The problem I'm struggling with this morning is why is it so hard to be moderate. Why do the evangelical churches and the RC churches pack in the numbers but the broad C of E or Episcopal church struggle. In other parts of life the same thing is true too - moderates get crushed in times of anarchy (see Iraq now and French Revolution - in fact just about all revolutions and times of conflict it pays the extremes to attack the middle ground to compel the large un-aligned majority to take sides)
From a doctrinal and belief view - it's so much more compelling in its relationship with the secular world . Where we can't absolve ourselves of our responsibility to think and and justify our beliefs and morality. It is so much easier to not believe (aetheist), to not think about it (agnostic) or to abandon one's consience to an absolute doctrine (fundamentalism).
But there is something so right about the reasonableness of the broad church and yet it's so vulnerable from both sides the unbeleivers who can punch holes in the strict rule of logic and the funadametals who can reject the logical compromises with the secular world we live in.
Like Jonathan Sachs struggle in The persistance of faith - he has a love of the middle ground and a belief he lays out in the book that the middle ground wins out - but I was left hoping not believing.
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