This has been a consistent pattern in recent surveys and it can be seen in most pews, from conservative evangelicals to liberal mainline Protestants, said Greg Smith, senior researcher at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. This pattern is especially clear among American Catholics.

“The people who attend worship services more often are going to be opposed to abortion and those who rarely or never attend are going to support legalized abortion,” he said. “You go once a week? It’s going to be about two-thirds against. Rarely if ever? It’s about two-thirds in favor. …

“That division is still there. But the big news is that both of these groups have been moving in the same direction for the past year or so. We’re seeing support for abortion rights weakening across the board.”

A new Pew Forum survey found that the percentage of Americans saying they believe abortion should be “legal in all/most cases” fell from 54 to 47 percent during a single year. Meanwhile, the percentage of people who said they believe abortion should be “illegal in all/most cases” rose from 40 to 44 percent. The “undecided” camp grew from 6 to 9 percent of those polled.

“The nation remains pretty evenly divided,” said Smith. “However, what we can see is that support for legalized abortion is weakening in many groups and it’s stalled in others. … How much people practice their faith is a crucial factor in this.”

Support for abortion rights remains high among American Jews, but the latest Pew survey showed a drop from 86 percent in favor a year ago to 76 percent now. Support among Americans with no religious affiliation at all fell from 71 percent in favor of legalized abortion to 68 percent.

One of the most dramatic shifts came among members of white mainline Protestants — liberal churches that have consistently supported abortion rights. The numbers were especially dramatic when church attendance was factored into the equation, noted Smith.

Support for abortion rights among mainliners who attended church once a week fell from 54 to 42 percent, while support among those who said they attended less often than that fell from 68 to 60 percent.

To no one’s surprise, opposition to abortion rights among evangelical Protestants remains high, but the numbers have risen even higher in the past year. Church attendance is a major factor, with 79 percent of white evangelicals who worship once a week saying abortion should be “illegal in all/most cases.” A year ago, 73 percent took that stance. Among white evangelicals who go to church less often, opposition to abortion rose a dramatic 12 percent — from 47 to 58 percent.

The contrast between regular and occasional worshippers was also dramatic among white Catholics. Opposition to abortion rights rose from 57 to 67 percent among Catholics who reported going to Mass once a week. Among those who said they attended Mass less often, support for legalized abortion declined slightly during the past year, from 65 to 62 percent.

These numbers are logical because Catholics who are active in the church are exposed more often to sermons, prayers and ministries that incarnate church teachings on the sanctity of human life, said Deirdre McQuade of the pro-life office at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Those who are less invested in the sacraments — attending church, receiving the Eucharist and going to confession — may have less access to the truth about life, and fewer resources to believe and accept it,” she said.

In the end, stressed Smith, this survey underlines two realities. First, there is little evidence that America’s debates about abortion are fading. Second, it’s clear that religious faith and practice remains one of the most crucial dividing lines on this issue.

“It’s important to realize that millions of Americans see themselves as caught in the middle” on abortion issues, he said. “Take those mainline Protestants, for example. Even though it seems that their support for legalized abortion is weakening, they probably see themselves as moving from one position in the middle to another position in the middle. They may be changing what they believe, but not very much.”

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Low-church Episcopalians called it the “Fond du Lac Circus” because of all the ornate vestments. Not only was Bishop Charles Chapman Grafton, who presided, wearing a cope and mitre, but so were the other bishops. Then there were was the exotic visitor on the edge of the photograph — Bishop Tikhon of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Imagine the outrage if Tikhon had, as discussed beforehand, decided to take part in the laying on of hands at the moment of consecration. After years of service in America, the missionary later hailed as St. Tikhon of Moscow returned home and became patriarch, dying in 1925 after years of tensions with the new Communist regime.

St. Tikhon had “a vision, a vision of unity,” said Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America, during recent events marking the birth of an alternative, conservative Anglican province in America. Early in the 20th century, some Orthodox leaders were willing to accept the “validity of Anglican orders,” meaning they believed that Anglican clergy were truly priests and bishops in the ancient, traditional meanings of those words.

“It fell apart. It fell apart on the Anglican side, with the affirmation more of a Protestant identity than a Catholic identity,” said Jonah, at the inaugural assembly of the Anglican Church in North America, held in Bedford, Texas.

“We need to pick up where they left off. The question has been: Does that Anglican church, which came so close to being declared by the other Orthodox churches a fellow Orthodox church, does that still exist?”

A voice in the crowd shouted, “It does!”

“Here, it does,” agreed Metropolitan Jonah, stressing the word “here.”

Thus, the Orthodox leader announced that he is willing to walk in St. Tikhon’s footsteps by opening an ecumenical dialogue with this new body of conservative Anglicans, years after similar talks collapsed after the decision by Episcopalians to ordain women as priests and then as bishops.

The Orthodox and modern Episcopalians disagree on many other issues, from the authority of scripture to the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals as priests and bishops. These are the same issues that caused the creation of the conservative Anglican Church in North America, which has been recognized by many Anglican traditionalists in the Third World, but not by the hierarchy of the Church of England.

