Four Questions:
If you haven’t noticed, we live in an age of outrage — a world where every swipe, scroll and click seems to fan the flames of anger and division. In 2025, Oxford University Press named “rage bait” its Word of the Year — a term describing content deliberately crafted to provoke fury and drive engagement rather than understanding. Three-quarters of young social media users report regularly encountering misogynistic or divisive language online, and more than half say it pushes them away from platforms meant for connection. Algorithms reward the emotionally charged; anger travels faster than calm reason. Comment threads become shouting matches. Feeds are engineered for indignation. Outrage is no longer occasional — it’s ambient. It’s the air we breathe. And I would argue… even the church is not untouched.[1]
If outrage is pervasive, then fear — not wisdom — can begin to drive our decisions. And fear never produces long-term faithfulness. That’s a serious issue for Christian spiritual formation!
Recently I reread The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges — a book that has sold over 1.5 million copies[2]. When R. C. Sproul said, “When Jerry Bridges speaks, I listen,” I pay attention. In a chapter on putting sin to death (written in 1978, long before social media and this culture of outrage we are caught up in), Bridges poses four piercing questions. They feel strikingly relevant for navigating our cultural moment.
Question 1: Is it helpful — physically, spiritually, mentally?
“Everything is permissible for me — but not everything is beneficial” (1 Cor 6:12).
Apply this question and verse to the shouty thumbnails: “So-and-so DESTROYS so-and-so.” “They LIED to you.” “What THEY don’t want you to know.” Is this helpful? Of course our hearts want to know how so-and-so destroys so-and-so, that’s an age-old problem. Yet, saturating heart and mind in combative noise cannot cultivate peace (one of the fruit of the spirit) so… is it helpful? Paul presses further:
“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” (Rom 12:18)
“Whatever is true… noble… pure… lovely… admirable… think about such things.” (Phil 4:8)
How does habitual outrage help us obey those commands?
I’m not advocating becoming a Luddite. But I am advocating radical and strident discernment. Let me give you an example: a physical book passes through editors; rage rarely survives that process.
Not everything that grabs attention nourishes the soul.
Question 2: Does it bring me under its power?
“‘Everything is permissible for me’ — but I will not be mastered by anything” (1 Cor 6:12).
Saying “no” to addictive outrage isn’t deprivation; it’s freedom (did you hear that?). Often, liberty lies on the other side of refusal (yes, that’s right).
Outrage fragments us into tribes. But saying “no” to tribalising chants is saying “yes” to the biblical vision of one new humanity in Christ — a multi-coloured, multi-aged people united around the throne. That “yes” is worth protecting!
Question 3: Does it hurt others?
“If what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again…” (1 Cor 8:13).
Outrage begins with self-assertion: my identity, my rights, my grievance. Paul sketches something radically different — a community willing to limit itself for the sake of the weak. Not everything we can say should be said. Love sometimes chooses restraint so unity can flourish.
Question 4: Does it glorify God?
“Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10:31).
Does the tone, texture, and temperature of our engagement produce love or merely heat? Unity or fragmentation? Fellowship or isolation? God is not glorified by noise that corrodes communion (just pause and think about that for a moment).
So what do we do? We take these four questions seriously. We let them expose how deeply we’ve absorbed the culture of outrage. And then we look to the Lord for the grace to change — not reacting in fear, but responding in wisdom.
[1]Another church minister remarked to me a couple of years ago that conversations today seem to escalate almost instantly to a “10”, whereas in the past they would have unfolded more steadily at a “5” or “6.”
[2] This is one of several books I’m gathering into a small working library for men who enter our ministry training programme.
