(Adapted from a my talk given at the Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics Summer Conference, July, 2026)

There is a growing polarization in the world and in the church, and it is my contention that we have reached a stage in culture and in the church in which we have become so polarized that the goal people have is no longer to find the best answer to our problems or to seek truth, but to dominate all other positions. Increasing polarization inevitably leads to the desire, even the need, to have our position dominate and even eliminate all competing positions. The way to remove the need to dominate is to learn to actually bridge the poles. If we can bridge that chasm, then the need to dominate will naturally dissipate.

What I hope you will see is that the message of the Gospel is the way forward. The Gospel is at the heart of how we bridge the gap. If the Gospel is how God determined to bridge the massive chasm between Himself and humanity, then surely it has the power to bridge the gap between those made in His image. It is the Gospel that reminds us of our own shortcomings and blind spots, and it is the Gospel that gives us the ability to approach others as people also made in the image of God and in need of grace.

The polarization taking place in culture has become something of a cliche. Something that gets acknowledged as true and, in some ways, inevitable and unchangeable. It is a reality that nobody is happy about. People have grown weary of the constant screech of arguments, where as the decibels rise, the ability to find answers plummets.

It’s as if we have all put on a virtual Hogwarts sorting hat and have been divided not into Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin, but rather into just two houses, ‘us’ and ‘them’, with little to no common ground remaining between them. In the world of politics, anyone who reaches across the aisle from us to them and attempts to find common ground on an issue is immediately portrayed as a traitor to the ideology of their party and is ostracized by the voices of extremism.

We see the polarization in the broader culture when we look at the political, racial and economic divides, and the anger that has more and more frequently become part and parcel of everyday life. In the UK, this is hard to miss. The growing tension between Labor and Conservative parties, the dramatic rise of Reform, and fierce disagreements over employment, immigration, and social justice have spilled out onto the streets, from anti-immigration protests to farmers blockading roads.

But perhaps nothing captures the instability of the moment more than the state of political leadership itself. The UK has now seen a remarkable number of prime ministers over the past ten years, a revolving door at the top that has left many feeling that government is permanently in flux. The recent resignation of Kier Starmer only deepened that sense of uncertainty, raising fresh questions about who speaks for the country and where it is heading.

Those same divisions exist in the USA, with the added complication that Christianity gets appealed to by all the political perspectives as a justification for each party’s opposing positions. And sadly, in the process, what it means to be a follower of Christ is tainted by and overshadowed by political and social agendas claiming to be the true version of Christianity. Of particular concern in the U.S., but increasingly present in other countries, is the marriage between Christianity and political agendas that seek to use political power to Christianize a culture.  Oddly enough, this is true of both the left and right, or progressives and conservatives. Often, the progressive left is unaware of the fact that much of their cry for social justice and compassion is actually rooted in a Christianized Western Culture all while they eschew the Christianity of the right. And the right belittles the left and its calls for social justice as being woke, while missing the fact that such calls are deeply rooted in Scripture.

While it is true that there is a strong biblical case to be made that governments have a biblical responsibility to keep order and see that justice is carried out, including protecting the weak and vulnerable. However, to go much beyond that in the name of a Christian culture risks denying the power of the Gospel to actually change lives and shape a culture. Instead, it looks to governing powers to promote the Christian faith while suppressing other expressions. 

The Political Divisions in the Church

All of this is serving to widen the chasm that exists in the world and increase the polarization, making resolution all the more difficult as people dig in their heels more deeply. That divide is accentuated in the church and is all the more tragic in light of the prayer of Jesus in John 17:21 when he prays, “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me”.

There is a real danger when Christians begin to believe that their political, economic, or social theories are the singular position instituted in and supported by Scripture. 

Miroslav Volf is the director of the Center for Culture and Faith at Yale University. He is a Croatian theologian whose life was deeply impacted by the violence and atrocities committed in and around his homeland during the Balkan Wars that lasted from 1991 to 2001. During that time, 140,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed. Often, those civilians, including women, children, and the elderly, were intentionally rounded up, shot, and dumped in shallow mass graves. It was so horrific that for the first time since the Nazi atrocities of WWII, an international court was convened to deal with the war crime of genocide.

