In recent years, a new term has entered the vocabulary of commentators on American politics—“political sectarianism.” The word “sect” traditionally has been used within religious discourse to designate a minority group with differing beliefs from the majority. Often there is a connotation of heresy when designating a religious group as sectarian. The team of social scientists who first used the phrase in their political research stated that they chose the word “sectarianism” because the “foundational metaphor for political sectarianism is religion,” revealing a “strong faith in the moral correctness and superiority of one’s sect.”
For these observers of American politics, political sectarianism entails three interrelated characteristics: 1) “othering,” a tendency to view opposing partisans as alien or essentially different; 2) “aversion,” a tendency to dislike and distrust opposing partisans; and 3) “moralization,” a tendency to view opposing partisans as morally flawed. The reasons why political sectarianism has developed and spread are several, but a major factor is that political identity has transformed into a “mega-identity” that subsumes the other identities people have.
There has always been political partisanship in the United States; many of the founders worried about political factions undermining a sense of the nation’s common good. Yet one factor that prevented political partisanship from becoming dominant was that citizens had multiple identities which, as one prominent social scientist observed, were “cross-cutting.” That is, many Americans had rich associational lives—churches, bowling leagues, labor unions, professional associations, fraternal and sororal clubs, neighborhood organizations, recreational groups—and all these sorts of associations brought people from different backgrounds into contact with one another. As a result, social trust was deepened, and social tolerance was learned. A person might have loyalties to a political party or specific candidate, but they also had ties to groups or colleagues that pulled them in a different direction or tempered their zeal. Increasingly, that “cross-cutting” influence is on the wane as the major political parties have sorted themselves along geographic, educational, religious, racial, and ethnic lines. At one time, liberals and conservatives were found in both parties, but now they are clearly located within the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively. And so, today one’s political identity now becomes the placeholder for all other identities.
So much of the polarization in our Church seems rooted in a loss of primary identity.
A ROLE FOR THE CHURCH?
Amidst the deep divisions and harsh rancor of contemporary U.S. politics, is there anything that the Catholic community can offer to our society? Is not the U.S. Church itself as divided and polarized as the rest of the country? There is evidence that may be so; and yet, there may be a lesson available to the Church from our past.
In another time and place, admittedly a very different time and place, there were factions within a group that led to a crisis of identity among its membership. The time was around 55 A.D., and the place was Corinth, a seaport town in Greece. The Christian community there had been established by St. Paul a few years earlier, but he had been getting reports of divisions within the community for some time after his departure. He writes to his brothers and sisters in Corinth and “begs” them “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” to stop quarreling among themselves. “Let there be no factions, rather, be united in mind and judgment” (1 Cor 1:10-11). The problem was that the community was split over whose apostolic preaching they preferred. “One of you will say, ‘I belong to Paul,’ another, ‘I belong to Apollos,’ still another, ‘Cephas has my allegiance,’ and the fourth, ‘I belong to Christ.’ Has Christ, then, been divided into parts?” (1 Cor 1:12-13a).
For Paul, this factionalism was a disaster since it was apparent by such argument that the Corinthians had lost their identity, had forgotten who was crucified for them, in whose name they were baptized, through whom God had given them new life. Paul acknowledges that he and other apostles played a role in the foundation of the community, but then asks, “After all, who is Apollos? And who is Paul? Simply ministers through whom you became believers, each of them doing only what the Lord assigned him. I planted the seed and Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. This means that neither he who plants nor he who waters is of any special account, only God, who gives the growth” (1 Cor 3:5-7).
Later in the same letter, Paul acknowledges that there is legitimate diversity in the Corinthian community. There are a variety of talents and gifts, but these must be put forward as ways to build up, not tear down, the unity of the Corinthians. “There are different gifts but the same Spirit; there are different ministries but the same Lord; there are different works but the same God who accomplishes all of them in everyone. To each person the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” (1 Cor 12:4-7). Paul then proceeds to elaborate on the analogy of the human body: “the body is one and has many members, but all the members, many though they are, are one body” (1 Cor 12:12). He concludes his discussion of the diversity within the unity of the body with the simple truth that was meant to bring the Corinthians to their senses: “You, then, are the body of Christ. Every one of you is a member of it” (1 Cor 12:27).
For Paul, it was the claim that before the Corinthians were anything they were part of the body of Christ that was meant to heal the factionalism. Whatever other identity there might be—one’s family, one’s profession, one’s class or status in society, one’s ethnicity—none of those ways of thinking of oneself was comparable to the foundational identity of being a member of the body of Christ.
So much of the polarization in our Church seems rooted in a loss of primary identity. We as Catholics should accept legitimate diversity within the Church, as long as we acknowledge our primary identity as members of the body of Christ. Our political allegiances and preferences matter, but they ought not be what defines us. Our fundamental identity is not first liberal or conservative, socialist or free-marketeer, woke or not—it is that we are members of the one body of Christ.
To be a community in our parishes, our schools, our wider Church that witnesses to unity amidst diversity, to proclaim the dignity of all and show respect to all despite differences—this might be the gift that our nation needs most from a Church that knows itself to be first and foremost the body of Christ in the world.
Kenneth Himes, O.F.M., is a university professor emeritus of theology at Boston College. His research and writing focus on ethical issues in war and peacebuilding, the development of Catholic Social Teaching, the role of religion in American public life, and fundamental moral theology.