Kevin den Dulk, writing in Comment, believes it is not ideology or political preferences that cause our biggest divides. Instead, it’s “our deep-seated emotional responses to group identity. Polarization is tribal.

"But that tribalism is not merely about intense loyalty to partisan groups. Indeed, to the extent the United States has become more divided, the story is less about commitment to us than rejection of them.”

This is a new kind of partisanship, a commitment based not on loyalty to a party’s philosophy, but on outright disdain and contempt for the other side. The widening partisan gap is attributed to negative evaluations of the opposition, not growing loyalty toward one’s own party.

The common response to political polarization is to say we need to do better at listening and understanding what the other side is saying. But the problem in our day, as we’ve seen, is that in the age of the internet our ability and desire to listen is low.

Our fragmented and diminishing attention spans are signs that we are losing the capacity to listen well. Moreover, people on both sides of our political battles are not always able to articulate what they think, at least not in a coherent philosophy or worldview.

It’s hard to listen to someone who finds you contemptible, and it’s hard to find the will to listen to someone you harbor utter disdain for. It’s hard to converse when people are not arguing in the pursuit of truth, but are instead alert only to signs of tribal identity.

The pressing question for believers is: How can the church stand out in this kind of world? How can we be salt and light? How can we extricate ourselves as much as possible from our own tribal idolatries? How can we demonstrate a better way?