Question
Why is misformation a more fundamental problem than misinformation?
Summary:
Better information doesn’t correct a person whose interpretive instincts have been shaped by a rival order. Misformation is the root. Misinformation is a symptom. Addressing one without the other treats a fever while ignoring the infection.
Contemporary Christian discourse often treats misinformation as the central challenge facing the church. Give people accurate information, the argument goes, and they will believe and behave appropriately. The church’s task becomes a kind of catechetical clarity: teach true things, correct false things, and trust that cognitive alignment will produce corresponding behavior.
The approach has obvious appeal. It is also insufficient. The deeper problem isn’t what people know. It is how people have been formed. A person formed by a rival sacred-social order won’t be corrected by better information. They will interpret the better information through the same formed instincts that produced the problem. Misformation is the root. Misinformation is a symptom.
The dynamic is visible in how people process contested claims. Research on political polarization consistently shows that we don’t simply adopt the positions of the groups to which we belong. We develop interpretive habits that make it difficult even to perceive evidence against the group’s position. This isn’t a failure of intelligence. It is a feature of formation. We learn to see certain things and overlook others. Our attention is trained before our reasoning gets a turn.
The same dynamic operates in Christian life. A person whose attention has been trained by the rhythms of a particular media environment will find themselves unable to weight Scripture the way Scripture claims to be weighted. This isn’t because they reject Scripture’s authority in principle. It is because their formation has taught them to attend to other voices with greater urgency. When those voices and Scripture conflict, the formed instincts usually win. They will find ways to harmonize the conflict in favor of the voices that have already shaped them.
The church’s task can’t be reduced to teaching. Teaching is necessary. Orthodox doctrine is necessary. Teaching that isn’t accompanied by formation, though, addresses only part of the problem. It may even create a particular kind of Christian who holds correct positions while living a life shaped by rival orders. The result is doctrinal orthodoxy wedded to practical heterodoxy. The words are right. The instincts aren’t.
Paul prays that the Colossians would be “filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col 1:9-10). The knowledge here isn’t propositional in the modern sense. It is the kind of knowing that shapes how we walk, which is to say, how we live. It produces fruit, not opinions.
Addressing misformation requires practices that form differently. Worship, confession, the Lord’s Supper, disciplined study, mutual accountability, and communal reasoning don’t simply convey information. They shape the instincts by which information is received and acted upon. A person whose imagination has been formed by the slow, repeated encounter with Scripture in corporate worship will process contested claims differently than a person whose imagination has been formed primarily by social media. The difference won’t be one of positions but of perception.
Information matters. Information alone can’t solve a problem deeper than information. Diagnosing misinformation without addressing misformation is like treating a fever without addressing the infection. The symptom recurs because its source hasn’t been touched. A church that wants Christians who think rightly will have to do the slower work of forming Christians who are capable of thinking rightly. Correct information depends on it.
Key Takeaways: Misformation Is the Root
• Information Alone Doesn’t Correct Formation: A person formed by a rival order interprets new information through the same instincts that produced the problem. The instincts have to be retrained.
• Polarization Research: We develop interpretive habits that make evidence against our group’s position hard to perceive. Attention is trained before reasoning gets a turn.
• Paul’s Colossian Prayer: Colossians 1:9-10 ties knowledge to walking. The knowing Paul prays for shapes life, not just opinion.
• The “So What”: The church needs practices that form Christians capable of thinking rightly. Correct information depends on it. Misinformation as such is downstream.
About the Author
James Spencer, PhD, is a theologian, author, and host of the Thinking Christian podcast, where he writes and speaks on Christian formation, political theology, and technology. He holds a PhD in Theological Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and completed the Institute for Educational Management at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He serves as President of the D.L. Moody Center in Northfield, Massachusetts, as adjunct faculty in Wheaton College’s MA in Leadership program, and as an Associate Research Fellow at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Christianity.com, and Sojourners; he has been quoted in The Telegraph; and he is a regular guest on Stand in the Gap Today with the American Pastors Network. His forthcoming book is Digital Discernment (InterVarsity Press, Fall 2026). Learn more at jamesgspencer.com.