It is for Christians to walk away from the rock of Jesus’s teaching and build our houses on the shifting sands of political alliances, to be so caught up in culture wars we never realize the whole battle has taken a worldly shape and tone, and to overlook just how infected we are with the world’s way of thinking, categorizing, and grouping these issues.

Last month, I laid out four of the biggest challenges facing the church in the West. Polarization made that list, and in two recent articles (here and here), I’ve sought to unearth some of the reasons why our society has become increasingly fragmented, and to lay the groundwork for how the church might respond.

What is Fragmentation and What Does It Do?

Fragmentation, as defined by Charles Taylor, happens whenever “a people [are] increasingly less capable of forming a common purpose and carrying it out.” Here’s what he says:

“Fragmentation arises when people come to see themselves more and more atomistically, otherwise put, as less and less bound to their fellow citizens in common projects and allegiances. They may indeed feel linked in common projects with some others, but these come to be partial groupings rather than the whole society…”

When fragmentation arises, people turn inward to these “partial groupings.” They expend energy on their own causes and concerns, with little time or attention remaining for the larger goals of the wider society. As a result, common ground and common sense (literally, the sense we hold in common) shrink. No longer do we share a consensus. As the ground breaks up, people huddle together like penguins on an ice float that either collides with other floats or slowly drifts away.

Reacting to Fragmentation

Fragmentation elicits the feeling that one’s security is in jeopardy. The temptation, then, is to react, to do something (anything) that will re-establish equilibrium. For some, the reaction is to double down, to recommit to the group and its values. For others, the reaction is to rush without thought to another group, supposing that the enemy of an enemy is a friend.

Both of these responses are problematic. Doubling down may lead to a sense of security, but it comes at the expense of the group’s ability to hear and receive constructive critique. Jumping to another group may provide an initial sense of belonging, but the new group identity may smuggle in different assumptions and beliefs that compromise one’s values. The irony is that, to combat the feelings that come from fragmentation, we invest ourselves even more heavily in our particular group, which only exacerbates the problem we sensed in the first place.

Morality in Community

The groups we choose to identify with and invest in matter. Why? In part, because we form our moral intuitions within communities, not merely as individual minds reading books or interpreting the news.

Jonathan Haidt explains the power of the social element when we make moral judgments. Social influence matters. We care about what other people think, to the point we are willing to adjust our beliefs or look for justification for other perspectives in order to fall in line with what others are saying. “Other people exert a powerful force,” he writes, “able to make cruelty seem acceptable and altruism seem embarrassing, without giving us any reasons or arguments.”

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[Editor’s note: One or more original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid; those links have been removed.]