These are not debates about whether one person likes Coke and another likes Pepsi, so we should all meet in the middle and drink Dr Pepper. Conflict-averse people always want to claim that stance, as though they alone live in the “middle” and can cast judgment on both the right and the left. This is not a “both sides are guilty” struggle. Now, before you accuse me of laying all the blame on one side in the fight, I’ll own up to that charge. “There is a brand of theological authoritarianism or extremism that so desperately must get its way that no tactic, no meanness, no betrayal of friendship is too great a cost.” There is a brand of theological authoritarianism or extremism that so desperately must get its way that no tactic, no meanness, no betrayal of friendship is too great a cost.

The church in America - and perhaps elsewhere, but I’m not qualified to speak on that - is at war within itself. But there’s more going on here than genetic brain differences we’ve had those forever without the brutal state of modern theological and political warfare. (See George Lakoff and Jonathan Haidt, for example.) That intrinsic dichotomy certainly drives the present predicaments. Others have written more eloquently on the differences between conservative and liberal brains. On the other hand, the common thread is a quest for freedom of conscience and adaptation to modernity. On one hand, the common thread is authoritarianism and a quest for doctrinal purity.

Methodist theology vs baptist theology