David French says in a recent column that one of the most under-appreciated and under-reported stories of last year was “that a post-Christian America is a more vicious America” that has rendered “America more polarized, not less.” His thesis is simple. “Remove from the public square biblical admonitions such as ‘love your enemies’ and the hatred has more room to grow.” When the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace) are gone, the culture becomes far more coarse.

He does acknowledge that a few other commentators have written about this topic. Peter Beinart writing in The Atlantic says that the political elite “dreamed that the culture war over religious morality that began in the 1960s and 70s would fade. It has. And the more secular, more ferociously national and racial culture war that has followed is worse.”

The media elite and political elite naively believe that the decline in religious values is good for society. Less Christianity does not mean a better America. Human sinfulness and tribalism reign in the human heart. Remove rules and norms, and social conflict increases.

David French also reminds us that the American Christian culture isn’t that Christian. The prevailing view is what some have called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. That’s a belief “that while God exists, He’s not particularly involved in human affairs and mainly wants people to be nice and happy.” This moral framework might work at some level for individual lives but it is utterly inadequate as a common moral code.

Essentially, we are replacing the biblical worldview with a personal ethic that has few, if any, rules. Letting sinful people prone to tribalism make all their own decisions without regard to the biblical moral code is a prescription for the polarization we see in political discourse and the conflict we see in the streets.