We do indeed live in divisive times ..

Submitted by Anne Julienne (Australia), Apr 20, 2016 at 21:16

This unhealthy alignment that you describe seems to apply everywhere in the West. It is true here in Australia where I live and seems to be true across Europe as well.

I do think that the more "religious" people on the right have/had potential. Here in Australia we had Tony Abbott who was ousted, I think, for not looking or sounding "sexy" enough. However, I saw him as a man of the people, not a moneyed elitist.

In some ways, I see Naftali Bennett of Israel like this. He is staunchly right-wing, staunchly Zionist, but also caring strongly for a fair society.

This is also a slot that Ted Cruz could fit into.

Don't forget the Left's close association with Marxism and its atheistic platform. They fear what they see as religious ignorance, whether it is coloured Islamic or Christian or Judaic.

Tony Blair, like Tony Abbott, is a Roman Catholic and therefore part of this religious group. He keeps/kept his faith fairly private, hence why it was tolerated for as long as it was.

I don't think we're going to emerge from this current quagmire until the divisiveness between secular, atheistic views and Judeo-Christian religious or theistic views is better healed. We need to understand that, in many ways, we believe in the same things but just use a different vocabulary to describe that faith. "God", in other words, might just be another word for "Truth" or "Justice".

Religion is the bigger cosmic picture within which political visions are embedded. To pretend it is not relevant is to go astray or to stumble along blindly.

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