A Peek into the Agora, from Ancient Athens to the Present Day

An Excerpt from The Modern Agora: A Manifesto For Marketplace Ministry

The marketplace is noisy.

As Paul entered the Athenian Agora, stepping through shadows from the Altar of the Twelve Gods, he would have been met with sensory overload. Merchants calling out prices. Feet and paws and hooves and wheels crushing spilled olives and abandoned fish guts. The rise and fall of philosophers’ and orators’ voices discussing destinies, gods, and the meaning of life while children darted through the chaos.

Our own marketplace looks different, but it’s just as loud—maybe louder. Instead of marble stalls and open-air debate, we face an endless barrage of notifications, headlines, and digital feeds. The digital agora is always open, always demanding, always noisy.

Type a few words into a search engine and you can find information on anything you want, free and on demand.

A New Kind of Noise

Search engines used to be a great lifeline for small creators swimming in a sea of viral beasts favored by the algorithm. If your posts on social media were shadowbanned or your following simply wasn’t substantial enough to command consistent views, at least you could make yourself found when a person went to go search you out.

The problem is that major search engines are being replaced by a new interface at an extreme pace.