affirmation vs information

What do you prefer, affirmation or information?
I would bet that most of us, because we are Americans, would think that we desire information over affirmation- but the opposite is actually true.  We watch certain news programs based off of our current political interests.  What do these programs do?  They do not inform, but rather they affirm our already given presuppositions.  People watch Rush not because he is 'informing' them of groundbreaking information, but because he is affirming their already given ideas about something.  The same is true for Rachel Maddow... not ground breaking stuff either.  Whether it is Rush or Rachel, CNN or FOX, we watch what we watch based on what we want to hear rather than what we want to learn.  Maybe this is too large of a 'blanket statement', but check yourself next time a piece of information actually informs you and it goes against the grain of your thought.  Is that person just a crazy liberal or a right-winged dinosaur?  Unfortunately we have gotten to the place in our country where we cannot learn anything from anyone, especially if they think differently than us.

Because I am a United Methodist... (shout out to my methoblog colleagues) this is an issue we need to address as well.  We are some of the most self-congratulatory people in the world.  I would bet that if at the beginning of each annual conference everyone would stand up and thank one another ONCE or give only one standing ovation for the entire group, then we would be able to cut DAYS off of our time in holy conferencing.  We like to affirm what we already know and already are.  We will affirm one another even if the information tells us that we shouldn't.  Now I am not saying that we shouldn't celebrate because we do far to little of this in our denomination to begin with.  We need to celebrate the areas of effectiveness and ministry.  However, I am also aware that again we have ignored the information at our hands describing the state of our church because certain people presented it to us.  Why did Call to Action fail?  What about Plan UMC?  How do we feel about the role of bishops now? How do the bishops feel about many who question their authority?  All of this struggle is found because we only want affirmation and if someone thinks differently than us - (remember this works both ways) - then we are blinded to the truth of the information.  "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.... well depending upon who says it."