What is Substack, that thou art mindful of it?

Writing a "paid" list post this weekend sent tmatt into a spiral of hard questions

It’s impossible, these days, to ignore the role Substack is playing in the world of alternative, niche-market journalism. That’s important since — as I argued in my 2023 Religion & Liberty essay (“The Evolving Religion of Journalism”) — niche-market journalism is pretty much all that we have in red vs. blue America.

But a wide variety of Substacks keep pumping information into the American public square on a wide variety of important issues, both secular and religious and everything in between.

I’m not just talking about the heavy hitters, like The Free Press, Rod “Living in Wonder” Dreher and the essential After Babel newsletter from Jonathan Haidt and his colleagues. Substack offers journalism by experienced journalists as well as personal journals from cooks, gardeners, poets, cat lovers, mystics, preachers, moms and lots of folks who are really hard to label.

Rational Sheep, at this point, is a small Substack project that is pleading (hopefully with dashes of humor) for religious believers to think seriously about the role that mass media plays in the lives of people in pews as well as the vast marketplace of folks who are often called the “unchurched.” Do readers want to hear an old mass-comm professor “plead” for them to pay close attention to issues linked to entertainment, social media, news and technology?

That’s a hard sell and I knew that when I posted the overture for the project.

I have been pleased, and grateful, to see some religious educators, clergy and denominational leaders subscribe to read Rational Sheep. I am thankful that the number of readers and followers continues to arc in a positive direction at a slow, but steady, rate. We have an “open rate” per post that is well above average, which is a positive sign. I’d love to get more comments on posts, since that helps me know what readers are thinking and the topics that interest them.

Right now, here is the question that has me puzzled (as opposed to “depressed”): What is the difference between a post written for “free” readers and one that goes to Rational Sheep’s few “paid” subscribers?

As I stressed in the post (“Life is starting to get crazy in tmatt land”) stating that I was about to punch the “paid” mode button, I am committed to sending material every week to the “free” list subscribers. I strive to do that on Mondays and Fridays. I do posts for the “paid” readers on Wednesday and on weekends. My original plan was to offer occasional online “chats” and audio versions of posts for the “paid” list folks who back the “reader supported” part of the Substack equation.

There is conflicting information on how many readers choose the “paid” option on the Substack publications they read. Some say the average is as low as 5% and others say the average is around 15%. At this early stage of the transition to “reader supported” life, Rational Sheep is below 5%.

I am thankful for readers — period. I enjoy interaction with readers and I want more of that. Trust me on that.

But let me ask that big question again (because I want feedback): What is the difference between a post written for “free” readers and one that goes to Rational Sheep’s few “paid” subscribers? You see, that question leads to another puzzle: Should Substack writers:

(a) Send all of their material to all readers, while trusting that enough readers send “paid” pledges (think NPR) to keep the project going? Do I need a swag Rational Sheep coffee cup (said the scribe who doesn’t drink coffee)?

(b) Do I write one highly personal post a week to “paid” readers and send the newsy, information-driven posts to everyone?

(c) Do I stay with my current approach — dividing the content 50-50 — but send “essential” posts to everyone?

(d) You guessed it. That leads us back to a variation on my earlier “big” question: What makes a post “essential”? To be blunt: It’s almost impossible to know which posts will hook the most readers.

This spiral of questions, truth be told, is a meditation on the post that I wrote this past weekend for the “paid” list. I sat down intending to write a short, breezy post before I rushed out the door for another car trip carrying books, framed art, music and other essentials to the new Mattingly home in the Tri-Cities area of Northeast Tennessee.

But something happened while I was writing. The post “took off” on me — digging into theological questions that are at the heart of my Rational Sheep work. By the time I reached the reference to “Treasure of the Broken Land,” a gripping song by the late Mark Heard about death and eternal hope, I was kind of torn up about the whole thing. Was I writing this post to a handful of readers or everyone?

I elected to stay with the plan and I sent it to the “paid” list. Then other questions rushed into my mind: Should I post a link on X and crash people into the paywall? How about my own “friends” on Facebook? What about the large list of readers who followed the now archived GetReligion website?

Would those promotion efforts be good for Substack “business”? What would “help” Rational Sheep in the long run (because I am very committed to this project)?

Truth be told: I have no idea. It’s all circles inside of circles for me, right now.

By Sunday afternoon, I knew that I wanted everyone to see that weekend post.

So here it is. Your feedback is appreciated.

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All of God’s creation is both glorious and fallen.

That’s a soundbite that I used many times during my decades as a mass-comm professor and while speaking at Christian colleges and universities (and a few seminaries) across America and around the world.

It’s a condensed take on what thinkers in the Reformed, Calvinist tradition refer to as the “cultural mandate.” As you would expect, you can find similar statements in the theology of the ancient church (think Orthodox and Catholic), frequently under the broad umbrella of “creation theology.”

This brings me to a meditation on the video featured at the top of this post. It was sent to me by a Rational Sheep reader — Chris Woolfe — with this note:

A friend of mine and I made a 30 second video connecting scripture with modern day screen culture. We're sharing it with thought leaders like yourself before distributing it more widely. Would you like to see it?

I said, “Of course,” and I have watched it several times.

Here is my question: Is this view of screen culture too dark? Is it, in effect, arguing that the glowing screens in our lives are, to be blunt, evil? Are we dealing with pure evil in the form of digital idols that represent the false gods of our entertainment age?

The scripture in the video, of course, is from Psalm 115.

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not: They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.

That is certainly part of the story of our age.

That’s kind of what I was thinking last spring when my wife and I were on a cruise that took us deep into Glacier Bay in Alaska. The scenery was absolutely stunning. However, I have to admit that my attention kept drifting to a young boy — I would say six years old — who didn’t see a single thing because he was locked into whatever was happening on a handheld video-game device and in his headphones.

