notion is growing here as well.

Every year, parents send the group more than 100 emails asking about strange or troubling things their child has said that they believe could be tied to a past life. Dr. Tucker says that “very few” of these reports yield enough evidence to think the child’s statements could really point to reincarnation and, to their credit, they try to maintain a fairly high bar for legitimizing such claims.

The team at DOPS also understands that there’s probably not “going to be one finding or one study that suddenly convinces everyone that we need to change how we understand reality.” Yet they hope that “a greater acceptance of life being a continuous cycle could have a positive effect on the way we live” by helping people to value the lives of those around them to a greater degree.

As Dr. Tucker put it, “There would be a stronger sense that we’re all kind of in this together, this is not just a pointless existence.”

Our hope for a better life

While the Bible does not leave room for the idea of reincarnation—the author of Hebrews, among others, is clear that “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27)—the sentiment that life is not “just a pointless existence” should be a truth Christians can get behind. However, the differences in how we view that existence say a lot about the kind of hope sought by proponents of reincarnation.

In both systems, people persist long after death. However, reincarnation offers more of this life, whereas the Christian version of eternity offers the prospect of a better life—one in which we experience the kind of existence God intended for us to have before sin got in the way. That so many in our culture would rather entertain the idea of another shot at this life is telling and speaks to the fundamental flaw in our fallen nature.

The desire to live life on our terms rather than God’s drove Adam and Eve to sin in the Garden and continues to drive people to sin today. Most recognize that this world is flawed and that there are problems woven into the fabric of our existence this side of heaven. But the idea that we can do better, be better, and overcome those mistakes if we can just get another chance is among the most human beliefs we find in religion.

By contrast, Christian teaching is that it doesn’t matter how many lives we get. The problem of sin will always be a problem.

Only one being was ever able to live a sinless existence, and, by the grace of God, that’s enough if we’re simply willing to put our faith in him rather than in ourselves.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to be better, kinder, and pursue a sinless life. The Bible is clear that God’s call is to be perfect as he is perfect (Matthew 5:48), and Jesus offers us the best example of what that looks like. But failure to live up to that standard is inevitable, and if our hope for a better eternity was contingent upon being the exception to that fact, we would be truly hopeless.

Praise God that doesn’t have to be the case.

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