The bitter and partisan nature of American politics has been evident for quite some time now and the divide between right and left has grown as both parties have moved away from the centre and even their own centres. It is also clearly evident how the American church is struggling with this divide. Although I can see it perhaps happening in the UK in the future, we’ve not yet in my lifetime needed articles like Helping Your Church Survive Election Season and or seen an election not a vital sign of the health of a democracy but instead a ‘season that will be filled with fear, uncertainty, anger, and misinformation.’

American Christians (at least the ones I have known personally) have always seemed fearful around elections. I remember one young American woman so afraid for the future of her country if Barack Obama won the election in 2008. Her fear of the destruction to her country and values was so deep that she felt she couldn’t go back. This was a little ironic given she was living in a country where the right wing parties were further to the left than Obama’s Democrats. Anyway, this moment has been coming for a while.

But I read an article that made me realise that not only is America deeply divided but that it has a divide so deep now that it probably cannot be bridged. Ever. I feel maybe 80% certain about that and if Donald Trump wins in November, I’d move that up to about 95% certainty.

The article I read was Trump Supporters Should Face Negative Consequences for Their Actions.

I want to see you shunned by every person and organization that doesn’t support Trump. No more access to their books, movies, products, music, events, artists & influencers — till you are left with nothing but Smashmouth concerts, and Ben Shapiro talking about his sex life.

You want to vote for Trump and experience no negative consequences.

But that’s not an option.

You want respect, but your behavior and beliefs are not worthy of respect.

Come off the fence, Gabby, tell us what you really think!

I would imagine that the writer of this considers herself to be a reasonable person, one informed by the facts and open to a fair-minded discussion about the merits of lack thereof of various policies and politicians. But this is where she finds herself. And there are currently over 500 comments from (as far as I could see) mostly women cheering her on and amening it all.

If this is the left, then I’m fairly sure there is an equivalent on the Trump supporting right, I’m just not going to go looking for it.

But here’s my question, is there a road back? Is there a way for a society that has ordinary people so deeply divided against each other that they can find a way back to civility if not unity? Is there a way back to unity instead of just deeper division? I’m not sure there is.

American Christians might call it revival but if they think that means that all those who ‘get saved’ would and should then end up voting Republican then that just shows how deeply infected American Christianity is by partisan politics and essentially how corrupted their view of the Gospel has become.

The platforms of both parties have moved to the extremes and the moderates have been removed. Social media has played to their divisions and deepened the divide. And with every moment of decision, with every crisis, the challenge just gets bigger, the divides deeper and the sides ever further apart.

About the only thing I can think of that would possibly reset and unite America would be a war with a clear external enemy and aggressor. War is mostly brilliant at uniting a country because you suddenly have a different and common enemy that is not your neighbour next door. But that’s not really a path anyone should hope for.

No apart from that, I’m not sure there’s a way back. But there are plenty of ways to deeper division. I can imagine, especially if Trump wins, a push for greater autonomy of left-leaning states and a push back against federal oversight. Watch California and New York in particular. I can imagine, no matter who wins, a growing vigilantism and the growth of armed militia groups. I can imagine that politics will become increasingly zero-sum events where any policy enacted includes some form of punishment against the ‘losers’. Churches will become, if they’re not already, increasingly blue or most likely red only.

There are very few paths to reconciliation and very few paths to unity. They are narrow, they are hard, they are opposed on all sides and misunderstood at every turn. The paths to division are broad, easy to find, accessible to many and open to all. Right now I think America is cruising down a eight-lane highway to greater division and both sides are in a hurry to get there. And that is something that should trouble all of us.

Why? Well, whatever you may think of Pax Americana but a weak and divided America is likely to open up a whole host of troubles around the world. Even as it is Russia was able to gobble up Crimea (which belonged to Ukraine) without too much trouble or ill-effect. Russia & China will grow ever more confident and assertive in their regional spheres of influence because no one will stand up to them and that means many, many smaller countries will be increasingly concerned. So that’s one area.

But the US’s domination of global cultural output also means that the division and poison there is going to spill over into our wells. How can it not? The division there is likely to increase division here (and by here I mean the West which is part of America’s cultural hegemony). The bitterness there will become our bitterness, how could it not?

As someone said, ‘If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand’ (Mark 3:24).