The New Tribalism

The era of human history in which most human beings live now (or have been profoundly influenced by) is known as “modernity” or simply the “modern era.” This period of history can be differentiated from eras prior in at least one primary way: The modern era is dominated by ideology rather than theology.

On the one hand, theology is a conviction and perspective about the nature of reality, of the meaning and purpose of human life and the reasons for ethical and moral imperatives; this is explicitly rooted in a particular understanding of God and revelation granted to humans by God. On the other hand, ideology can be described as a comprehensive philosophy which asserts an explanation about the nature of reality, the meaning and purpose of human life, and gives an explanation for the ethical and moral imperatives people recognize and value. What makes an ideology different from a theology is simply that ideology allows no space for the Deity which its philosophical framework and explanation for the phenomena the physical world and human existence.

There are many variations and competing versions of ideology: Philosophical materialism, Scientism, Communism, Socialism, Political Socialism or Fascism and various versions of Utopian schemes to engineer the perfect society. Each of these require its adherents to embrace atheism or agnosticism in regard to the claims of historic religions. Certainly none of them actually require one to believe in Deity or in the specified theological assertions of historic religions (for example, Orthodox Christian Faith, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.). The reason for this is simple: An ideology by definition assesses and answers the basic questions about the meaning of life, of human existence, of morality and ultimate purpose from the perspective of one “under the sun.” (see Ecclesiastes)

Human beings are indeed “political animals” (as the Greek philosopher Aristotle famously said): They crave and seek to organize themselves into social grouping. Everything that has been gleaned from the long study of the past and through our modern academic disciplines confirms this basic insight. One of the expressions of this “instinct” to gather together and form unified groups and to seek to preserve those groupings is tribalism.

Modern people like to think that they had moved beyond the destructive tribalism of the distant past. They had socially “evolved into a new consciousness” that would bind all people together and supersede all cultural, linguistic and religious differences—by relativizing them. This was one of the bold and illusory claims of modernity—one that has now been show for the illusion that it is. This was a nonsensical notion which was a philosophically couched evasion of the obvious—people are basically “tribal” and will always move toward forming their own tribes or closed groupings and will enforce those “sacred” boundaries. The only difference between ancient “tribalism” and the modern forms is the rational for establishing the specific cultic boundaries of that particular tribe. The tribalism of “modern culture” is inherently ideological in character.

One of the most absurd claims, which floats about us like invisible pollution in the air, is that a “modern outlook” (whether this be a “progressive” political ideology or “libertarian” political philosophy) will deliver us from tribalism. Or again that technological development or an ambiguous proclamation of devotion to “science” will provide salvation for people. These ideological movements are antithetical to the Gospel because they boldly assert that human beings have the capacity to save themselves. This grand deliverance is conceived of as social and corporate and does not require the individual to fundamentally change but only to conform to the grand utopian vision (fill in the name and founder as you will).

In his brilliant and witty manner, G.K. Chesterton described this grand hypocrisy of modern ideological movements in which historic Christian Faith is deemed anathema.

“The secularist and the sceptic have denounced Christianity first and foremost, because of its encouragement of fanaticism; because religious excitement led men to burn their neighbours and to dance naked down the street. How queer [strange] it all sounds now. Religion can be swept out of the matter altogether, and still there are philosophical and ethical theories which can produce fanaticism enough to fill the world. Fanaticism has nothing at all to do with religion. There are grave scientific theories which, if carried out logically, would result in the same fires in the market-place and the same nakedness in the street. There are modern esthetes who would expose themselves like the Adamites if they could do it in elegant attitudes. There are modern scientific moralists who would burn their opponents alive, and would be quite contented if they were burnt by some new chemical process. And if any one doubts this proposition—that fanaticism has nothing to do with religion, but has only to do with human nature—let him take this case of Tolstoy and the Doukhabors. A sect of men start with no theology at all, but with the simple doctrine that we ought to love our neighbour and use no force against him, and they end in thinking it wicked to carry a leather handbag, or to ride in a cart. A great modern writer who erases theology altogether, denies the validity of the Scriptures and the Churches alike, forms a purely ethical theory that love should be the instrument of reform, and ends by maintaining that we have no right to strike a man if he is torturing a child before our eyes. He goes on, he develops a theory of the mind and the emotions, which might be held by the most rigid atheist, and he ends by maintaining that the sexual relation out of which all humanity has come, is not only not moral, but is positively not natural. This is fanaticism as it has been and as it will always be. Destroy the last copy of the Bible, and persecution and insane orgies will be founded on Mr. Herbert Spencer’s “Synthetic Philosophy.”[i]

The gravest error of those swimming about in the culture of the modern era is that they deny the reality of sin and the origination of destructive impulses from within the human heart. This leads to all manner of absurdities and ridiculous ideas which supposedly serious thinkers proclaim as “deep truths” and upon which (genuinely) aspiring social reformers base their proposed solutions. For example, such misguided social engineering projects have included the redefinition of “the human race” to “the human races” and the systemic oppression of non-Europeans as well as the many revolutionary movements inspired by the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. These thinkers had rejected Christian Faith (and religious claims generally) and thus were ideological.

Modernity has led to a minimizing of sustained reflection and understanding of the human condition, an amplification of the social constructs of societies and sub-cultures and the emphatic rejection of salvation “from heaven” (in any meaningful sense). Modern people have no hope and what they do hope for and the change they agitate for among themselves based what G.K. Chesterton described as “idealistic gas.” Or as Francis Schaeffer wrote: “Modern man has both feet firmly planted in mid-air.”

The “enlightened” modern people who scoff at Christians and Christian faith often have reasons for their radical skepticism—for Christians have given them much ammunition with their fecklessness, hypocrisy and intellectual timidity. But such modern scoffers certainly do not have answers to the basic questions which every human being is confronted with and they have no hope in the face of death. May God grant to his people in this time to be bold, wise and discerning as they bear witness to the glorious hope of the Gospel. For a doorway has been opened in our time for many to come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

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[i] G.K. Chesterton, Biographies By Chesterton, chapter “Leo Tolstoy”; cited from Ebook, The G.K. Chesterton Collection (Catholic Way Publishing)