However, Jonah also focused attention on doctrinal issues that continue to cause tensions among the very conservatives he faced in Texas.

“I’m afraid my talk will have something to offend just about everybody,” said the former Episcopalian, who was raised in an Anglo-Catholic parish before converting to Orthodoxy.

For example, “Calvinism is a condemned heresy,” he said, and there are “other heresies that came in through the Reformation which have to be rejected” — words that strike at the heart of the vital, growing Protestant wing of global Anglicanism. Jonah also stressed that, “For a full restoration and intercommunion of the Anglican Church with the Orthodox Church, the issue of ordination of women has to be resolved.” The Anglican Church in North America has agreed to allow its dioceses to reach their own conclusions on this issue.

The tension in the room was real, but so was the appreciation for this gesture by the man who, literally, is the successor of St. Tikhon, said the Rev. George Conger, a Calvinist Anglican and correspondent for The Church of England Newspaper.

“What made much of what Metropolitan Jonah said palatable to the ACNA convocation was his transparent good will, and wry sense of humor,” said Conger. “The phrase ‘hard words said in love’ is often trite, but Jonah’s remarks … were given and heard in this vein.”

One the other side of this dialogue, Orthodox leaders are more than aware of the obstacles created by decades of tumultuous change in the Anglican Communion, said Father Alexander Golubov, academic dean of St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in South Canaan, Pa.

“Metropolitan Jonah will be trying to walk a thin line, but it is the same line that St. Tikhon tried to walk long ago,” said Golubov. “Some of the issues he will face are the same. But there are issues he will face today that I do not believe anyone could have ever anticipated. We live in strange times.”

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What they want is compromise. What they want are shades of gray.

In a new Harris Interactive survey, only 9 percent participants agreed that the abortion should be legal for any reason at any point during a pregnancy. On the other side, only 11 percent wanted a total ban.

In between were plenty of citizens who back legalized abortion but, to one degree or another, want to see restrictions. The sponsors of the national survey were amazed.

“We remain opposed to abortion, which means we oppose any procedure that seeks to destroy the life of an unborn child. That isn’t going to change,” said Deidre McQuade, speaking for the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “But what we are seeing is growing evidence that most Americans do want to see abortion restricted and limited.”

That’s why the USCCB is hailing these results, even though most of the numbers point toward compromises that fall short of the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Looking at the extremes, the survey asked if abortion should be “illegal in all circumstances” or “legal for any reason at any time during pregnancy.” But in between, participants could say that abortion should remain legal to “save the life of the mother” or legal in cases involving rape or incest. They could also say that abortion should be legal “for any reason” during the first three months or the first six months” of pregnancy.

In addition to the 11 percent who wanted a total ban, 38 percent backed efforts to restrict abortion to cases of rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s life. Another 33 percent endorsed limiting abortion to the first three or six months of pregnancy.

When asked if they opposed or supported specific policies restricting abortion, 88 percent of those who stated opinions backed “informed consent” laws requiring abortion providers to “inform women of potential risks to their physical and psychological health and about alternatives to abortion.” Also, 76 percent of those expressing opinions favored laws that “protect doctors and nurses from being forced to perform or refer for abortions against their will” and 73 supported laws that “require giving parents the chance to be involved in their minor daughter’s abortion decision.”

These numbers resemble those in a 2006 survey on politics, faith and social issues produced by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. It found that “majorities of Republicans (62%), Democrats (70%) and political independents (66%)” favored some form of compromise on abortion, as did more than 60 percent of both white evangelicals and white, non-Hispanic Catholics.

Digging deeper, that Pew survey even found that 37 percent of liberal Democrats and 71 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats supported some compromise, backing abortion restrictions that would not be allowed under current interpretations of Roe v. Wade and other U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

Still, it’s hard to seek middle ground in an era in which both major political parties have been defined by strict, black-and-white stances on this life-and-death issue.

Tensions will also rise if President-elect Barack Obama keeps a campaign pledge he made on July 17, 2007, when he told Planned Parenthood leaders: “The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.” Obama is a co-sponsor of this bill, which, according to the National Organization for Women, would “sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws (and) policies” that are already in effect.

In response, abortion opponents will argue that there is broad support in the middle of the political landscape for policies that restrict an absolute right to abortion, including laws that are on the books and others that have been proposed by many Republicans and some Democrats.

This can be seen in the new Harris survey data, said McQuade, and in other polls in recent years — especially those charting the beliefs of young Americans.

“There is political capital there and we must stress that,” she said. “We will have to seek the changes that we can make, while being realistic. We will also have to defend the laws that we already have that protect the right to life. This issue will not go away.”

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The Presbyterian Church in America is not the same thing as the American Presbyterian Church. Also, Orthodox Presbyterians are not to be confused with Bible Presbyterians, Cumberland Presbyterians, Reformed Presbyterians, Associate Reformed Presbyterians or Evangelical Presbyterians.