It was an experience that impacted Volf more deeply than I can imagine, but it also gave him, as a Christian theologian, a vitally important perspective on the roots of polarization and domination and where it can easily lead. 

In his book, A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common God, Volf said,

“Christ has not come with a blueprint for political arrangements; many kinds of political arrangements are compatible with the Christian faith, from monarchy to democracy. But in a pluralistic context, Christ’s command “in everything do to others as you would have them do to you” entails that Christians grant to other religious communities the same religious and political freedoms that they claim for themselves.”

One of the beauties of Christianity is just what Volf said: the message of Jesus can be lived out in any political context because the message of Jesus is about a Kingdom of God that will supersede the kingdoms of this world, all of which are temporary and imperfect. To attach Christianity to any political system as if that is the Christian system is to verge on political idolatry, looking to politics to deliver what only God can.

The Biblical and Theological Polarization in the Church.

But the polarization in the church is not only along political fracture lines. It is also increasingly along biblical and theological lines that are not first-level issues. Throughout history, there have always been issues in which Christians have engaged in vigorous debate. But since the last of the early church councils in Chalcedon in 451AD, the foundational doctrines of Christianity have been widely agreed to in what we call orthodoxy. There are countless other lesser issues in which Christians have generally agreed to disagree, without demonizing the other side. 

Recent events such as the Southern Baptist Convention’s vote on women pastors demonstrate that we no longer simply disagree on an interpretation of Scripture, on a secondary or even tertiary issue. Now, everything is seemingly being raised to first-order issues. In that process, it is common practice to accuse the other side of leading the church to ruin, of disobeying Jesus, and of denying the truth. And that has been true from both sides of the issue. 

In light of all this, the question needs to be asked,

What is at the root of the increased polarization and readiness to use power to win?

Let me propose that one major cause is FEAR.

When people are afraid, it becomes increasingly difficult to have a constructive dialogue. When people are afraid, it becomes harder and harder to hear what someone else is saying. When people are afraid, it becomes easier and easier to latch on to extreme positions and ignore any necessary nuance.

But what is it that people are afraid of?

Two things: First, what we will lose that we currently have, and Second, what other people will gain that we currently do not have. And those two fears go hand in hand.

Fear of what we will lose could be the culture we grew up in and are comfortable with. It is the fear that the minority will gain the majority in the culture. It is the fear of losing influence and power, and of the other gaining power and influence. It is the fear of the unknown, particularly if that unknown is a future described in apocalyptic terms by people with their own agendas who see the other side in demonized terms, with evil agendas, who will irreparably change the world for the worse.

That leads to the vitally important question: what am I afraid of? Is my fear based in reality, or is it being shaped by a polluted information environment that profits from my anxiety?

One thing that goes hand in hand with fear is the demonization of the other side. After all, what is more frightening than the faceless enemy with evil intentions? Rather than seeing all people as created in the image of God, what theologians call the Imago Dei, the other side gets cast as godless, dangerous, and extremist. In order to differentiate oneself from the extremists, it is all too common to become more extreme in one’s own position. Why? Because any recognition that the other side might have something worthwhile to say runs the risk of getting on the slippery slope to the falsehoods of the other side and risks being interpreted as wholesale acceptance of their extreme ideology. So, to avoid that slippery slope, one needs to move further away from the other side and become more extreme.

Jonathan Haidt, in his book, The Righteous Mind points out the danger of not listening to alternative positions. He said, 

”People bind themselves into political teams that share moral narratives. Once they accept a particular narrative, they become blind to alternative moral worlds.” 

That blindness inevitably leads to extremism and extremism as former US Attorney General and US Senator, Robert F Kennedy observed, is not primarily about how strongly someone holds to a view, but about how they treat those who disagree. Kennedy said,

“What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.”

In order to be this kind of intolerant, one must begin to see people, not as fellow human beings who bear the Imago Dei, but rather as a non-person. as an object. Because it is much easier to abuse an object than it is to abuse a fellow human being made in God’s image. 

