Anti-echo Chamber

In our divided world and divided church, we need media that break down divisions, not reinforce them. This is my vision for The Banner: to be an anti-echo chamber for the Christian Reformed Church. In news media and social media, an echo chamber is an environment where someone encounters only information or opinions that reflect and reinforce their own. Echo chambers amplify certain ideas or voices and minimize or silence dissenting ones. They increase polarization and conflict between ideological tribes.

In this goal of being an anti-echo chamber, we are also maintaining The Banner’s legacy as the “kitchen table” of the denomination. This is where diverse voices in the denomination can share ideas, stories, and words that revolve around the Word made flesh, Jesus, and embody his grace and truth. Though we will have varying degrees of success and some missteps, this is what we aspire to.

Maintaining a fair forum requires humility, tolerance, and vulnerability. It is difficult. It is risky. Some may say it is idealistic. But I believe this is the way of Christ, the Prince of Peace.

At Christmas, we celebrate the Word becoming flesh in Jesus (John 1:14). When the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, it also became, at least temporarily, one human voice among many other human voices. The divine, almighty Word became a human word that could be silenced, that could be drowned out by louder words, that could be mocked, argued against,or even ignored—a humble, vulnerable word.

This is how Christ brings his peace—not through coercion or silencing other voices. Christ brings his peace with words and deeds full of grace and truth.

Dear readers, would you join us in this journalistic ministry of fostering peace by being a humble anti-echo chamber?

Starting in 2025, we will be merging our January and February print issues into one, as we do for our July/August print issue. This is one step toward the goal of becoming entirely financially self-sustaining by 2027. Over the next three years, our portion of denominational ministry share dollars will gradually reduce to zero. That means more ministry share dollars will be available for CRC agencies such as Thrive, Resonate and ReFrame. But we cannot achieve that goal simply by this one move of merging these two issues. More than ever, we need your partnership to sustain our mission.

We are most grateful for your generous support over the years. More than 4,000 of you have donated this year. If you are one of them, thank you! However, our fundraising projections for this year are tracking lower than last year’s. If we do not raise another $200,000 by Dec. 31, 2024, we might need to make further changes to our print distribution and frequency. Would you please consider giving again?

You can go to (US) thebanner.org/donate or (CDN) thebanner.org/donate.

If our ministry’s vision resonates with you, please give to keep the conversations going. May you experience God’s peace this Christmas season.