Our Shared Point of Reference, by Stephen P. White

It’s common these days to lament polarization in the Church. The divisions within the Body of Christ may not be new, but they have become notably more acrimonious in recent years. Many lay the blame on our politics, and it is hard to deny that politics has played an aggravating role in our ecclesial divisions.

But American politics cannot explain why the same divisions besetting the Church in the United States consistently appear in many other countries across the globe. It is hard to blame American political partisanship for ecclesial divisions when much of the global Church, and certainly most of the Church in the West, faces divisions along strikingly similar fault lines. …