Diana Butler Bass, who will be the featured speaker at our diocesan convention at the end of next month, did an online chat today for The Washington Post.
I was particularly intrigued by this answer:
I do not believe that there are only two sides in this dispute — I can identify five distinct groups of Episcopalians.
Yes, there are two parties in tension: Old-line liberals and radicalized conservatives. This is the fight we most often read about in the media. However, you point out a third possibility, a centrist party that is trying to navigate between the two extremes (Bishop Peter Lee in Virginia would represent the centrists). From my own research, you are right. The extremes aren’t the whole story.
However, there are two additional groups, and these two are far less noticed. I refer to these groups (they don’t have a clear “party” identity) as “progressive pilgrims” and “emergent conservatives.” These two groups tend to see “issues” like this one as secondary concerns to the practice of Christian faith and are more concerned with things like the practice of hospitality, living forgiveness, practicing reconciliation, learning to pray, feeding the hungry, caring for the environment, and maintaining the Anglican practice of comprehensiveness (being a church of the “middle way”). They may lean slightly left or slightly right on “issues,” but reject partisan solutions to theological problems. Both progressive pilgrims and emergent conservatives are far more interested in unity than uniformity; and they appreciate diversity in their congregations as a sign of God’s dream for humanity to live in peace.