The Wisdom Pyramid with Brett McCracken
The Internet is a blessing, but it also presents a challenge. With endless information at our fingertips, how can we cultivate a life of wisdom? It’s one of the greatest discipleship challenges today.
Brett McCracken has created The Wisdom Pyramid to help us increase our intake of enduring, trustworthy sources (like the Bible) while moderating our consumption of less reliable sources.
Key Ideas
- Most of us have made digital content our main input, and it’s making us sick.
- The overwhelming quantity of digital information forces our brain into a continual triage mode, which robs us of the energy we need for deep, reflective thinking.
- Developing healthy digital habits is a big discipleship challenge for the 21st century.
- Churches can help train people in media literacy and the development of healthy digital habits.
- Wise inputs must focus first on what is most enduring and what is closest to God (e.g. Bible and church).
- The more removed we are from nature, the more likely we are to lead foolish lives.
- Nature reveals God’s beautiful abundance.
- Beauty enables us to orient to God not just with our minds, but with our entire bodies.
- In a digital world, it’s healthy to be limited by our location and the people around us.
Quotes
“We’re just eating the digital version of Skittles and Doritos and doughnuts all day throughout the day. And none of it is really nutritious for us.”
“Constant distraction is a greater temptation for humans today than any generation of humans prior have faced.”
“Nature reveals his beautiful abundance. He didn’t have to create tens of thousands of species of hummingbirds, or he didn’t have to create however many hundreds of thousands of species of orchids there are in the world, but he did, and that’s just amazing.”
“Even your average faithful church-going Christian is actually being discipled more by their online habits and echo chambers.”
Episode Links
Books mentioned:
- The Wisdom Pyramid by Brett McCracken
- Uncomfortable by Brett McCracken
- Hipster Christianity by Brett McCracken
- Gray Matters by Brett McCracken
- Pensées by Blaise Pascal
Transcript
Download a PDF transcript of this episode.