If a whale had surfaced and gazed at all of us, would this boy have noticed? I had my doubts.

There are worse things that children can encounter in “screens culture,” of course. But there are much better things as well. I would argue that there is material that can help you look at real life, and the lives of others, in new ways. The technology that brings children porn is the same technology that offers libraries of biblical truth in lands where governments work hard to ban that material in libraries.

In other words, I think that screens culture is both glorious and fallen. Here is a brief statement about that “cultural mandate” equation, drawn from a collection of “snippets” on the website of Calvin University:

The Reformed tradition stresses the threefold nature of history: creation, fall, redemption. These historical themes apply to technology as well as to the rest of the created universe.

God created all things good. Humans, elephants, trees, rocks, sand, stars — they were all created in a wonderful harmony. This includes technology. The cultural mandate implies that God built the potential for culture (art, music, language, and technology, among other aspects) into the creation. God created humans in His own image, and so the creativity and ingenuity necessary to invent new technologies comes as a gift from God. He also endowed creation with the natural resources necessary for technology — wood, metal, silicon, electricity, and more.

By man's choice, represented in the Adam and Eve, sin entered the world. The fall affected every part of creation. Even our technology is stained by sin. The goodness built in from creation is still present, but warped and darkened by sin.

Now, I have — through the years — discovered that many educated Christians, when asked to ponder the “cultural mandate” or “creation theology” — are quick to quote the book “Amusing Ourselves To Death” by Neil Postman. This classic was first published in a highly symbolic year — 1985 (as in the year after “1984”).

It’s an important book, packed with quotes such as this reflection on the cultural red flags waved by George Orwell and Aldous Huxley:

Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxleyfeared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.

All too true, of course. Postman was writing about the dawn of the cable-television age and all the distractions that came with it. Imagine what he would write about the political power of TikTok.

I have to admit that, whenever I read Postman, I am tempted to think that he believes television is absolutely evil, a technology with zero chance of redemption. Frankly, he appears to worship the culture of books, seeking zero chance that print technology has its flaws and weaknesses, as well.

OK, I know that television has its dangers. Ditto for computers, tablets and smartphones. Then again, I would note that millions of lives have been changed by this book, and the same can be said of this book.

By all means, read Postman for yourself. And I also recommend this classic by radio maestro Kenneth “Mars Hill Audio” Myers — “All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture.” In many ways, this was the book that led me into teaching in a seminary classroom and, thus, all the way to this Rational Sheep project.

As with Postman, there are quotes in “All God’s Children” that make me pause and think about the cultural mandate. Take this one, for example:

“If our cultural lives are sick, it is likely to be an impediment to our spiritual lives. Much popular culture promotes a spirit of restlessness. That is likely to be an obstacle to prayer, to concerned reflection, and to attentiveness to the needs of others. Popular culture also has an extremely limited range of sensibilities. I have never heard a work of popular music that has the depth of poignancy of the opening bars of Brahms's 'German Requiem,' for example, with its text, 'Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.' I learn something about mourning when I hear Brahms; I know of no similar lessons in popular music.”

Now, please understand that it was a transforming experience for me — at the age of 18 — when I sang the Brahms Requiem for the first time. Even more so, the first time I sang the haunting a cappella wonders in Rachmaninov’s in “All-Night vigil (Vespers).”

However, my battered iPod (it contains roughly two months worth of material) contains many, many other forms of music.

Is there anything in that pocket-sized digital box that deserves to be compared to the “Requiem”?

Maybe not, but my eyes water with repressed tears every time I hear “Treasure of the Broken Land” by the late Mark Heard.

This is a song of mourning for his father, a kind of requiem, and it was written and released just before a heart attack claimed Heard way, way, way too soon — shortly after the singer-songwriter had released a wave of excellent music in what many would say were the best three albums of a brilliant career.

Follow these lyrics while you listen to that performance, in the YouTube embedded above (or listen to this raging-at-death take, produced, as a Heard tribute, by Chagall Guevara). What do you hear? To me, it sounds like Heard knew that his time was running out. He was waiting for Gabriel to do his thing.

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I see you now and then in dreams
Your voice sounds just like it used to
I know you better than I knew you then
All I can say is I love you

I thought our days were commonplace
Thought they would number in millions
Now there's only the aftertaste
Of circumstance that can't pass this way again

Treasure of the broken land
Parched earth, give up your captive ones
Waiting wind of Gabriel
Blow soon upon the hollow bones

I saw the city at its tortured worst
And you were outside the walls there
You were relieved of a lifelong thirst
I was dry at the fountain

I knew that you could see my shame
But you were eyeless and sparing
I awoke when you called my name
I felt the curtain tearing

Treasure of the broken land
Parched earth give up your captive ones
Waiting wind of Gabriel
Blow soon upon the hollow bones

I can melt the clock hands down
But only in my memory
Nobody gets the second chance to be the friend they meant to be

I see you now and then in dreams
Your voice sounds just like it used to
I believe I will hear it again
God how I love you

Treasure of the broken land
Parched earth give up your captive ones
Waiting wind of Gabriel
Blow soon upon the hollow bones

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In conclusion, let me return to that first video — “They have eyes, but do not see” — offered by Chris Woolfe. After watching it the second or third time, I asked this question: What comes next? What comes after this stark digital warning about the silver and (rose) gold idols of the digital world?

What should religious leaders (parents, pastors, teachers and counselors) say about the urgent and difficult task of maintaining control of the role that digital technology plays in our lives? What can they say that is positive (and valid) about screens culture, as well as negative (also valid)?

Once again: All of God’s creation is both glorious and fallen.

Is the only option silence?