I too am leery of the "middle" argument - I don't see that there is a middle in the choice to fully include gays and lesbians or not. What would be the middle? I think this is another example of our wanting everything and everyone to just be nice - while those who are affected continue to suffer.

Reading "Rabble-Rouser for Peace," the authorized biography of Desmond Tutu and seeing this, what strikes me is how much this purported middle, moderate way of being church sounds like the South African Bishop who succeeded Ambrose Reeves. Reeves wouldn't look away, wouldn't be quiet, wouldn't content himself with patient prayer and concerned in-house discussion after South African government forces opened fire on a peaceful protest and killed scores of children and young adults. He visited the hospitals, talked to grieving families and made sure the international press heard the story of what the government had done.

He was in South Africa on A British passport, and the South African government threw him out of the country, 'sent him home' to England. His successor bishop told the church he didn't plan to be so activist and would focus instead on the pastoral. To people who asked him about apartheid, he would say privately,

'Well, of course, we don't approve of Apartheid, but the Anglican Church is really a small presence here and doesn't have a lot of power to change anything. We've just got to do our work.'

Today we remember and celebrate Reeves and Tutu and other church leaders, lay and ordained who risked their lives, angered some in the church, but would not be still for the sake of uncaring 'peace.'

Reading Tutu's reflections on the dangerous work black and white church leaders did for the sake of including all people in an open church and just social order, I see him acknowledging mistakes- sometimes wondering whether there were times they should have pushed harder and other times where flexibility or risking other tactics would have been better. But he doesn't speak regret for being part of a great, new work of God, the human spirit and the Holy Spirit joining together at great cost to free some people and work for reconciliation and justice for all.

Until reading this book, I'd never heard the name of Reeves's successor. Compromise and peace built on the sufferings of others doesn't preach or inspire. He missed the opportunity to speak and serve. What we remember is others, like Tutu, who would speak and act and struggle after him.

When it's not 'our struggle' it's possible to look the other way. But looking the other way diminishes us. Alan Jones has said repeatedly, 'when you've seen how people are being hurt and you've heard how God cares for them, there's no going back.'

I know there are voices in the Black community and even among Black Episcopalians who think the issue of inclusion of LGBT people is different from the long Civil Rights and anti-Apartheid road.

Nonetheless it's telling that Tutu who risked so much and lost friends and comforted grieving parents and children killed by an oppressive regime sees the LGBT issue facing our church as a simple continuation of the work to which he dedicated his life and ministry.

Having been a marginalized man, having begun his ministry in a South African Anglican church that had different pay scales for white and colored clergy and where the church was deciding how to respond to government policies AGAINST educating blacks beyond primary school level, then being the first black South African Anglican to be judged intelligent enough for our church to invest in his fully accredited theological training, I wish our church could hear how much holy impatience this formerly marginalized saint and hero has with the pious excuses we make to exclude others or ignore their plight.

Jim, I think you're being too stark. How we answer the critical issue of inclusion does not automatically catapult us into one "camp" or the other.

I can be called a moderate but I don't like it because I reject the validity of the spectrum where people are trying to categorize me. In some matters--for instance same-sex blessings and clergy in those relationships--I'm entirely for it. And thus "liberal". However I'm also a vocal proponent of a literal reading of the creeds--actual virgin birth, actual resurrection (not just a fuzzy feeling in the hearts of deluded disciples)--and thus I'm "conservative" or whatever.

In truth I'm neither as the poles get sketched and caricatured, but I don't think I'm in the middle either. Similarly, I believe that many of those lumped into the middle in the original post may not belong there either--rather, they're looking for a way to channel their passion for God and neighbor in a way that doesn't look like either of the cookie-cutters on offer.

"suspicious of those who deride left and right"

Hmmm. One middle is the middle that says there are those on both left and right are acting out of conscience. How can we hold them together in the hope that the spirit will lead us all in the correct direction. How can we allow for change of hearts, rather than simply telling people they're wrong.

Of course the problem for this camp is that meanwhile time is passing, we're talking about people's lives, and for those people justice delayed in denied.

But my bottom line is, this middle is not merely a "moral vanity."

It is always difficult to judge an entire argument based on a short excerpt. Actually, the one nonnegotiable that the authors adopt in the book is for the inclusion of LGBT people in the church. They position this conviction as something that should be embraced by "the middle."

It's a fairly complex ethical argument they make, but I think the mistake Jim makes here is to assume that the "evangelical-liberal" divide is all about sexuality. It isn't.

If the fault for this piece lies anywhere, it is with me (as Alban's director of publishing and the editor of Alban Weekly) for selecting a passage that does largely sidestep the issue. It was my hope that some who might still be struggling with issues of inclusion (and there are many) would be convinced by the authors' argument, ultimately, for both theological diversity and full inclusion, that one doesn't have to preclude the other.

I suppose it was also my hope that a later line in the article, not quoted here--"A small amount of well-earned encouragement can inspire them to fight for a clear vision of a way forward as Christian disciples within churches proclaiming a message of radical inclusiveness"--would have made their intentions clear.

Jim's response makes it clear that some find it difficult to offer that bit of encouragement. The irony is that I was worried about those on the other side of the argument when this piece went out.

The point I would like to make as one who is as committed to full inclusion as anyone I know, is that for many of us this is a theological position based on a gospel understanding of God's love and justice. Overcoming resistance requires a theological argument, well taught. The authors do a wonderful job of presenting this argument, historically and ethically, and it is too bad that Jim jumped to what seems to be, ultimately, a faulty conclusion.

I welcome Richard Bass' clarification, but I also want to second what Derek says about combining liberal inclusion with a more conservative stance on the essentials of theology.

For example, I think our Presiding Bishop is generally doing a great job, but I'd like to hear a bit more from her about the core theological as well as the social affirmations of the church.

- Patrick Coleman

I think that the other difficulty is when people are either defined or define others by positions on issues rather than as individuals who hold a range of positions on a range of issues. Words like "homophobe" and "revisionist", to name two, essentially brand people with their position on issues with no nuance. I don't introduce a person as "this is Bob, the Revisionist." I introduce a person as "this is Bob."

I've run into this any number of times when I insist that gay and lesbian folks can be theologically conservative on issues such as the incarnation, resurrection, virgin birth, etc... The more conservative simply think that is impossible. How could someone who believes in full inclusion of GLBT people in the life of the church be theologically conservative?

On the flip side, the more liberal sometimes paint conservatives as knee-jerk, unthinking, fearmongering simpletons rather than deeply faithful, sincere, and thoughtful folks, some of whom are truly trying to wrestle with a conflict they perceive between Biblical prohibitions of homosexuality and the current realities of GLBT relationships--some in their own families.

So, I think the "middle" is really composed of those of us who struggle on a daily basis with some of the issues that swirl around the church and get excluded and shunned when we are perceived as not signing on to the "correct" side. When we get beyond "sides" and move into relationships, all kinds of walls come down.

I am home with the flu and possibly not up to the high standard of this conversation, but all I was trying to say, I think, is that there are certain issues on which there is no middle. Sure you can throw in a passel of other issues and then figuring out where a person stands on each one construct a middle, but that obscures more than it reveals on any given issue. I hold the conservative positions Tom identifies, but I don't think I am being misrepresented when I am described in the press as a liberal spokesman because readers understand that I am liberal on the particular issue under discussion: full inclusion.

And John, I didn't say the middle was always about moral vanity, but if I had a nickel for every time someone patted themselves vigorously on the back for being "beyond the noisy certainties of left nad right" I could retire.