A Colony of Heaven in a Divided World

Can the Church show a diffefrent way of being our polarized time?

Several years ago, there was a pretty depressing chart going around the internet. It showed how America grew politically polarized over the years. It starts out in the 1950s with red (Republican) and blue (Democrats) mingling together in one giant blob. As the decades pass, the blob becomes a little less of a blob until you come to 2015. There are now two perfect spheres, one red and one blue. There is hardly any overlap. If we were to continue up to 2025, we would see two spheres with no overlap at all.

In the years following World War II, Republicans and Democrats tended to have a lot in common. This was so common that some political scientists thought this was bad for democracy. The American Political Science Association released a report that called for the two major political parties to become more distinct so that people had a choice in their elections. The political scientists got their wish over half a century later. Democrats and Republicans are probably the most distinct they have ever been. Is it good for democracy? I would say no. This is harmful to our democratic governance.

In 2015 two modern political scientists, Steven Webster and Alan Abramovitz released a new paper describing our polarized society. Entitled, “All Politics is National, politics is driven more by fear of the other political party, than love of your own party. As Republicans and Democrats live more and more separate lives away from each other, the more the opposite party is feared.

This polarization affects how people think about certain issues. The days of the pro-choice Republican or the pro-life Democrat seem to be over. Those who are pro-life are now Republicans and those who are pro-choice are Democrats.

Division of Democrat and Republican Party members over time. Each member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949–2012 is drawn as a single node. Republican (R) representatives are in red and Democrat (D) representatives are in blue, party affiliation changes are not reflected. Courtesy Vox, April 23, 2015.

I tend to believe that because things were more mixed up ideologically, you were able to give people the benefit of the doubt. You also had to learn how to compromise with others. When parties become so ideologically sorted, you don’t bend as easily as you would when the parties were more diverse.

This polarization has seeped into every facet of American life. If you’re a Democrat, you aren’t supposed to go to Chick-fil-A. Until very recently, conservatives didn’t buy Teslas. Of course, this polarization has entered the church. It seems like Conservatives worship in conservative churches with Liberals going to liberal congregations. On issues like sexuality, there is little middle ground. Conservatives think that liberals don’t respect the Bible, choosing to follow current fashions instead of the basics of faith. Liberals think Conservatives are bigots, quick to shut out anyone who doesn’t agree of them.

Acts 13:1-3 seems to pack a lot in three verses. It lists some of the leadership of the church in the city of Antioch. At first glance, it just seems like a lot of names. Some of them are familiar and some of them aren’t. There’s Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul also known as Paul. What’s interesting is that all of these people have different backgrounds. We have Lucius of Cyrene, who is probably a non-practicing Jew since there was no temple in town. Then we have Simeon who is also called Niger, possibly a North African. Then there was Manaen. He had some kind of connection to Herod Antipas the current vassal king of Israel and the killer of John the Baptist. And let’s not forget Paul. He held the coats of those who stoned the deacon Stephen.

That seems like a motley bunch.

Here were people from different cultures and questionable backgrounds, and yet they all worshipped together. It was this rag-tag body that prayed for Paul and Barnabas as they sent them on their missionary journey.

We like to talk about how diverse our congregations are, but for the most part, they tend to be very homogeneous. Whites worship with other white people, and African Americans do the same. Churches tend to be made up of people who share the same political persuasions. Even though we think we are making a bold move, like welcoming LGBT people, in many cases, the church already believes this and there is little, if any, dissent. It is just too easy to make a church look like the world outside: a place where people of different backgrounds fail to connect with each other.

Which is why this roster of leaders in Antioch is so fascinating. Here is a church that shows that the resurrection changed everything. Here is a church where the walls are torn down. A new people formed, called the church, a place that can really say e pluribus unum; out of many, one.

What held this diverse group together was Christ and the Holy Spirit. In the heavenly economy, that was all that mattered.

When I look at the church today, I see a church that is a lot like that chart I was talking about earlier. There are parts of the church that are dominated by people of one political persuasion or another. If you are someone of another political viewpoint, you learn to keep quiet and not share what you are thinking. If you do, you will get the feeling that you aren’t welcome at church. They would be more feared than anything else.

God is calling the church to be a place that is a colony of heaven, an example of what God’s kingdom is like. It is a place where people might disagree on various issues, but know they are united together in Christ. In a society that is becoming more bifurcated, there is a need for a place where people can see each other as children of God.

For a few years during seminary, I interned at a congregation in south Minneapolis and got to know Bob and his wife, Barb. Bob and I didn’t see eye to eye on one big issue, and that came to a head one Sunday. There was a meeting after church where I was asked to serve on a church board. I had to be voted on by the congregation. When the vote was taken, there were a lot of ayes and one “no.” This angered many people in the congregation. Specifically, they were mad at Bob because he was the only “no” vote. As we prepared to leave, Bob came up to me and asked if we could talk in private. We walked into another room and Bob started talking. He knew the vote was coming up and prayed that God would help him as he made a decision. In the end, he didn’t feel that God was saying that Bob should change his mind. He asked God more than once, and the answer seemed to remain the same. As he was telling me this, he started to cry. Not just one tear, but sobs. He believed it was important to be in relationship with me, regardless of who I was, and he felt called to follow what he believed God was calling him to do.

This all happened almost 25 years ago. Bob has been dead for nearly a decade, and the church closed in the wake of COVID, but I never forgot that moment. It was a holy moment, because at that moment what bound us together was not our agreement on the issue of sexuality, but our faith in Christ.

Can the church be like Bob today? I’m not so sure. It feels like we don’t see someone who is different from us, someone who might vote differently as a child of God.

But I think Bob’s act of grace is what the church is called to be. We are called to be a gathering of diverse people who are held together by Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

I don’t know if we will ever become the bipartisan society that we once were. But I do believe that we, the church, can be a colony of heaven and show another way of living, showing a place where God is loved, where strangers and enemies become friends, and where we eat bread together.