The Fear Beneath the Fracture

How Our Terror Management Has Turned Us Against Each Other

Walk into almost any conversation in America right now, and you can feel the strain — not just disagreement, but suspicion, accusation, and division.

We don’t argue to understand; we argue to survive. We don’t defend ideas; we defend our sense of meaning. Every issue feels existential, every election apocalyptic, every headline a new tremor under our feet.

What’s happening to us isn’t just political or cultural. It’s deeply psychological—and, at its core, spiritual.

Terror Management Theory (TMT) helps explain why.

Developed in the 1980s by social psychologists Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski, and rooted in the work of cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker (The Denial of Death), TMT argues that much of human behavior is driven by our awareness of mortality and the need to manage the fear it creates. To cope with the inevitability of death, people cling to belief systems, identities, and cultural values that provide meaning, security, and a sense of symbolic immortality.

It makes sense: when our worldview is challenged, it doesn’t just feel like disagreement but an existential threat, as if our very reason for being is under attack. That’s why people can become defensive, tribal, or even hostile when their deepest convictions are questioned.

In that sense, we are all living inside what psychologists call a Terror Management System: a network of beliefs, rituals, and identities we build to protect ourselves from the fear of death.

These systems offer stability, purpose, and belonging. But when they’re shaken, we don’t just feel uncomfortable. We feel unsafe.

And that fear, left unchecked, is tearing us apart.

When Fear Becomes Function

According to Terror Management Theory, when people are reminded of their mortality, they cling harder to their worldviews. They become more defensive, more tribal, and less compassionate. They vilify outsiders to protect insiders. The human brain interprets difference as danger—you can see this happening everywhere.

When political tribes harden.

When churches split.

When neighbors stop talking.

When “they” become the problem and “we” become the righteous few.

We’re all building psychological shelters against the same storm. Some call it patriotism. Others call it progressivism. Some call it family values; others, social justice. Whatever name we choose, it functions the same way.

Internally, we remind ourselves that our side will outlast the chaos, that we matter, that our story will survive.

But these shelters have become prisons.

We now live as though survival depends on defeating anyone who sees the world differently. We’ve traded curiosity for contempt, humility for hostility, and wonder for certainty. And beneath all our shouting lies the quiet, trembling truth: people are genuinely scared.

How the Church Got Caught in the Same Fear

Christians aren’t immune to this.

In fact, many have baptized their terror systems in theological language.

Some have turned faith into an ideological fortress.

Jesus has become a mascot for moral superiority or political control. Others have softened the gospel into a social brand, terrified of rejection or irrelevance. Both are expressions of the same underlying anxiety: What if we lose? What if we disappear? What if the gospel doesn’t “win”?

But the irony is staggering.

The central claim of our faith is resurrection. Christians claim to follow a Savior who walked straight into death and dismantled it from the inside. That’s what I believe anyway.

If anyone should be unafraid, it should be people who live to honor Jesus well. If anyone should live with open hands, calm hearts, and generous spirits, it should be the people who believe that death has already been defeated.

The Fearless Become the Fruitful

Paul described the evidence of the Spirit’s presence as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. None of those qualities survive in an atmosphere of fear. Fear makes us reactive, impulsive, defensive, and controlling.

Love requires trust; fear hoards control. Joy requires freedom; fear lives in scarcity. Peace requires surrender; fear demands security.

When Jesus-followers live afraid—afraid of losing influence, afraid of cultural change, afraid of being irrelevant—we ultimately lose our witness in the world. And that “be my witnesses” is the entire mandate of what was once called “church”.

But when believers in Christ live unafraid, secure in eternal hope, we become safe people in an unsafe world.

The fearless are free to be kind when others are cruel, to listen when others shout, to serve when others posture, and to forgive when others retaliate. Because we know that even if the world rejects us, we remain secure in Christ.

Even if our reputation crumbles, our identity stands. Even if death comes, life is not lost.

Fearless people are the only ones capable of true benevolence, true love and true witness.

A Challenge to the Church

So here’s the challenge:

If our hope is real—if Christ has actually conquered death—then we should be the most peaceful, gentle, and courageous people on the planet.

Not reckless. Not arrogant. Not afraid.

Unshaken.

Because nothing seen nor unseen can separate the believer from Christ. (Romans 8:38-39)

The divisions around us are fueled by the fear within us. The antidote isn’t another ideology — it’s the Gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ has already secured us and overcome fear itself.

Imagine a church that doesn’t flinch when threatened, doesn’t lash out when criticized, doesn’t panic when the culture shifts. Imagine a community that embodies serenity in a storm.

That kind of faith would be magnetic.

That kind of peace would be prophetic.

That kind of courage would change the temperature of the room.

We won’t help the world heal by being just as afraid as the next person. We bring healing into the world by living as people who know we have been risen with Christ!

Maybe this is where renewal begins.

NOTE: I explore this dynamic more deeply in The Limbic States, where I argue that our nation isn’t just politically divided, but neurologically overwhelmed. We’re living with chronically activated limbic systems, our collective nervous system locked in fight, flight, or freeze. The constant sense of threat (whether from headlines, algorithms, or each other) keeps us emotionally hijacked and spiritually exhausted. Fear has become the background noise of American life. Until we learn to calm our inner world, we’ll keep mistaking survival for strength and outrage for conviction.

(Limbic States is available on Amazon in print or Kindle formats by clicking here)