Why is our country so polarized?

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our recent sermons. As you know, we have been going through Romans, and this last week we got to Romans 13, which touches on the sensitive subject of government and politics: what government is supposed to do, how we are as Christians supposed to interact with government and society at large.

And we identified there’s at least four major viewpoints of how Christians should interact with government, or what government should do. Some Christians want government to create laws that reflect their values. Other Christians want government to interact and provide assistance to vulnerable groups, also reflecting their values. Some Christians want to be totally hands off of the whole thing, exit from the scene.

Other Christians want the government to be totally hands off from how people live. And we said all of those four viewpoints have some element of what the government should do. Everybody kind of has a point, and we need to discuss these things charitably with each other. And so the question that comes in this week is: why aren’t we charitable with each other?

Why are we so polarized right now? And so we don’t have definitive answers to these things, but there are some trends in society that might be contributing factors. And first, I would say, I’m sure there have been other flash points in our national history. Of course, different sides have always been heated with each other. And so one of the questions is, are we really different right now?

And I would say a difference that I can identify, and it could have been this way at other points in our history for sure, is, in the past it seems like, yes, other sides got mad at each other. Various sides would call each other stupid or wrong, which of course aren’t good.

But now the difference, among some groups, seems to be that the other side isn’t just stupid or wrong, the other side is evil. They are evil. They are in league with the darkness, or forces of evil. And that seems to be kind of ratcheted up in terms of temperature.

And of course, if I label you as evil, then I feel justified in stopping you using whatever means are necessary. I could do illegal things myself if it is stopping something that is evil. And cut corners, disregard laws, or do something really horrible or tragic in order to try to stop you, since I see you are evil.

And so that does seem to be at least hotter now than it has been before. And so what’s contributing to that? A lot of it, I think, has to do with how we receive information through social media and our chosen news outlet. Once upon a time there was limited news outlets, so everybody kind of got the same information.

Then you could view that information different ways, and we’d have discussion with each other. Now everybody has picked a particular news outlet that really only says what they want to hear. And then, especially if you’re on social media, how those algorithms work is you watch one video that kind of aligns with you, but then to keep you engaged, they’re going to keep feeding you videos that are more extreme, more extreme, more extreme.

That is intentionally designed by that system to work that way, because they want to keep you watching, keep you clicking. And so it’s going to lead you down these rabbit trails, down a particular ideology from whatever your starting point was. And then that’s going to be the thing that you’re watching that’s going to be informing you.

But somebody else is going to be down a different rabbit trail. And the further you go down those rabbit trails, the more you think that this is the only way it is, because it’s the only news that you’re watching, because you’ve gotten locked into this particular stream in social media. And so after years and years of that, of thinking this rabbit trail is the only news that there is, you can really get warped.

You can think, of course, I’m 100% right, the other side is 100% evil. I can do anything that I need to in order to stop the other side, because that’s kind of what we’ve been feeding on. So what do we do about that? One thing I recommend is detox. Take a week, take two weeks, take a month, kind of disconnect from your social media, cable news outlets.

And you probably know how you’re going to vote already, if you’re going to vote in the next little bit. You can, if you want, allow yourself five minutes just to check in every day, just to make sure the world’s still there, but then don’t start doing the scrolling, don’t get locked in for hours.

Just five minutes, okay. I generally know what’s going on. Detox. Find somebody from the other side who you respect, listen to what they have to say. It’ll help you see, oh, this person’s not evil. Start with somebody you already know. If you don’t know somebody from the other side, I can help introduce you.

And that’ll give you a good start. Detox, find somebody from the other side. We need to pull back from “the other side is evil.” What we tried to do in that sermon is to show everybody has a point. Whatever side you’re on, the other three corners of the argument, they have a point. They’re not completely right, but you’re not completely right either.

And the more we kind of approach conversations like that, then the more charitable that we can be. So we hope that’s helpful. Thanks for the question. We’ll see you next time.