AGAINST IDENTITY:

When identity-based polarization occurs, issues take a back seat. In fact, leaders of a party can repudiate long-standing beliefs and goals and still receive voters' support. The success of one's party and the defeat of the other are what matter; the issues are secondary.

Why does this shift from issue-based to identity-based polarization matter?

It is a well-established social-psychological phenomenon that the division of the world into identity-based in-groups and out-groups instinctively results in the triggering of both positive feelings for members of one's own group and highly negative feelings for members of opposing groups. Purity tests and moral condemnation of political rivals define parties at these times. Moreover, everything becomes politicized--weather, science, which countries are enemies and which are allies--and votes will be almost entirely along partisan lines.

These developments are what we see in American politics in recent years. Americans not only disagree with people in the other party (this would be issue-based polarization), but increasingly dislike and distrust them. In fact, hostility to the opposite party--what political scientists call negative polarization--is the most important determinant of the fracturing of US politics today. Increased attachment to one's party in recent years has not increased primarily because people like their party more, but because they are more opposed to the other party.

This negative polarization is happening among both Democrats and Republicans:

A 2018 poll found that 61 percent of Democrats thought Republicans were racist, sexist, or bigoted. About half of Republicans thought Democrats were ignorant or spiteful.

Members of both parties dehumanize the other. In a 2019 survey, 20 percent of Republicans and Democrats agreed with the statement that their political adversaries "lack the traits to be considered fully human--they behave like animals."

Twenty percent of Democrats and 16 percent of Republicans have thought or think that the country would be better off if large numbers of the opposition died.

Perhaps most alarming, another 2019 survey found that just over 42 percent of the people in both parties view the opposition as "downright evil."

The stakes this negative polarization creates are extremely high.

In order for constitutional democracy to survive, members of each party have to respect the legitimacy or the other's right to rule. This condition is necessary for political compromise, for the peaceful transition of power from one party to another, and the preservation of the rules that allow for free and fair elections.

I am less and less confident that this condition of viewing the other party as legitimate either is or will be met:

In the lead-up to the 2020 election, many leaders and members of both parties view the other as fundamentally illegitimate and only capable of winning by fraud or dirty tricks.

Both sides view the election in apocalyptic terms that will define the success or failure of the United States. A good number of partisans believe the election will either result in the rise of fascism on the one hand or the rise of leftist radicalism and anarchy on the other.

Both sides believe that if the other comes to power, the winning party will change the rules of politics that will prevent the true will of the American people in future elections.

Both sides view the other as hostile to bedrock American principles, making the other un-American.

When the hostility between contending parties is so widespread and the stakes involved with winning or losing so high, key preconditions for constitutional democracy no longer exist, and violence becomes easy to justify.

As Abraham Lincoln, quoting scripture, famously put it in 1858, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." So what can be done about the situation?

I believe our faith can provide a powerful antidote to the perils of political polarization. Specifically, I believe that focusing on thetranscendent nature of Godcan help foster reconciliation among contending groups.

Transcendence is one of the most important concepts in the Bible. It refers to the idea that God and His law are forever and always above the capacity of humans to perfectly understand and to fully realize. Indeed, original sin was based on the idea that God's knowledge is beyond humans and we delude ourselves into thinking we can possess it. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord" in Isaiah.

If we take transcendence seriously, it means that all of our goals, values, beliefs, and institutions fall short of the glory of God. All we do and achieve is corrupted to some degree by self-interest and biases of time and place. The very best we can say about our political positions is that they are partial approximations of the truth. To deny the partiality and contingency of our thought is the very definition of sin.

Focusing on the transcendence of God and his law has profound implications. Most importantly from my perspective, transcendence shatters self-delusion and pride at both the individual and group levels. Here's how the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr explained things:

A religion of revelation [meaning a transcendent religion] is grounded in the faith that God speaks to man from beyond the highest pinnacle of the human spirit; and that this voice of God will discover man's highest not only to be short of the highest but involved in the dishonesty of claiming that it is the highest.

Niebuhr is saying that whenever we think we have the answers, look up at the skies and stars and contemplate the vastness of creation that is beyond our ability to know, and then repent for being convinced of the surety of our wisdom.

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