The 20^th-century Jewish philosopher Martin Buber wrote about two kinds of human relationships. The first he called I/IT relationships, in which the other person is treated as an object, where the relationship is only transactional and useful only for what we can get from them. The second he called I/THOU relationships in which we see the other as a fellow human being worthy of dignity and respect. 

Buber points out how the I/IT and I/THOU relationships are intrinsically wrapped up in our relationship with God and impact that relationship at its core. 

The evolutionary materialist world-view gives us no basis on which to have I/THOU relationships because, in that world-view, it is my survival and that of my clan that matters most.  Anyone outside that group is an IT, a possible threat. But the biblical account of creation does give us a foundation for valuing fellow human beings. Every human being, no matter how different we are in the particulars, no matter how vehemently we disagree on the issues, each human being bears the Imago Dei. It may be battered and tainted by sin, but it is nonetheless real. That should transform the way we engage in dialogue. Keep in mind that the way one treats an image is a statement about what one thinks about what it represents. The burning of a national flag is not a statement of your thoughts about cloth and color schemes but about the country the flag represents. Or what about that teenage love who broke your heart? Their picture that you once cherished has become the bullseye on your dart board.

How you treat an image is a direct reflection of what you think of that which the image represents. How you treat those who bear the Imago Dei speaks volumes about your understanding of and relationship with the One whose image they bear.

Martin Buber put it this way. “One cannot divide one’s life between an actual relationship to God and an actual I-IT relationship to the world—praying to God in truth and utilizing the world. Whoever knows the world as something to be utilized knows God the same way.”

In other words, if you view the world and people in it from an I/IT perspective, as something to be used transactionally, your relationship with God will, inevitably, become an I/IT relationship in which God is viewed as a resource to be leveraged rather than a relationship to be treasured. Interestingly, nobody ever thinks they are treating people badly. Nobody ever thinks they are treating people as commodities. Nobody ever thinks that they are a bad person for doing so. Everyone thinks they are the hero, not the bad guy.

Here is an illustration worth sitting with: Kristoph Waltz played Nazi Hans Landa in the film Inglorious Basterds. Far from a cliché Nazi madman, his character came across as erudite and polished, which made him seem even more evil than the typical caricature. When asked how he approached the role, Waltz said,

“If everyone thinks they’re the hero, the real question isn’t who’s evil – it’s what does their version of good look like? And why? That’s where real dialogue begins, that’s where empathy lives, and that’s where change can happen.”

He went further:

‘We look at our political discourse these days… Everybody’s accusing each other of being evil and bad, but both sides, if you talk to them, actually think that they are trying to do good. If you just start with that basic knowledge, how we interact is very different.”

This is an incredible insight. The Nazi’s didn’t think that they were evil. They believed they were the good guys. And while that doesn’t excuse anything they did, it does tell us something important, and that is that demonizing the other side may feel satisfying, but it rarely produces understanding, and it certainly never produces change.

Miroslav Volf, whose life was profoundly impacted by the atrocities of the Balkan Wars in the 1990s arrived at a similar conclusion. In his book, Exclusion and Embrace, Volf explores the reasons why we exclude people and what it takes to actually embrace them as human beings made in the image of God. At the heart of Volf’s message is the need to learn to truly forgive the other person and to recognize one’s own propensity to sin. 

But he recognizes that forgiveness is not easy. He is not calling for cheap grace. At the heart of being able to forgive is the recognition that ultimate justice is in the hands of God, and I must learn to trust that the God of the Universe will eventually make all things right and just. 

Volf put it this way.  “Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans and myself from the community of sinners.”

In that statement, Volf has gotten to the heartbeat of the Gospel. The message of Jesus is not a message of world power and domination. The cross itself and Jesus’ willingness to suffer horrifically and die, when he had all the power of the universe at his beck and call, should tell us that true power is actually found in what looks like weakness to the world. 

That sounds totally mad to the secular ear, as it seems completely upside down. Why? Because we fail to comprehend that true power is not what we see in the physical world around us; true power is found in what God does. What he does is often contrary to the ways of the world. The weakness of Jesus in going to the cross actually brought about the defeat of the two greatest powers that hang over human heads like the sword of Damocles. Jesus defeated both sin and death by emptying himself of his power and glory and taking on the form of a servant, even to the point of death. 

