How Christian parents can help their families navigate disagreement in their communities

In my last article we briefly surveyed the technological problem facing us and our children – the way in which technology is driving us to prize the immediate, to focus on the distant and perhaps most importantly to ignore the ancient wisdom of God as he speaks to us. In this article we’ll see how this is compounded with an image problem.

I spent the first 24 years of my life in Northern Ireland. I’m incredibly proud that it’s my homeland. I’m still a regular visitor. I love it. I love the people. However, that doesn’t change the fact that my beautiful, yet broken homeland provides a disturbing case study in what can happen when two communities live in the same space, but separately. That is what is happening in the USA right now, and increasingly what is happening in the UK too.

We need to understand, remember and show our children that we have primary and secondary identities

I have dear friends on both sides of the political divide in the US. Speaking to them at present is like having to learn two different languages. It is painful to hear wonderful, kind people describe two totally different countries while living in the same country. Their news feeds and/or social media are reporting two different realities with two different sets of priorities and pre-occupations. At times it seems they may even be breathing different air and operating from two utterly different sets of facts. What is at the root of an inability to co-exist with those with whom we disagree?

It turns out that what looks like a political problem is in fact an identity problem. We need to understand, remember and show our children that we have primary and secondary identities. Our primary identity is found in creation: we are made in the image of God. We might be a man or a woman, a remainer or a Brexiteer, but these are secondary to our primary identity.

the problem with idols is that once you give your primary allegiance to them they exact an increasingly large price from you, without you knowing it

We all need these secondary identities to survive and get things done in this world. We need a sense of belonging to a tribe. But without a primary identity, we cling to these secondary identities so tightly that we are unable to engage healthily when someone challenges them.

The ancient scriptures give us language for what happens when we give over too much of our identity to a cause or group. The nation of Israel were experts at doing this. In their bones they wanted to worship something or someone, but rather than the hard yards of a mystical journey with a God who was often playful or invisible, they chose the more tangible, internet-speed version and created an idol from what they already had and what they already knew.

Brexit has become an idol. Trump has become an idol. In Northern Ireland, the Irish flag has become an idol, as has the Union Jack. And the problem with idols is that once you give your primary allegiance to them they exact an increasingly large price from you, without you knowing it. This is what will happen to our children if we show them through our lives that a secondary identity has become primary.

The reactions we see on social media are the reactions of a child when their iPad is taken away

In my work with Christians in Politics, bringing Christians together from across the political spectrum, I have become fairly good at spotting when folks start to lose touch with their primary identity. You notice it from the visceral, speedy reactions on social media, that subliminally prioritise their immediate emotional state above the emotions of others.

This sadly increased at pace during the COVID lockdowns, when it was all too easy to spot the radicalisation of previously fairly centred people. More time than usual on social media, more fear than usual from living through a global pandemic, leading to more time spent down algorithm-induced rabbit holes. I wonder if we might even recognise some of these traits in ourselves.

could we instead be so rooted in our primary identity that a disagreement doesn’t have to lead to the end of fellowship and embrace?

This is not about the elimination of emotion, to produce an anodyne public square. After all many who believe that they are made in the image of God also follow the human who they believe perfected that image, and he spent plenty of time raging against injustice and turning over tables.

The most toxic idols are actually really good things. Money. Food. Sex. These are good things. But as many of us know, if they start to control us rather than serve us, our happiness, waistlines, and marriages may be in trouble. With this understanding we can affirm someone’s political activism and enthusiasm as a good thing. We can affirm a political ideology as broadly helpful, but critique when it has clearly become an idol in someone’s life.

Read more:

How Christian parents can help their families navigate political turmoil | Article | NexGen

3 ways Christian parents can take the lead on healthy smartphone use in their family

The reactions we see on social media are the reactions of a child when their iPad is taken away. It is primal. Bearing in mind the toxicity of the social media-scape, it is easy to see how tribes are needed for protection, but if our responses to every situation are the knee-jerk reaction of our tribe, then we leave no space for breath, prayer and reflection. And there is certainly no time to consult some ancient wisdom. There is a reason people try to keep religion and politics away from polite dinner table discussions. Nobody likes their identity being questioned. But rather than avoid the subjects, could we instead be so rooted in our primary identity that a disagreement doesn’t have to lead to the end of fellowship and embrace?

Failing to remember that we are all made in the image of God and all part of the one human family also leaves the door open to the next level of ugliness – it leaves us able to ‘other’ those we disagree with. They become people who are easy to label, mock, and dismiss. Our ‘othering’ of them renders them less human in our eyes and we are then able to countenance appalling things happening to them. They may become people we would rather see removed from proceedings than have reconciled to us. We forget the words of theologian Vinoth Ramachandrara, who said that “when you stand face to face with another human being, made in the image of God, you are standing in the presence of a vehicle of the divine”. Let’s pray we aren’t about to watch this play out further in the US or UK.