In an age where attention is the scarcest and most valuable resource, something remarkable—and unsettling—has happened. Digital platforms, powered by sophisticated algorithms, have become extraordinarily effective at shaping human desire, stoking outrage, forging identity, and commanding attention. They do this not through moral exhortation or spiritual discipline, but through relentless optimization for engagement.

Meanwhile, the Christian church—at least in much of its contemporary Western expression—often appears reluctant or uncertain about how to form people at the same depth. It still proclaims truth. It still gathers. But it increasingly struggles to compete on the terrain where formation actually happens: the habits of the heart.

Algorithms have quietly assumed roles once reserved for sermons, catechesis, and pastoral guidance. They disciple at scale.

The Battle for Attention

Scripture insists that what we behold shapes who we become—“whatever is true, whatever is noble… think about such things.” But sustained attention is difficult. It requires discipline. It requires limits. A sermon asks for 20–30 minutes of focus once a week.

The algorithm asks for nothing—and takes everything.

Social platforms and streaming services are engineered to capture and retain attention through variable rewards, infinite scroll, and personalized feeds. They do not request devotion; they exploit cognitive vulnerability. Novelty. Fear. Validation. Dopamine.

The average person now spends hours daily inside these systems—far more than in prayer, Scripture, or communal worship. In raw time spent shaping imagination and reflex, the algorithm has already won.

Where the church teaches Sabbath, the feed offers stimulation.
Where the church urges self-control, the feed accelerates reaction.

Manufacturing Outrage

Outrage is one of the algorithm’s most efficient fuels. Content that provokes anger, fear, or tribal loyalty drives engagement. This is not accidental. It is optimization.

The church has long understood the moral power of righteous anger. Prophets thundered against injustice. Preachers have stirred consciences. But Christian anger is meant to be constrained by love—“be slow to anger,” “love your enemies,” “speak the truth in love.” It is directed toward repentance and reconciliation.

Algorithms have no such constraints. They do not care whether anger heals or corrodes. They amplify whatever sustains attention.

Over time, this produces a subtle shift. Outrage becomes identity. We begin to experience indignation as purpose.

The algorithm refuses that restraint. It offers endless examples of enemies to defeat and crises to inflame. It forms users into perpetual reactors.

Shaping Desire at Industrial Scale

At its deepest level, Christianity is about rightly ordered love. Augustine famously described sin not as the presence of desire but its misdirection. Spiritual formation aims to reorient longing toward God and neighbor.

Algorithms are masters of desire formation.

Recommendation systems do more than predict what we want; they train us to want what keeps us engaged. They amplify envy, comparison, consumption, self-display. They subtly narrow horizons, feeding us content that confirms existing preferences while intensifying them.

In doing so, they construct identity.

Online, the self becomes curated, optimized, and continuously adjusted for affirmation. Validation functions as absolution. Feedback loops replace confession. The system “knows” us through data exhaust and responds with tailored reinforcement.

In this sense, the algorithm functions as a kind of digital liturgist. It repeats rituals—scroll, click, react—until they become embodied habits. It offers belonging without vulnerability, expression without accountability, and transcendence without surrender.

Where the church calls for repentance and transformation, the algorithm affirms and intensifies. It rarely challenges the self; it fosters excess.

Reclaiming Formation

What are we to do? The answer is not technophobia. Nor is it naïve embrace. It is clarity.

The church must name the formative power of digital systems honestly. It must teach media habits as spiritual habits. It must recover disciplines of attention as acts of resistance.

Formation cannot compete with dopamine hits from digital services. It must compete by spiritual depth.

Embodied presence over digital activity.
Sabbath over scroll.
Community over tribe.

If algorithms meet people where their restless hearts are, the church must meet them there and lead them toward wholeness.

The question is not whether formation is happening. It is which power will shape us. And whether the church is willing to form people as intentionally as the machine does.