Despite the fact that the emerging tribes in the US seek to secure their identity with primal narratives, narratives similar to those that secure the identity of all primal human groups, they and their members remain deeply anxious.
This anxiety arises in part because although the narratives claim to be primal, they are in fact both chosen and constructed. Charles Taylor points out that the naïve belief in God that characterizes non-modern societies is unavailable in a secular age. In the same way the naïve belief in primal narratives and identities that characterizes non-modern societies and even modernity is unavailable to post-modern new tribes. Whether one is a tea party nativist, an atheist advocate, a Muslim essentialist, or a Jewish Zionist one is aware that not only has one chosen one’s identity and group, but that others, probably within one’s own family and circle of friends, have made different choices or have dramatically different interpretations of the same narratives.
The anxiety that this reminder that all narratives, all identities including my own are chosen heightens anxiety and is one reason that internal debate in each community has become so vicious.
Moreover, these new tribal narratives are inescapably part of a contentious public discourse over the rights and boundaries of all such narratives. It is the nature of contemporary society that there are no private narrative worlds, and certainly none involving substantial groups of people – even if they wanted to be private. At the very least every voter, or consumer, is constantly being sought out in an effort to draw them into some other narrative, set of commitments, and identity. In contemporary society everyone is being evangelized, often aggressively, all the time.
And finally, all of those immersed in these primal narratives are aware not only of other narratives, other identities, but that these other identities are critical to their own continued existence. They cannot tolerate diversity but they cannot live without it. It was a telling moment when the Texas Association of Business told Texas politicians to back down on their anti-gay rhetoric and laws. (http://www.texasobserver.org/texas-association-of-business-comes-out-against-religious-freedom-amendments) In essence the association reminded Texans that they can’t have their exclusionary narratives and a robust economy.
And this only underscores the reality that any narrative dominance, or even secure place in the larger social structures, is continually under threat by global patterns of migration, constantly shifting power structures, and larger economic and political forces that these tribes cannot control. The new tribes are subject to the same post-colonial forces as that much more ancient people’s groups face. So naturally they are anxious. Their identity and thus existence is constantly under threat.
Which raises the question for Christians who are (or should be) confident God’s loving providence providence overcomes all the powers and principalities of the world. What is our witness to the anxious tribes? What can we share of God’s love that doesn’t simply increase their sense of threat and thus anxiety?
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