Clustering, Extremism, and the Church of God
Author: Stan Guthrie
November 03, 2022
A few weeks ago, Christine and I drove up to Wheaton College to hear a speech by David French, a well-known author and columnist. French is an evangelical from Tennessee who made a name for himself in past years by litigating against speech codes that threatened free speech and religious liberty for Christian groups on college campuses.
French is also an acute observer of America’s growing social and political divisions, and he spoke about them during this well-attended event in Barrows Auditorium. French said that if we remembered nothing else from his talk, we should hold onto an insight he learned from a paper by scholar Cass Sunstein titled “The Law of Group Polarization”:
More and more Americans of both the left and the right are clustering, or hanging out, with like-minded people, and this trend is leading to higher and higher levels of extreme beliefs at either end of the spectrum. In other words, the existing bias of the group—whether rightward or leftward—is self-reinforcing and usually pulls the group even more to the right or left as time goes on.
“Think of your own life,” French says in his book, Divided We Fall. “If you support the Second Amendment and gather with friends who also oppose restrictions on gun rights, do your group conversations tend to moderate each person’s view? Or, as I’ve put it when speaking to church groups about group polarization, does a good worship service or good Bible study generally make you love Jesus less?”
The answer to both questions, clearly, is No. While this isn’t the place to get into the political and social implications of this insight about groups, there are still a couple of applications for us as the Body of Christ.
First, of course, is the importance of our calling to each other. We are told not to neglect meeting together (Heb. 10:25) but to “encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thess. 5:11). As French noted, Christian fellowship is essential. We need more time together with like-minded believers, not less. This is the way God has made us. We are members of the same spiritual body.
Second is the calling to our community, nation, and world. As necessary as body life is, we must, like Jesus, who came from heaven to earth, mix with those outside our spiritual circle to bless them—as well as ourselves. French notes that we need to rub shoulders with people who bring different values and experiences to the table. We will either learn from them and perhaps modify some of our unfounded dogmatism, or we will learn to make better, more cogent arguments through the process of exchanging ideas with them. This can include, but is not limited to, how we explain the gospel.
So even as America is wracked with increasing, and seemingly intractable, levels of polarization, let us show a watching world the attractiveness of a gospel with the power to bring us together.
Stan Guthrie is minister of communications for New Covenant Church.Stan Guthrie is minister of communications for New Covenant Church.
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