It’s interesting to me that many Christians seem to place so much faith in the “marketplace of ideas.” The sub-sub-title of Hewitt’s book Blog, for example, is “Why you must know how the blogosphere is smashing the old media monopoly and giving individuals power in the marketplace of ideas.” (Emphasis added.) (No, sub-sub-title isn’t a typo, the book has two subtitles — go figure.)
The “marketplace of ideas” is a metaphor first employed by Justice Oliver Wendell Homes in a 1919 U.S. Supreme Court opinion concerning the First Amendment. It’s become a central metaphor in free speech jurisprudence. The idea is that censorship is unnecessary because bad ideas will lose in the marketplace to good ideas.
Many politically and intellectually active Christians, particularly those of us who blog, consciously or unconsciously have internalized this metaphor. We believe that we can win the “culture wars” if we gain access to, and perhaps control over, the fora of cultural communication. This seems to me to be on of the central messages of Hewitt’s “Blog”: Christian soldiers and conservatives should get into the blogsphere and flood it with our ideas, which will win on the merits over the pap served up in the mainstream media.
Why should we have such confidence? Scripture gives no hint that good ideas will triumph in the marketplace. In fact, it tells us the contrary: “First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.” (2 Peter 3:3.) Scripture reminds us that the truth we proclaim is “foolishness” to the world:
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” (I Cor. 1:18.)
In that same passage in First Corinthians, Paul continues with the exhortation that our principal responsibility is not to make arguments or perform miraculous signs, but to “preach Christ.” I love the balance Paul reaches here — a balance that’s as relevant to us in 2005 as it was to the first century church. The “proof” of our faith isn’t in the Catholic Scholastic’s syllogisms, the Evangelical’s neat apologetic, or the Presbyterian’s carefully worded confession; nor is it in the Pentacostal’s signs and wonders or the Charismatic’s emotional immediacy. Read it as Paul says it:
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. (I Cor. 1:20-31.)
The “proof” of our faith, then, is the person of Christ working in and through His Church. And the person of Christ, along with His Church, will be rejected by the so-called wise and powerful of this world. The “marketplace of ideas” in this sense isn’t a functional market because the consumers of ideas lack perfect, or even decent, information about what they are consuming if they reject the person of Christ. We cannot expect our ideas to “win” in such a market.
What we can expect is the vindication of truth in Christ’s return. After Peter warns his readers about “scoffers,” he reminds them that Christ will indeed return one day “like a thief.” (2 Peter 3:10.) The Kindgom of God prevails, not because of the invisible hand of a marketplace of ideas functioning among enlightened people, not because a mass of Christian bloggers overwhelms the mainstream media, but because Christ returns as king and judge to bring to fruition the work He begain in the Church.
Should we then give up on promoting our ideas, in the blogsphere or elsehwere? No. Peter also tells us we should “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” — with “gentleness and respect”(!)(1 Peter 3:15). And the fact that the Church’s prophetic message will be rejected in the broader marketplace of ideas is no excuse to quit the bold proclamation of the gospel. We must always remember, however, that the idea of the gospel is not a market commodity that we must promote the way Nike promotes basketball shoes. It is the “power of God” and the “wisdom of God,” which we proclaim in faithful expectation of His return.