Why Do Families Divide Over Politics?

You may know someone in your family who has excluded you or maybe you have excluded someone from your life because they are on the opposite side of the fence politically. I have even heard people say that our divided society today is just like it was before the Civil War. I don't know if that's true, but sometimes it feels that way. I should say it feels like it might have felt then; since I was not there, I can't determine that exactly. In any case, it is very sad. It is sad and unnecessary and really tragic, in my opinion, that families or friendships should be either held together or destroyed by political beliefs anyway. From a spiritual perspective, I would almost go so far to say it is idolatrous. We have had many conversations about this, without really coming to an understanding, and it is quite disturbing. Their views are so radically different from mine that perhaps neither one of us can talk freely about it without becoming angry or upset, so the result is that we just don't talk at all anymore. The only understanding we have is that we don't talk about politics, but the problem from my perspective is that we don't talk about anything anymore. Because we can't agree on anything political, and we are both outspoken about what we think is right for our country, does that equate to we can have no more conversations about anything? I have not found one verse of Scripture that speaks to me definitively about this, and I will keep on digging. There are lots of articles online about Christianity and politics and I don't have time right now to delve into all of them. But I'm going to Romans 7, and I honestly think that all this strife about politics is sin, plain and simple. Look at this: "I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin" (Romans 7:21-25). There are lots of verses in Scripture about how we should behave in the world. I'm just going to include this one: "But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will" (2 Timothy 2:23-26). I am sure Satan is delighted to see families divided and striving over politics, aren't you? So what I'm going to do is keep trying to apply those scriptures to my life the best I can, and thank God for Romans 8. So I will simply continue to pray and trust God with regard to these relationships and let him work in me and in the other people and ask him to work it all out according to his will. I have to stop now that I have just gotten started. I am a slave to time in this season of my life. Goodnight.