In order to predict what trends are forthcoming in UK society, it often helps to look to the States. Whether its music, fashion, art, or technology the good old US of A often sets the benchmark for the rest of the English-speaking world to follow.

Take celebrity culture as an example. America pioneered so-called ‘reality’ TV – the lives of rich and attractive people being idolised on screen. The UK has generated its own brand of reality TV along the same vacuous lines. Our screens are ‘graced’ with the likes of ‘Made in Chelsea’ and ‘Geordie Shore’. Or consider music. US artists pioneered hip hop and rap. These genres inspired domestic equivalents like grime.

This kind of cultural exchange is fairly innocuous. However, not all cultural trends emanating from the US are so anodyne. Indeed some are incredibly harmful. Over the last few years ‘identity politics’ or, as the Americans call it, ‘intersectionality’, has increasingly manifested in UK society after first receiving endorsements from the cultural elites of the US.

Simply put, intersectionality is a system that arranges society into different groups along the lines of race, religion, sexuality and – recently – ‘gender identity’. It also extends to other more subjective characteristics such as political affiliation and philosophical belief.

“Not all cultural trends emanating from the US are anodyne”

Intersectionality is evident in almost every area of public life, but especially in the media, politics and academia. By now it is so pervasive almost all of us will understand its terminology. Most people will have heard the terms ‘LGBT community’ and ‘Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME)’ for example. The media-political elite also regularly use terms like ‘trans woman’, ‘trans man’ and ‘cisgender’.

Of course, acknowledging personal characteristics is useful to some extent. In collecting data, it’s helpful to know about somebody’s race, religion, disability or socio-economic status. This kind of data informs policy and allows access to services. But accurate recording of data is not intersectionality’s raison d’être.

The whole thrust of intersectionality is to create a new class structure in society, challenging a perceived imbalance of power and ‘emancipating’ certain groups. It is founded on the Marxist idea that societies are made up of oppressors and the oppressed.

In the intersectionalist understanding of the world, oppressors usually come from majority groups. In the West, if you’re white and culturally Christian you’re an oppressor. But if you’re a person of colour or LGBT you’re oppressed. If you’re in one of the minority groups you are a victim, simply by dint of you being in that group and you are owed something by the majority.

“Accurate recording of data is not intersectionality’s raison d’être”

In categorising people in this way and encouraging minority groups to claim victimhood, a hierarchy of rights is established. Questioning the demands of a group of people deemed to be victims is presented as an attack on the very identity of people in that group. Those who fail to support their demands or even wish to debate certain ideas are labelled hateful, bigoted, and are ostracised from public life.

The motivations of those who espouse intersectional ideas aren’t necessarily bad. It’s true that certain people are discriminated against on the basis of their personal characteristics such as race. Some who claim victimhood will be seizing upon legitimate grievances. However, as a system for society to operate under, intersectionality is incredibly dangerous.

The first and most obvious problem with the ideology is that it’s divisive. People are encouraged to draw hard lines between themselves and others on account of their ascribed ‘identity’ and constantly claim to be oppressed. The result is hostility and an intense focus on the rights and entitlements of the individual, rather than the wider community. Societal cohesion is undermined.

Intersectionality also creates new tensions and discrimination. In the UK, people who work in politics, the media or the public sector who are white, socially conservative or – unfortunately for Salann – evangelical Christians are demonised. People who are LGBT, BAME or socially liberal on the other hand are more favourably treated.

“As a system for society to operate on, intersectionality is incredibly dangerous”

As previously alluded to, intersectionality also hampers free speech. Debate around certain ideas linked to identify is closed down altogether as those who speak out against intersectional orthodoxy are deemed hateful. Barring discussion and criticism of ideas undermines democracy and allows injustices to be perpetrated without being challenged.

Whether we like it or not, intersectional ideas have taken root in the UK. There is fast emerging a culture war between those who buy into it wholesale, and others who hold to more conventional ways of organising society. Christians will soon be asked to take a side.

Thankfully, the Bible provides guidance on how to approach this issue. Scripture is clear that all human beings are created in the image of God. This is our core identity. We are image bearers. Other characteristics are important but they are secondary. In God’s economy there is no distinction by race, class or anything else. And this should indicate how we are to operate as believers.

As intersectionalist culture unfolds we must refuse to play by its rules. For Christians, segmenting people by different characteristics is damaging because it neglects their primary identity as human beings. We are to love our neighbours as ourselves, without preference, affording each person respect. We condemn injustice and oppression when we see it but don’t concede to political demands which are merely dressed up in these terms.

Martin Luther King Jr. said we should judge people on the basis of their character. More than that, we must judge them on the basis of their humanity. This is the blueprint for true equality and societal flourishing.