When Democrats and Republicans end up in heaven, do they still hate each other? How is it that former slave owners and former civil rights leaders can live side by side in heaven and not only be okay with each other, but be best buddies? What do they know that we don’t know? What do they have that we don’t have?
Starting with questions like these, Author Dwight Clough explores how people of faith can lead the way to end the toxic polarization in our culture. Unlike many other books in this category, End the Divide is not aimed at changing how you vote or forcing you to abandon your beliefs.
End the Divide explains why we need to fix ourselves before we fix our world. It offers a step-by-step prescription for creating an “I belong, you belong” world. It invites readers to join a movement with the goal of transforming our culture.
If you’re looking for an echo chamber that takes pot shots at “the other side,” this isn’t the book for you. But if you’re looking for breakthrough thinking on this topic from a faith-based perspective, this could be an important read.
When Democrats and Republicans end up in heaven, do they still hate each other? How is it that former slave owners and former civil rights leaders can live side by side in heaven and not only be okay with each other, but be best buddies? What do they know that we don’t know? What do they have that we don’t have?
Starting with questions like these, Author Dwight Clough explores how people of faith can lead the way to end the toxic polarization in our culture. Unlike many other books in this category, End the Divide is not aimed at changing how you vote or forcing you to abandon your beliefs.
End the Divide explains why we need to fix ourselves before we fix our world. It offers a step-by-step prescription for creating an “I belong, you belong” world. It invites readers to join a movement with the goal of transforming our culture.
If you’re looking for an echo chamber that takes pot shots at “the other side,” this isn’t the book for you. But if you’re looking for breakthrough thinking on this topic from a faith-based perspective, this could be an important read.
We hate each other.
Maybe not you and me specifically, but you don’t need to go far in this broken world to find someone who hates you. They hate you for who you voted for. They hate you for what you believe. They hate you for who you are and what you stand for.
Does that bother you?
It bothers me.
In one sense, I wish it didn’t. I wish I was just immune to how other people feel about me and my beliefs. It would make life a lot easier, wouldn’t it? And, hey, for a while, I pretended I was immune. I don’t care, I told myself. But I never quite believed it.
In another sense, I’m glad all this hatred does bother me. Hostility is not good. It’s not healthy. It’s not right. And it is corroding our culture. More importantly, rancor is seeping into the souls of good people and infecting them (us—you and me) with the disease of hatred, fear, and polarization.
It’s us versus them, isn’t it? No more big happy family. Dig your foxhole. Lay down the barbed wire. Set up the machine gun. And get ready for a long, long fight.
Maybe you’ve felt—as I have—the pressure to join a tribe, to drive down a stake placing you on one side or the other of our polarized world.
The dilemma
It’s a dilemma, isn’t it?
On one hand, the issues matter. The candidates we elect, the decisions we make, the culture we create—it all shapes the world we hand off to our children and grandchildren—assuming there is a world to hand off to them.
On the other hand, maybe people you love have joined the opposite side—people from your church, your family, your place of work, or whatever. And you’ve felt a nagging hesitation. Sure, you’re clear in your own mind about the issues and where you stand. But something doesn’t feel right. You’re rallying for the good cause, and then you see your sister, coworker, church friend, loved one over on the other side.
Awkward!
Maybe you feel like you’re being set up.
I’ve felt that way.
Maybe you have already been in a shouting match, online or in person, with a friend, a family member, someone you care about, someone who doesn’t comprehend your deeply held beliefs. And afterward, whether you won the argument or not, you felt diminished and sad. In your quest to build a better world, something precious was lost.
Hey, it has happened to me.
We’ve been played
We’ve been played. The price of being right, the price of progress is polarization, alienation, shouting, rants, hurt feelings, and hate.
Sure, when you join a tribe, the echo chamber of that tribe will embrace you, but out there somewhere are good people—family, friends, people you care about—who won’t understand how you could align yourself with such “lunacy.”
If this wasn’t bad enough, maybe someone tried to voice your position on the issues, but they did it the wrong way—with angry words, with mob mentality, with violence, with hate, and now the people you want to reach are farther away than ever.
Hmm.
There’s gotta be a better way.
I’ve thought about this for a long time, and I’ve come to a conclusion:
It’s not okay for good people to hate each other.
But how do we end the divide?
For the answer, I look heavenward.
What happens in heaven?
In heaven, former civil rights leaders live side by side with former slave owners.
Think about that for a moment.
Former civil rights leaders
Former slave owners
Side by side
In heaven
And now think about this: They’re not only okay with each other, they’re best buddies, True Friends. They understand each other. They respect each other. They trust each other. They love each other.
Best buddies
True Friends
How did that happen?
What do they have that we don’t have?
What do they know that we don’t know?
Is there some way to take the answers to those questions and import them into our culture?
I think there is. And that’s what this book is all about.
I really appreciate that this is from a Christian perspective as I have felt for a long time that more Christians and churches need to be speaking out against cancel culture, the ways contemporary "social justice" movements are inverting all the unity and equality that the Civil Rights, Women's and Disability Movements have fought so long and hard for and the accusatory manipulation certain movements are engaging in to encourage division and othering. I also really appreciate the way this book centers the need for people who wish to end this divisiveness instead of just complaining about it or withdrawing (both of which I have a lot of in the last two and a half years) to first heal themselves - and not by going to others but by going to God first.
Yes, we all need each other, but we are not going to end the strife, infighting and division by "identities" or other human-made characteristics unless we first find healing from being divided from/separated from God and it is so refreshing to find a Christian voice stepping up and calling for that. Many churches have retreated when society uses fear to demand they be silent and this book brings an approach that balances boldness and kindness with a lot of self work to the discussion on responding to the painful levels of discord and false sense of separateness that nearly all of us are feeling these days.
There is also an opportunity to join a community - a movement - of people working to end the divide. Many nonfiction books spend 98% of their words detailing the horrors of whatever problem they're focused on and 2% reciting platitudes they call solutions. This book gives the reader the opportunity to put what they've just read into actual, real-world practice so that we can ACTUALLY end the divide, rather than just talk about it, complain about it, run from it or fight about it. If you're ready to put in the work to do so - first by dealing with all the divisions in yourself that are keeping you separate from others - then this book is for you!