Happy Independence Day! Take a day for pleasure reading (assuming you enjoy reading Churchatopia newsletters), or when you return on Tuesday you’ll have a shorter newsletter to kick off your day with.
Data, Information, and Facts
Thoughts of cultural and social progress have long been in the air. They underwrite a strand of the secularist-progressive worldview. Certainly, much of the sentiment that things are gradually getting better and better can be traced to the Progressive Era in American politics (ca. 1895-1920). Yet there have often been periods, figures, and movements that embraced notions like Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous aphorism, “the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice.”
Many see this notion not just as aspirational, but a reflection of the human capacity for self-correction and social advancement. A certain kind of Christian humanist can appreciate God’s common grace as seen in improvements like the standard of living to the Rule of Law to representative democracy. But another kind of humanism thinks human beings will inevitably figure things out on their own. It’s part of their evolutionary legacy.
But what happens when this secular vision collides with reality?
Recently I was reading and enjoying Bari Weiss’ always-interested Substack. Writer Nellie Bowles shared this disturbing graphic from the Murder Accountability Project.
According to the data this organization has collected, police today report more unsolved murders than compared to the 1960s and 70s, a highwater mark for violent crime in many American cities and states.
As with any data, numbers can be deceiving. We’d want to dig deeper and ask, “Is reporting of criminal case statistics better now than earlier periods, indicating that we weren’t doing as well back then as this graphic suggests?” We might ask, “Is the ratio of police assigned to investigate murder cases less favorable now than decades before?” Or, “Will the percentage of recent, unsolved cases go down given more time for investigation? Certainly some murders are still part of ongoing, active investigations, right?” Finally, “What counts as ‘solved’? Does a suspect have to be arrested, indicted, or convicted for a murder to be solved?”
Numbers never tell the whole story. Answering the questions above may or may not reinforce the disturbing story that the data tells, that we’re not solving murder cases as effectively as we’ve shown we’re capable of.
It’s important here to pause and observe an important distinction. Consider the difference between data, facts, and information. Is it possible to have lots of numbers that represent actual people and/or circumstances, but not know how to assemble them in a meaningful way? What if we can do that, but then we don’t know how to explain the cause (or causes) or their particular meaning? Omit the word meaning, though. It’s often associated with moral values, which are hard to find consensus about in our pluralistic society. How should the data set be interpreted?
Are we solving crimes worse than before? It’s hard to dispute that interpretation, but then we don’t know why we’re not. What’s more, the graphic can’t tell us how to rectify the problem.
Answering the why question will require more analysis, history, expertise, etc. In other words, answering that question will require nuance, complexity, and honesty. When we survey our media and political environment, how equipped are we to handle or offer any of those three? Now you start to see why we don’t make much progress—regardless of how it’s defined.
Determining how to improve the rate of solved murders will require a closer look at police training, the deployment of resources, relationships between police departments and district attorneys’ offices, and several other key factors. With all the turmoil surrounding race, guns, policing, and blue state values versus red state values, how effective will such an inquiry be? Yet this is exactly what would be needed to get a better handle on how to understand and respond to unsolved murders more effectively.
Are We Making Progress? How Do We Know?
Part of why the graphic is so jaw-dropping is that it reflects a failure of our law enforcement and legal system to discharge its most basic obligations: protect victims and punish lawbreakers. Immediately small government conservatives restrain ourselves from screaming, “And you guys want to get involved in more areas of my life?” But we’re thinking it. Given the sophistication of DNA technology, training, and the omnipresence of cameras, not solving more murders seems unconscionable. At the very least, it leads us to question bureaucratic and legal competence.
But step back from the cynicism and frustration. It’s certainly uncontroversial to want to solve murder cases. We can find broad-based moral agreement on that being a public good. However, what about a hundred other features of everyday life?
Would fewer abortions be good? Would fewer greenhouse gas emissions be good? Would more African Americans entering law enforcement be good? Would more Asian Americans in the federal judiciary be good? We call these political questions, but both the Right and Left recognize that each issue reaches beyond the “political.” Call them “social,” “cultural,” or “economic.” But the moment we ask whether they’re good then we’re asking moral-ethical questions.
Let’s get even more complicated. I promise, it’s necessary.
Do any or all of these represent inherently good things? For example, here’s a hypothetical. Imagine that a federal law was enacted that barred Asian Americans from serving in the military, healthcare professions, education, agriculture, and sales. But more Asian Americans ended up in the legal profession, and accordingly more ascended to the federal bench. Would that be good?
You see the absurdity. I’d venture to say that all readers would say, “Well not if they got there under those circumstances!” Yet this is the very nature of data, facts, and values. Everything that’s happening is happening in a context, a set of circumstances. These circumstances are seen and unseen, clear and unclear, disputed and settled. It’s why measuring any kind of progress is always dicey, prone to error in any number of directions.
We all see circumstances through a particular moral lens. At core, we’re depending on a certain level of shared moral vision in order for society to work. Is it any wonder why persuasion and peace are so hard to come by?
I don’t mean to be a downer. But most Christians watch the news, read the paper, or scour the web each day trying to understand their times. Few of us have any hope of things in this present evil age improving, though common grace shows up more often than we sometimes think. We could see a very different graphic in 20 years showing that the number of murders solved has gone up—or that the murder rate has gone down altogether!
In the meantime, though, James’ admonition to “be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger” comes to mind. I think a partial application of these commands would entail, “Ask better questions. Look closer. Think carefully.”
Indeed, God help us to be a church that sees clearly and appreciates actual progress.
Currently Reading:
Ligon Duncan, Does God Care How We Worship?
Quote of the Week:
Roe certainly did not succeed in ending division on the issue of abortion. On the contrary, Roe ‘inflamed’ a national issue that has remained bitterly divisive for the past half century . . . And for the past 30 years, Casey has done the same. Neither decision has ended debate over the issue of a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Indeed, in this case, 26 States expressly ask us to overrule Roe and Casey and to return the issue of abortion to the people and their elected representatives. This Court’s inability to end debate on the issue should not have been surprising. This Court cannot bring about the permanent resolution of a rancorous national controversy simply by dictating a settlement and telling the people to move on. Whatever influence the Court may have on public attitudes must stem from the strength of our opinions, not an attempt to exercise ‘raw judicial power’.