Hey Church, Maybe We’re Not As Divided As We Think We Are
by Rev. Dr. Rhonda Abbott-Blevins
It was Saturday morning, November 7, 2020—four days after the presidential election. I was driving to the church where I pastor to check in with a group of masked and social-distanced volunteers at the church to pack food for people dealing with food insecurity half a world away. I arrived late to lend my support to their efforts and say hello.
As I pulled into the church parking lot, my cell phone began to explode with people telling me that the major networks finally called the election for Joe Biden. Immediately I began to wonder what that news would do to the volunteers packing food inside. Knowing that we have both staunch Republicans and die-hard Democrats in the church, I wondered if some of the volunteers would be crying in a corner while others performed a happy dance. Would arguments break out? Would the project stop in its tracks? Or would it continue? I couldn’t be sure.
I snuck in a side door to try to get a read on the room before walking in. The standard upbeat music was playing, the music we play every year at this event. That was a good sign. Then I heard the music stop. “Oh no,” I thought to myself. “Someone is going to announce the election results.” Instead over the loudspeaker I heard, “Four-thousand meals and counting!” The volunteers erupted in cheers and applause. Emboldened, I walked into the room to find happy volunteers donning masks and hair nets, Republicans alongside Democrats, everyone busy with the task at hand, each doing a small part to alleviate hunger for some child, some family, struggling with basic necessities.
Republicans and Democrats were working together to accomplish a worthy goal. My worry about division in that moment was for naught.
This has prompted me to wonder if we’re really as divided as the politicians and pundits suggest. I’m not naïve enough to think that left and right will soon hold hands in our nation’s capital and sing “Kum Ba Yah.” In fact, people have cause to be angry and to demand change for systemic injustices perpetrated since our nation’s founding. But when we step away from media and volunteer at a food bank, or attend a sporting event, or celebrate a religious holiday, we tend to forget our political differences, if only for a moment.
Former President Barack Obama discussed this in a 2015 interview. He suggested that politics are “more polarized than people actually are,” and that most of us sense this in our everyday lives.
“Everybody's got a family member or a really good friend from high school who is on the complete opposite side of the political spectrum. And yet, we still love them, right? Everybody goes to a soccer game, or watching their kids, coaching, and they see parents who they think are wonderful people, and then if they made a comment about politics, suddenly they’d go, ‘I can't believe you think that!’”1 Obama went on to suggest that the reason for our political polarization has to do with the influence of disparate media outlets on our worldviews, with the unintended consequence of narrowing our points of view.
Fast forward five years, and Parler, a social media site seeking to compete with Facebook and Twitter for the attention of right-leaning Americans, has become the number one download on iOS and Android. With over 8 million downloads as of this writing, it appears that many are seeking to fortify their echo chamber.
If media platforms are dividing, what unites us? What can church leaders do to promote unity in an age of polarization?
Give people service opportunities. My opening example points to the idea that when people are working together for some common goal, differences take a back burner. The more opportunities we can give people to work together in service of God’s dream for the world, the less they will focus on their disparities.
Encourage apolitical reading. If you’re reading a spiritual memoir, you’re not watching cable news. If you’re reading a novel for book club, you’re not checking social media. Promote reading as an anecdote to life in an echo chamber.
Form small groups. My church has not traditionally been big on small groups, but during COVID we launched a couple of sermon-based small groups to help people feel connected. One member told me that when he discovered that some of the small group members were of a different political persuasion than him, he considered quitting the group. Instead, he hung in there, and learned to see some issues through a different lens. His political leanings have not changed, but he understands “the other side,” a little better because of discussions with fellow church members.
There are plenty of other ways that church leaders can promote unity. These are three that I’ve seen work in my context.
If you think we’re a divided people, you are not alone. I worry about our nation and the deep divide we seem to be living. But when I step away from my own echo chamber and connect with the people in my pastoral care, I wonder: Maybe we’re not as divided as we think we are.
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1 Barack Obama, “Obama: The Vox Conversation,” https://www.vox.com/a/barack-obama-interview-vox-conversation/obama-domestic-policy-transcript, accessed November 16, 2020.