Tim Ehrich:

Turning us against each other works because we don’t know each other. It is a consequence of living indoors, within isolated subgroups, and in homes where reality is experienced through a television remote control. If we experience our fundamental diversity at all, it is as a nuisance, as categories that we are compelled to endure, and as caricatures.
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We tend to live behind barricades, especially in religion. We don’t listen to each other, we accept cartoon-level depictions of each other, we embrace negative stereotypes as if they were truth, we allow leaders to sell us on campaigns that build their power but leave us unfulfilled.
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People theorize monsters into being, without actually knowing real people and discovering common worries and joys. We draw stick figures and then destroy them, as if that were Godly work. We throw Scripture fragments at each other, as if shabby scholarship revealed God’s will. We don’t know each other at any depth. Those who are goading us into holy war don’t want us to know each other. Exploiting our deepest faith yearnings only works if we stay behind the barricade.

[via Jesus Politics]