This primal instinct toward identity is not, in and of itself, unhealthy. Humans are social creatures, this longing embedded in image-bearers from the very beginning by a Triune God who created humans to be in loving community with one another, even becoming incarnate through Mary to dwell among us in solidarity.
So the answer to a dangerously trivialized politics can’t require a retreat from the public square, nor can the solution be found in the false promises of expressive individualism. Instead, we should direct our tribal instincts toward the promise of family and identity offered in the Christian story. Here, humans are declared to be image-bearers crafted carefully by a loving Creator. We who were once alienated from this Creator by our own sin can now be reconciled to God through the saving work of Christ and baptized into a new and eternal community, the family of God.
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