Virginia professor reveals how conservative Christians learn to misread the news by how they read the Bible

Francesca Tripodi, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Virginia released a study that analyses the relationship between how conservative Christiansread the Bible and interpret the news.

Similar to how people pick a Bible verse and take it out of context is the same way some people digest the news.

“These searches are just going to be very different depending on whose words you trust.Epistemologically, [liberals and conservatives] are very different — and the way in which Christian conservatives approach the Bible is very different from the way Christian progressives approach the Bible,” Laura Hazard Owen of NiemanLab said. “And you can drill into the Bible and the Bible can say very different things, depending on where you drill in.”

Her findings highlighted the differences in how people fact check information.

One person Tripodi interviewed said she would just Google potential political candidates.

“I literally type it in Google, and read the first three to five articles that pop up, because those are the ones that are obviously the most clicked and the most read, if they’re at the top of the list, or the most popular news outlets. So, I want to get a good sense of what other people are reading. So, that’s pretty much my go-to,” the lady said.

Tripodi said this is dangerous because it affirms conservatives' views.

“In an effort to find information they can trust, they are turning to a search engine with the belief that it is a neutral purveyor of information,” Tripodi said. “As I demonstrate, the very process of using exact quotes from original texts ultimately ends up reaffirming conservatives’ existing ideological positions.”