Is Discussion Divisive?
What do we mean by divisive partisanship? My party, right or wrong! “ Our claim,” write Slaughter, Gutenson and Jones, “is that there is a divisive and corrosive partisanship in our culture, and increasingly in our churches. It is destroying our ability to work together and have civil conversation. When we use the term ‘partisanship,’ we mean the ‘my party, right or wrong’ mentality. We expect that Christians who participate in the political process will vote for members of particular parties, according to how that candidate lives out the issues we find important. However, we have crossed from supporting a party’s candidate (or candidates) to partisanship when we defend our party regardless. For example, if running up public debt is a problem when ‘they’ do it, but not when ‘we’ do it. Another example: If we opposed ‘that’ war when ‘they’ were in power, but favor it when ‘we’ are in power, we have crossed the line. That kind of partisanship is destructive to the much-needed public dialogue.”