That is the clear message of Philippians 2 verse 5-11 one of the most powerful and beautiful pieces of literature ever written

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

During Gulf War 1 I had an ongoing email exchange with an army captain who was deployed in Kuwait. In one particular email, he asked me about 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, where Paul wrote about what the Lord told him when he asked for the thorn in his flesh to be removed,

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

My Army captain friend asked me about this passage because in his world it made no sense. His world was a world all about projecting power, bringing force to bear against your enemy. How could weakness possibly make him stronger? The example I gave him was of a young second lieutenant on his first patrol when his men get pinned down. His first instinct is to rush at the enemy, John Wayne style. But the wise first sergeant with him says, LT, we are not strong enough to take on that kind of power. Call in an airstrike.

We need to recognize that the resources we need are not found in our own cleverness, smart rhetoric, or even strength of willpower. They are found when we recognize our own weakness, and as a result we call on the Lord, a power from above.

Understanding that is essential if we are going to actually demonstrate the power of the Gospel. Humility is needed if we are going to bridge the chasm that exists in our culture. Acknowledging one’s own need for the forgiveness of Jesus and one’s own biases and shortcomings goes a long way toward lowering the temperature. It serves to remove the hypocrisy that is so easily identified by others when Christians claim the moral high ground but fail to acknowledge our own sin, shortcomings, and weaknesses

Biblical Justice as a Model for Conversation

There is perhaps no area where polarization is more entrenched in both the church and culture than in the debate over justice. The debate generally falls along two lines. ‘There are those who emphasize justice as punishment, where the wrongdoer must be held accountable. And on the other side, there are those who emphasize justice as care, where the one who was wronged must be protected and restored.

The wisdom of Kristoph Waltz, as well as Volf, Buber, and others, is massively important at this point. Both those who call for punishment of the wrongdoer and those calling for care of the one wronged are convinced that they are in the right for the right reasons. They are convinced that they are the good guys, the heroes, and often that the other side has nefarious motives. 

The reality is, both positions have clear and abundant support from Scripture.

That the Bible speaks of punishment for wrongdoers as an aspect of justice is not news. If anything, it is the most often examined side of the justice coin, at least among American Evangelicals. We understand that sin is wrongdoing against God and others, and justice requires that it be dealt with. Preachers have rightly declared for centuries that human beings are sinners deserving punishment from a holy God, but in His mercy, the Father sent the Son into the world to take that punishment for those who would trust in Christ. In the process, justice is satisfied because wrongdoing is punished.

What we often miss is that justice is also about protecting those who are wronged, Amos chapter 5 is but one example. In that chapter, the prophet chastised the people of Israel because they were doing grave injustice by having rulings in their court system that favored the rich, who had given them bribes. As a result, they ruled against the poor, the widow, and the orphan, who had no resources to spare in bribing judges. This is one example of injustice, and Amos is calling for people to seek justice, which would include protecting those who are most vulnerable in society.

Throughout the scriptures, we see four classes of people we are to protect and provide for if we are to see justice. Zechariah chapter 7 makes this clear. 

Administer true justice, show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the immigrant or the poor. Zechariah 7:10–11 (ESV)

Scripture points out that more often than not, those wronged, those who suffer under injustice, are those among us without the resources to protect themselves, like the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, and the poor.

We may differ as to the remedies for showing justice to those who are vulnerable, but there should never be any doubt among followers of Jesus that justice in God’s eyes is BOTH punishment for the wrongdoer AND protection and provision for the one who is wronged. It is never either/or.

Everyone knows that law enforcement, the police, are tasked with catching the bad guy and seeing that they are punished. But there is another reminder in law enforcement that prioritizes the widow, the orphan, the vulnerable. On the side of countless police cars, you will see this motto. 

