It's hard to understand how there could have been serious problems to cause the strife it caused. I asked a man who immigrated from Ireland to explain how there could be such animosity when often it might be hard to tell which side a person was on. He replied so vehemently, "Oh, you can tell all right" that I simply left the question unanswered all these years. And now I'm wondering how Iraqi Muslims will deal with changing their last names to fit the sect of the hour.
In Christian evolution, it seems that as the position of the church diminishes, the old splits seem less important. The pope visited his Orthodox counterpart. Episcipalians accept Catholic baptism as sufficient. Sojourners call themselves Evangelicals.
My hunch is that political oneupmanship causes more religious strife than it profits from. Eventually, people realize when they are being used.