A sociological tendency toward division in U.S. history poses serious questions for God’s people.
Is there a Divine message in the depth and sharpness of America’s current political divisions? Yes, and the importance of exploring that message places a great burden on Bible believing Americans.
The political tribalism occurring now has not happened in a vacuum. America has a long history of divisiveness. Walk back with me through our country’s history: At present we are experiencing a combative political atmosphere, with divisions over immigration, human identity, race, equality, gender, homosexuality, and abortion.
In earlier decades we were divided by women’s rights, the Viet Nam War, Civil Rights; further back it was Prohibition, Jim Crow, and Suffrage; back further it was the status of Native Americans, the Civil War, and States Rights; back even further it was the two party system, slavery, and the Revolutionary War. Our history is littered with sharp, painful divisions and dissensions.
America was birthed in a bloody, excruciating, contentious break up, the kind that wounds like divorce or devastates a congregation like a church split. Should we be surprised that such painful wounds would shape American discourse?
Shortly after the Revolutionary war, when speaking of the discord between the President and those John Adams referred to as the “hounds of Hell,” i.e. the press, Adams wondered how George Washington would hold up under the abuse “His skin is thinner than mine,” Adams wrote.[i]
Divisiveness is in the very DNA of our national “body” and major cycles of conflict erupt with regularity. Do we chalk this up to cantankerous individualism, or might God have a message for His people in our national contentiousness?
Political division Divine intention
In 1 Kings 12, King Solomon has died and Rehoboam his son inherited his office. After his inauguration, a delegation of leaders lobbied Rehoboam for a change in policy related to the burden of labor under his father. They wanted relief after the decades of all the building programs of Solomon. Rehoboam consulted his counselors, both young and old, and decided it was a matter of testosterone. He wanted to be tougher than his father and not live in his shadow. His decision enflamed those seeking relief and they murdered the head of the Israelite Department of Labor! The nation then split between the northern and southern tribes. Sound familiar?
In the midst of this political conflagration, the Bible provides a phrase to help us understand that a Divine agenda often drives such division. In 1 Kings 12:15, it says “for it was a turn of events from the LORD.” Unsurprisingly God uses political machinations and conflicts in countries to illustrate larger truths—in this case the divided heart of Solomon and his tolerance of idolatry!
“This thing is from me”
No political entity abides a secession peacefully, and such was the case with Rehoboam. Battle lines were drawn, spears sharpened and armies gathered. But on the eve of battle the word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God. He brought a message to Rehoboam and all the people, “You must not go up and fight against your relatives the sons of Israel . . . for this thing is from Me.”
God had a message for His people in and about their division. Events were not happening by accident. God allowed them as discipline to reveal deeper things in the heart of the nation. Additionally, He sent a message through Shemaiah that put their national crisis in a theological context. That message echoes through time to our day. What it should have produced in the Israelites was profound, heart-broken repentance. And with us…?
Why God allowed division
Why did God bring Israel to its knees, allowing the nation to divide in two? We read earlier in the story that God had a reason for allowing division to ferment, one that Israel had overlooked. 1 Kings 11:33 anticipates the divided kingdom because of the unfaithfulness of God’s people as they followed Solomon’s idolatry: “They have not walked in my ways, doing what is right in My sight . . .” That was the real rub. Civil discord proved a symptom of a deeper problem, idolatry, which God was unwilling to overlook, even at the expense of a united kingdom.
What about us?
Back to American history, how do we hear the message God is speaking to His people in our latest painful national division? While we are not a theocracy like Israel, God still speaks to His people through such national events. Consider the following two questions:
- Is our national division impacting your church, your board and your staff? Might such division communicate God’s concern about a deeper problem in your congregation, that it should get “caught up” in political tribalism?
- Can Christians, across our divided denominations (not unlike Israel’s tribes), see beyond their differences to the Divine message behind our national woes? Shouldn’t it be breaking our hearts instead of inflaming our anger, causing sorrow rather than spear-throwing at our brethren who differ?
Our nation may be coming apart at the seams, but those who claim to follow Christ must realize the solution is far from political. It begins with us discerning Christ’s message in our national pain and responding to Him in brokenness and repentance for our personal and national sins. That’s the only way to break the cycle of divisiveness that our nation has tolerated through the centuries of its existence.
Rev. Mark Barnard
serves as President of Blessing Point Ministries.
Mark authored The
Path of Revival: Restoring Our Nation One Church at a Time
(churchsmart.com) among other works in the field of church health. For more
information visit blessingpoint.org.
[i] David McCullough, John Adams, (Simon and Schuster: New York 2001.) p. 441.