āDo not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.ā āRomans 12:2a NIV
As we prepare to close out 2025, this will be the final Against the Grain post for the year. And I can think of no better way to end than by examining the quiet, often unquestioned influence algorithms have on our moral imagination.
A brief note: by moral imagination, I mean the framework that shapes how we see the world, what feels normal, good, or desirable. By conscience, I mean the inner faculty that evaluates our actions as right or wrong.
Moral imagination forms the lens; conscience renders the verdict.
Letās get started.
We like to think we are more informed than ever.
And there is some truth to that.
We carry more knowledge in our pockets than any generation before us and have instant access to breaking news, expert opinions, historical archives, and endless commentary.
And yet, beneath all of this information, something more concerning has happened.
We have lost the ability to discern.
Not because we lack intelligence but because we have slowly outsourced the formation of our conscience to systems that were never designed to promote human flourishing.
Calm down. Iām not anti-media.
I am, however, pro-human, so I canāt help but see and say how media affects us.
Algorithms donāt just deliver content; they shape attention. And what shapes our attention over time shapes our loves, our fears, and, eventually, our sense of right and wrong.
Chris Hayes captures the tension of this cultural moment well when he writes in The Sirensā Call:
āThe promise of the information age was unparalleled access to every single last bit of human knowledge at every moment, and the reality is a collective civic mental life that permanently teeters on the edge of madness.ā
For most of human history, moral formation happened slowly through family, community, ritual, sacred texts, and shared practices. Conscience was trained over time through repetition, reflection, and responsibility.
Our digital age operates differently as algorithms reward response.
What rises to the top of our feeds is not what is truest or most thoughtful, but what provokes the strongest reaction.
Over time, this trains us not to think deeply but to respond reflexively.
And that training process is what formation looks like in real time.
Stay with me.
Contrary to popular belief, the idea of formation is not a Christian thing; itās a human thing. Itās the process by which we intentionally or unintentionally align our lives around certain principles or practices.
Therefore, formation is happening to all of us, all the time, whether we consent to it or not.
The apostle Paul understood the subtle power of cultural formation long before algorithms existed.
āDo not be conformed to the pattern of this world,ā he wrote, ābut be transformed by the renewing of your mind.ā
We should be careful not to misread Paul here, as this verse is sometimes used to justify a lack of cultural engagement within the Christian community.
Paul in Rome (A Brief Context): Writing to a fiercely divided community living within the shadow of empire, Paul was not warning against cultural contact but against cultural conformity. His readers were immersed in Roman culture every day. But Rome was more than a city; it was a system, one that shaped the values, loyalties, identity, and imagination of its inhabitants. The risk in Paulās mind was not exposure, but enculturation: a people unconsciously shaped by the empireās patterns rather than transformed by the way of Jesus.
If this sounds familiar, it should.
But in our modern world, the āpattern of this worldā is not only philosophical; itās technological.
Itās no longer just about what we believe but about who or what has trained us to believe it, because Scripture never treats conscience as static or automatic.
Paul addresses conscience repeatedly in his letters, especially in his correspondence with the Corinthians, where he assumes conscience can be weak, misinformed, or strengthened over time (see 1 Corinthians 8:7ā12; 10:23ā29).
Conscience is not merely something we have; itās something we develop.
And like any faculty, it is shaped by practice, repetition, and authority.
When we submit our moral imagination to algorithmic systems, we allow them to become our primary trainers.
Over time, they teach us what deserves attention, what deserves outrage, and what deserves silence.
They do not ask whether something is edifying; they ask whether it will keep us engaged.
So, what shall we say to these things?
For me, the solution is not withdrawal from the digital world, nor louder moralizing within it, but the recovery of conscience through countercultural acts of resistance that slow us down long enough to think, practices like silence before sharing and community before commentary.
Practices that help us discern, not disenage.
In an age obsessed with immediacy, slowness is a form of wisdom.
In a culture addicted to outrage, restraint is a moral act.
Selah.
A pauseāan invitation to stop, reflect, and let what has been said settle before moving on.
Against The Grain
Against the Grain is the second newsletter from the āwith Sean Dreherā Substack. It focuses on culture, conscience, and curiosity. As a missional thinker, I remind myself that Paul said not to be conformed, he didnāt say not to be informed. In these writings, Iāll wrestle with the cultural realities (and assumptions) of our day and how we can process them as followers of Jesus. Itās my best attempt at imagining what Paul would say if he were writing a letter to America.