To Serve and Protect

Almost instinctively, we understand that there are two sides to the justice coin, yet we so often find ourselves only caring about one and demonizing those supporting the other. Generally speaking, if you are part of the majority culture, upper-middle class, or politically conservative, you tend to prioritize punishing the wrongdoer. If you are from the minority culture, middle class or below, or politically progressive, you most likely emphasize the protection of the vulnerable.

Yet, in much of popular culture, there is ample evidence that we want both. One needs to simply look at any list of hero genre movies and you are going to find the theme of justice as protection and provision for the oppressed. Start with Kurosawa’s 1954 classic, The Seven Samurai; its western remake, The Magnificent Seven, done twice; there are the darker Clint Eastwood movies, Unforgiven and High Plains Drifter;  or the spoofs like Blazing Saddles or The Three Amigos. They all had a theme of someone or a group of someones who are being oppressed by bad guys. We look at that and say to ourselves, “That’s not right”. Then the hero or heroes come to town and make things right by punishing the bad guy and protecting the weak and vulnerable, and we cheer. There is something in us that deep down knows we need both sides of the coin to have real victory.

That is a full expression of justice. The bad guy is punished, AND there is relief and vindication for the oppressed. Both are required for true, biblical justice to exist. Both reflect the character of God. We need to have as complete a picture as possible of the nature of God if we are going to cross the divide. It is the both/and, not the either/or. God is both a punisher of the perpetrator and a protector of the victim. And here is the kicker. We are, at the same time, the sinner who deserves to be punished and the victim who needs to be protected from our own self-destructive tendencies.

Daniel Nayeri was a young child in Iran when his mother converted to Christianity. As a result there was a fatwa declared against her, meaning that she was to be killed as a service to Allah. When he became an adult, Neyari wrote a moving semi-autobiographical novel from the perspective of his twelve-year-old self. In the book titled Everything Sad is Untrue, he said this, 

“A god who listens is love.

A god who speaks is law.

At their worst, the people who want a god who listens are self-centered. They just want to live in the land of do-as-you-please. And the ones who want a god who speaks are cruel. They just want laws and justice to crush everything.… Love is empty without justice. Justice is cruel without love…..God should be both. If a god isn’t, that is no God.”

So what have we learned from the example of the justice debate, and how does that apply to any other issue that divides us?

First, people on both ends of the spectrum need to recognize that to truly have the kind of biblical justice that they need and desire, they need the people whom they currently view as the enemy on the other side of the debate. They need to be viewed not as the enemy, but as people who are legitimately concerned about an issue and are most likely just as afraid as you are of losing something dear to them.

Second, there is the need to recognize one’s own shortcomings and be willing to acknowledge the valid points of the other person. None of us has a monopoly on truth, and we can always learn something from others. The willingness to be vulnerable and acknowledge when you are wrong or misinformed, while viewed as weakness and defeat in the eyes of many, actually serves to combat hypocrisy and is a demonstration of integrity and strength. It is not the first step on the slippery slope, but rather the first step to a more complete understanding of who God is and who we are called to be.

Finally, let me say something about how 1 Peter 3:15 fits into all of this. It is the classic apologetics verse from the Bible

“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect

Typically we only quote the middle of the verse, Always being prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope within you.  The result is that many people who love to argue use that as their justification to argue. But we can’t leave out the beginning and end of that verse. First off, make sure you are honor Christ in your heart as Lord Second, make sure that all your interaction with others is done with gentleness and respect. 

The goal is NOT to score enough points to win the argument. Yes, you want to have sound reasoning and present your ideas clearly. But if you don’t demonstrate the gentleness of Christ and respect for the person made in the image of God with whom you are having the conversation, then you have lost the war, even if you win the battle of the argument.

The polarization that exists in the culture and the church is often born out of fear. It may sound simplistic to many ears, but there is power in the words of Scripture that perfect love casts out fear.

Treating others with gentleness and respect, as Thou not It, as people made in the image of God, is the way forward. It lowers the need people have for power over others and to dominate out of self-preservation.

It is the way of Jesus, who emptied himself and became a servant to the point of death, and thus demonstrated power over the ultimate evils of sin and death, and made it possible to not only bridge the chasm between us, but also make a way for intimate communion and fellowship with God.