Polarization in America: Here’s Something You Can Do About It

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Americans are worried.

• Some are worried about the ever-increasing numbers of Muslims living among us.
• Others are troubled by the hard-nosed political activism of the evangelical Christian leadership.
• Still others find it hard to shake the anti-Semitism or racism they learned as children.
• Some distrust atheists.
• Others distrust organized religion.
• Some think Witches are evil and that Native Americans should give up their traditional ways.
• Many believe they must choose between faith and science.

Well, I’d like Americans to stop worrying. I’d like them to stop worrying about the spiritual beliefs and practices of their fellow Americans and take some time instead to listen to their stories.

That was the reason for my book, “Wrestling with God.” I wrote it in hopes of getting Americans to stop hating and start talking to each other.

Polarization in America

The book comes out of my time as the religion reporter on a local Bay Area newspaper. There, on the religion beat, I heard from hundreds of people from dozens of differing, seemingly incompatible traditions — Christians, Jews, Muslims, Native Americans, Hindus, Buddhists, witches, atheists.

I wanted to capture those voices in one volume, and let them speak, unfiltered, to my readers.

I can’t say that my project was rewarded with a thunderbolt from heaven: No message from on high declared that any of voices I was hearing had a corner on the truth. But one thing did happen to me as I worked on this book.

I learned not to be afraid of difference.

All those people I spent so many hours with — the fundamentalist evangelical, the progressive Muslim, the church-going Nobel Laureate physicist, the Hindu dancer, the Jew — all those people, I spent time with, what were they?

Just people.

As so, now that we have celebrated two big events on the American calendar — Election Day and Thanksgiving — now as we approach the gift-giving season, I’d like to advocate for that book of mine. With the heightened polarization in America we’re seeing right now, its time has come.

Here’s what I’d like you to do:

Go to WrestlingWithGodBook.com. Buy two copies of the book — two! — and give them as gifts. Give one copy to a person who thinks the way you do. And give one copy to a person who does not.*

Here’s why:

I’d like the non-believers out there to hear a skeptical Martin Verhoeven tell of his encounters with the divine during a two-year walking and bowing pilgrimage up the California coast.

I’d like the evangelical Christians among us to get acquainted with Ani Zonneveld, a thoughtful, warm-hearted Muslim.

I’d like the progressives in our midst to experience close-up the yearnings of a fundamentalist Christian, Mark Zapalik.

I’d like the science-wary to open their minds to Anthony Mack, an atheist who sees the world as miraculous.

As do I.

A heads-up for holiday shoppers* — it takes a couple of weeks for paperback copies of “Wrestling with God” to arrive. Plan ahead!

More about religion in America at “Americans Are More Thoughtful About Religion Than We Think.” Also “Are We Born Selfish?”