When the Knowledge System Collapses: A Word to Pastors and Lay Ministers

As Ted Gioia recently observed,

“The biggest changes often happen long before they even get a name. By the time the scribes notice, the world is already reborn… We are experiencing a total shift—like the magnetic poles reversing. But it doesn’t even have a name—not yet. So, let’s give it one.”

The name he gives it? The Collapse of the Knowledge System.

It’s the breakdown of society’s trust in conventional sources of truth and their delivery systems. Scientific consensus, academic credentials, institutional prestige, knowledge-based career paths, and access points to reliable information are no longer secure. Accelerating this collapse are AI tools that “hallucinate” while being sold as replacements for human judgment.

Gioia is not the first to sound the alarm. Alasdair MacIntyre—who died May 21st at age 96– for decades warned that the West was living off the borrowed capital of a moral tradition it no longer grasped. He called for the recovery of traditions, virtues, and ways of life capable of sustaining moral reasoning amid societal fragmentation.

The knowledge collapse deepens anxieties, accelerates distraction, steals focus, lures us into echo chambers, and erodes shared frameworks for understanding reality.

In ministry settings, it shows up as the heightened tension accompanying even the mildest disagreements in board meetings and the apprehension that a single line in a sermon might trigger unrestrainable backlash. It’s that small disgruntled group who, for no discernible reason, feels compelled to sabotage, micromanage, and control. It’s the lingering suspicion that even our most faithful laypeople are becoming untethered and unrooted.

Yet disciples of Jesus Christ need not fear. We know this theologically, but also because we’ve lived through variations of these elements before.

With many examples to draw upon, let’s just consider the early Christian communities that emerged in a knowledge system dominated by empire, pagan philosophy, and rapid technological advance. These were not experts, but fishermen, tentmakers, women and children frequently regarded as lower class citizens. Yet, the Gospel – mocked as foolishness by the broader society – spread not by technological expertise and cultural power, but by embodying an alternate wisdom, healing, and belonging. The foolishness of God proved wiser than human wisdom… because Christ became God’s wisdom for us (1 Corinthians 1:25–30).

The question is not whether this collapse is real. It is. The question is, what kind of people—what kind of disciples—will we be within it?  Will we mimic the world’s anxiety, scrambling to reclaim certainty, authority, and attention? Or will we become communities of contemplation, courage, and peaceful resistance—pointing to the God who gives wisdom generously to all who ask (James 1:5)?

For pastors, it entails a recovery of vocation. Not content management. Not brand curation. But soul-tending in the wreckage. Helping people endure disillusionment without growing cynical. Helping them hold ambiguity without despair. Modeling a slower, deeper way of knowing—through prayer, beauty, human connection, and the fruit of the Spirit.

We have been seduced by certainty, platforms, and metrics. But the Spirit is not constrained by our shortcomings. As theologian Sarah Coakley insists, it is precisely in the places of undoing, waiting, and not-knowing that the Spirit most powerfully moves. So perhaps this unraveling is not the end, but a beginning. Not a crisis to escape, but a holy disruption. Not a time for experts, but the communion of saints.

Let the academy chase relevance. Let tech promise the singularity. We will worship, listen, and discern the Spirit. We will teach children to pray. We will tell the old stories. We will break bread. We will grieve what is lost. And we will hold fast to the mystery at the center of everything: not a system, but a person. Not information, but love.

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Discussion Prompts:

1. What do you make of the basic premise of this article? Is it overstating current circumstances, understating current circumstances, or does it provide a mostly accurate description? And why?
2. Where are you seeing evidence of the “collapse of the knowledge system” in your ministry context?
3. What acts of quiet resistance might your congregation want to discern in this moment in our culture?