Everything in the public square seems to be increasingly conflicted. We seem to be operating with less and less shared values. It feels like we're less and less sure of what holds us together as a 'society.' A retreat into 'tribes' both drives this social fragmentation and is a result of it.
Post-modern scepticism towards metanarratives, which has now become culturally normal, significantly contributes to this fragmentation. If we no longer believe that objective truth, independent of our individual or tribal perspectives, exists, we will no longer believe we can appeal to that objective reality as common ground for debate. All we will do is exert power to magnify ourselves and punish those who disagree with us.
Because we believe that our cause is right, we will always think of ourselves as the victim of other people's aggression. Therefore, as Stephen McAlpine says, we will always think we're punching "up." We'll valorise ourselves as the misunderstood, oppressed minority who are heroically resisting oppression. But that's exactly how the other side also sees themselves. So everyone ends up punching each other in the public square equivalent of a bar fight.
The way forward is to recognise the existence of objective truth which, in its objective reality, provides the basis for intersubjective relationships. Even if we disagree on the precise nature of that objective truth, the mere act of accepting its reality permits us to stop fighting and mocking and start talking instead.
The fact that that objective truth propels us to talk and relate to each other has itself been considered evidence of what that objective truth is itself like. Things don't talk. People do. The fact that human beings can, and often yearn to, relate to each other across ethnic, linguistic and other boundaries has itself been taken to indicate that final truth does not reside in the true but impersonal equations of science. Scientific equations don't care; they just exist. People care enough about science to research and discover it. Our yearning for boundary-crossing relationships indicates that final reality is personal. And the greatest personal being in the universe is almighty God.
Throughout human history, common understandings of the divine have underpinned nations and even entire civilisations. Tom Holland and Glen Scrivener have demonstrated how Christian values underpin what we take for granted as 'Western' forms of democracy and human rights. Even early modernity in its advancement of science wasn't anti-religious. The kind of anti-religious contempt which I call anti-theism (to distinguish it from 'atheism' which may or may not be obnoxiously dismissive of all belief in the divine) has arisen and vanished within the last 20 years. Some commentators think religious faith is going to be the new 'successor ideology' - the taken-for-granted worldview-shaping beliefs which underpin society.
Different religions have different understandings of God/the Gods. Strictly monotheistic religions like Islam tend to homogenise because a strict unity of God makes all diversity sub-optimal, declensions from that undifferentiated one. Polytheistic religions have the opposite problem of struggling to explain unity. Postmodernity may be considered a secularised, individualised kind of polytheism where everyone divinises their own opinion, forms (unstable) alliances with those who agree with them, and go to war with those who disagree. I think sophisticated Hinduism does actually believe that one undifferentiated divine essence exists at the core of reality, but being indivisible it cannot truly express itself in this world therefore expresses different aspects of itself through the different Gods.
The Christian belief in God the Holy Trinity solves both problems through understanding dynamic interpersonal relationality to be an aspect of the divine unity. God is one, as Father, Son and Spirit, and has revealed himself as Jesus of Nazareth, God the Son incarnate. Therefore we can know that the one God created and cares for all of all, from every tribe and nation, and calls us to worship him as people from our particular ethno-cultural backgrounds. Jesus Christ is more than a universal truth; he is the way, the truth, and the life, incarnate, crucified, risen, ascended, and returning, "for us and for our salvation."
But the nature of the Christian gospel prevents us from asserting Christ in an aggressive, arrogant way. We don't discover God. Christ came to seek and save the lost. The first act of any Christian is to confess our sin. We do not boast in ourselves but in Jesus Christ as Lord. We can, indeed should, have confidence as we urge people to trust Jesus, because he really is Lord and God. But we can express this urgency in ways which demonstrate we're not trying to make people merely be like us in some imperialistic, homogenous way. Precisely because Jesus is the one true creator and redeemer God, he calls people to worship him as themselves, with all their particularities. Because Jesus Christ objectively is God, his gospel is the final objective truth which facilitates inter-subjective, communal, even global peace and harmony.
Because God in Christ exists and the gospel therefore is true, lots of other truths also exist which we can discover and enjoy. Those truths get communicated to us by science, ethno-cultural traditions, etc. It's good to discover them. The peace and harmony they bring is real, if partial and temporary. As Christians who believe in the finality of Christ, we can affirm them. Partial peace is preferable to perennial punch-ups. "Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness."
But while Christians accept other truths, and the peace they bring, we don't accept them to be final. So we cannot help constantly urging people to seek the final truth in Christ, and the peace with God which he alone can bring. People who love lesser truths won't like that. We need to be ready to constantly be punished for telling the truth, to be criticised for being divisive for proclaiming peace in Christ. The difference is: we don't punch back. Christian witness, 'martyrdom,' doesn't punch up. It images the Christ to whom it is witnessing by willingly suffering for sinners - like Stephen, the first martyr, followed Jesus in praying that his murderers be forgiven.
Public discourse feels increasingly conflicted - more like a pub brawl than a serious, passionate debate. Rediscovering universal truths will help defuse the anger through discovering common ground. Christians can both help people find common ground and urge them to find ultimate peace in Christ.
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