In a recent essay for The Times of Israel, religious studies scholar Tim Orr makes an observation that should stop Christians, especially those who cared about Israel long before we ever debated policy or personalities.
His article, “Turning Point and the Crisis of Knowing: Shapiro, Carlson, Kelly,” is not really about politics at all. It is about something deeper and far more consequential:
How do we decide what is true?
Orr argues that when Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, and Megyn Kelly appeared at Turning Point, they were not simply offering different opinions. They were offering three different ways of knowing reality itself. In essence, three different definitions of truth, authority, and credibility were shared.
For Christians, and particularly for those who stand with Israel, that distinction matters more than we may realize.
Three Voices. Three Ways of Knowing.
Orr’s central insight is that truth is not neutral anymore. In a media environment governed by algorithms, attention often replaces authority, and emotional reaction replaces discernment.
He describes three competing approaches.
Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew, argues as though truth exists outside of human feeling. Facts are binding whether they are popular or not. His reasoning assumes coherence, moral structure, and an objective reality that judges us rather than being shaped by us.
Orr notes, provocatively, that this way of thinking closely resembles the classical Christian understanding of truth. Not Christian theology, but Christian epistemology: the belief that truth is real, external, and morally ordered.
That observation should not flatter Christians. It should challenge.
The author is calling Christians to account.
What he’s saying is this:
If an Orthodox Jew (Ben Shapiro) is the one most clearly operating with a Christian-style understanding of truth, objective, moral, independent of popularity, then Christians should pause. Not celebrate. Pause.
It challenges us because:
Christians historically championed the idea that truth exists outside feelings and power
Yet many Christian voices today have drifted toward emotion, outrage, or tribal loyalty
So when someone outside the faith is modeling better habits of truth-seeking than Christians themselves, that’s a warning sign
In other words:
This isn’t a compliment to Christians for finding an ally.
It’s a mirror asking whether Christians have quietly abandoned their own intellectual inheritance.
That’s why he says it shouldn’t flatter us.
It should prompt humility, repentance, and a return to disciplined discernment.
He goes on to explain.
Tucker Carlson, by contrast, treats shared emotion, especially anger and grievance, as a form of authority. Orr argues that Carlson’s rhetoric elevates collective feeling into a way of knowing. When people feel wronged together, that feeling itself becomes proof.
From a Christian perspective, this is deeply problematic. Scripture consistently warns that the human heart can deceive. Emotion matters but it is not a reliable foundation for truth. When anger becomes authoritative, repentance disappears, and disagreement becomes betrayal.
Megyn Kelly represents a third model: pragmatic, secular, and adaptive. Truth is provisional. It works until it doesn’t. Emotion is a tool, not a foundation. Orr suggests that her recent rhetorical shift is not hypocrisy but survival as an adaptation to an ecosystem that punishes nuance and rewards certainty.
She is not an outlier. She is what modern media increasingly produces.
A Test for Modern Christian Witness
For Christian Women For Israel, this article should land close to home.
Support for Israel cannot rest on emotional outrage, viral clips, or tribal affirmation. It must rest on truth that exists whether or not it is amplified:
Historical truth
Covenant truth
Moral truth
Israel’s legitimacy does not come from trending hashtags or shared anger. It comes from history, Scripture, and an objective moral order that does not bend to algorithms.
Orr’s most striking observation is that, at Turning Point, the speaker most aligned with Christian ways of thinking about truth was not a Christian at all, but an Orthodox Jew while the loudest populist voice, Tucker Carlson, diverged most sharply from Christian epistemology. (Epistemology simply means how we decide what is true.)
That should give us pause.
The Algorithm Is the Real Crisis
The deeper problem, Orr argues, is not style or personality. It is formation.
The algorithm quietly teaches us that:
Attention equals credibility
Engagement equals truth
Popularity equals reality
By “the algorithm,” we means the invisible systems that decide what we see online. rewarding content like that of Candance Owens that provokes strong reactions (anger, fear, outrage) with more visibility, while quiet, careful, or morally serious truth is often buried. Over time, this trains both speakers and audiences to mistake attention for credibility and popularity for truth.
Christianity rejects that entire framework.
Truth, in Christian understanding, is received, not manufactured. It is often costly, resisted, and ignored. Faithfulness may mean obscurity. Patience may matter more than reaction. Being right may look like being invisible.
A Quiet, Countercultural Call
The most countercultural idea left in public life may be the simplest one:
truth exists whether or not it is popular.
Recovering that conviction—especially in how we speak about Israel, antisemitism, and moral responsibility may be one of the Church’s most urgent tasks in the years ahead.
Not louder.
Not angrier.
But truer.
Source:
Tim Orr, “Turning Point and the Crisis of Knowing: Shapiro, Carlson, Kelly,” published at The Times of Israel
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/turning-point-and-the-crisis-of-knowing-shapiro-carlson-kelly/
