President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden met last night at Belmont University in Nashville for the final presidential debate before the November 3 election. Once again, who won depends on your partisan perspective: conservative John Podhoretz says the president “had the debate of his life,” while CNN‘s Chris Cillizza writes that Joe Biden “managed to land the best lines of the night.”
How has our culture become so divisive? Let’s consider two surprising factors.
As President Trump prepares to announce his Supreme Court Justice nominee, attacks on the religion of potential nominee Amy Coney Barrett have already begun. Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or independent, and whether you are a Catholic or a Protestant, you should be concerned about antagonism toward a candidate’s personal faith. Such attacks clearly violate the Constitution’s guarantee that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States” (Article VI, Clause 3). And they illustrate the fact that Christian faith commitments are increasingly countercultural.
The world is more interconnected than ever, but it feels more divided than ever. We are conflicted on whether to wear masks and practice social distancing to stop the spread of coronavirus. We are conflicted on partisan politics as the election season escalates. We are conflicted about racial justice, removing statues, and occupied zones.