This Presbyterian alphabet soup became less complicated in 1983, when the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. joined with the Presbyterian Church in the U.S., the so-called Southern branch. This created the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which today has about 2.3 million members.

Is that clear? If so, take a deep breath because Presbyterian affairs are about to get more complicated as new divisions and unions reshape the churches that trace their roots to John Calvin and his Reformed branch of Protestantism.

“While we’re seeing churches fly away from the core doctrines that once held them together, we’re also seeing new bonds being formed that are truly interesting,” said the Rev. Parker Williamson, whose work in the conservative Presbyterian Layman newspaper has made him a mainline Protestant lightning rod.

“We’re seeing a realignment across the boundaries between our churches. This unity will be doctrinal — not legal. There may not be a formal structure that forms out of all of this. We don’t need a big new denominational headquarters to replace the old denominational headquarters.”

These are, of course, fighting words at the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which has been forced to downsize its Louisville staff several times in the past 15 years. Membership statistics and donations have declined in an era of conflict about biblical authority, ordination standards, sexual ethics and a host of ancient doctrines, especially the belief that salvation is found only through faith in Jesus Christ.

Meanwhile, these riptides of change have also affected the Layman, a newspaper born in 1965 when the old United Presbyterian Church began work on a modernized confession of faith. That fight reopened wounds from a 1924 battle, when its General Assembly decided that literal views of key doctrines — such as the virgin birth, deity and resurrection of Jesus — did not have to be used as a test for ordinations.

After decades of focusing on what has become the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Layman’s August issue included several pages of coverage of events in the smaller Evangelical Presbyterian Church. In the future, said Williamson, it will include news about the Presbyterian Church in America and other conservative Reformed bodies.

This will get complicated because “lots of things are happening at once” as church leaders try to plan for the future, he said.

Some congregations have decided to stay in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), but their leaders are loosening their national ties. Williamson noted that leaders of the Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta have voted to try to stop their per-capita financial contributions from going to the national offices in Louisville. Instead, they want this money to back a new network called the Presbyterian Global Fellowship.

“So they’re staying in the PCUSA, but they’re doing what I call ‘leaving, in place.’ They’re staying … but they’ve made it clear that this isn’t business as usual,” he said. “Now that’s the largest church in the denomination, so when it does something like that it gives cover for smaller churches and their pastors who have been afraid to take a stand.”

Some churches are openly attempting to cut their mainline ties and join the New Wineskins/Evangelical Presbyterian Church Transitional Presbytery. Other congregations are revising legal documents that bind them to their regional Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) presbyteries, in case they want to exit in the future.

Leaders on both sides know it may take a U.S. Supreme Court decision to tie up the many loose ends in this legal fight — affecting millions of dollars worth of pensions, endowments and church properties nationwide. Similar conflicts are shaking the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and other oldline Protestant bodies.

There will be unity in the future, said Williamson, but it will not look like the unity of the past.

“There isn’t going to be a central, merged denominational office somewhere,” he said. “The new church unity will be in new networks of people with common beliefs. It’s going to look more like the World Wide Web, not the old industrial model.”

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Who was J.R.R. Tolkien? Luckily, the Oxford don left behind letters and essays about his Catholic faith and its impact on his heart, mind and soul.

“What we tried to do was honor the things that were important to Tolkien,” said Jackson, after screening “The Two Towers” for the press. “We didn’t want to make it a religious film. But he was very religious and some of the messages and some of the themes are based on his beliefs.”

When artists turn a novel into a movie, they need to understand the author and it helps if he has, in the past, been candid about his beliefs and values. It helps to know something about the worldview that shaped the fiction.

So who is novelist Dan Brown? How will his beliefs affect “The Da Vinci Code” movie that will roll — tsunami style — into thousands of theaters next weekend?

It’s hard to answer these questions, because Brown rarely agrees to serious interviews. Entertainment Weekly recently resorted to running a feature entitled “10 Things We Learned About Dan Brown From His Recent Trial.”

Who is Dan Brown? He grew up in the Episcopal Church and was a regular at church camps. His mother was a church musician. His father taught mathematics at Phillips Exeter Academy, so Brown lived and studied there before going to Amherst College. During his college years, as often happens, Brown veered away from faith.

We know that he tried teaching English, failed as a songwriter and, early on, struggled as a writer. His wife, Blythe, is a painter who has played a major role in his work with her research skills and anger at traditional Catholicism. We know that Brown says he outlined “The Da Vinci Code” before he — or his wife — read the conspiracy theory classic “Holy Blood, Holy Grail.” We know that Brown beat claims of plagiarism in that recent trial in London.

Interviewing himself at DanBrown.com, he argues that his book is a godsend for those open to debating religious questions and a challenge to anyone clinging to ancient doctrines. In other words, anyone who thinks his book is an attack on his or her faith is probably the kind of person whose faith deserves to be attacked.

“This book is not anti-anything. It’s a novel,” said Brown. “I wrote this story in an effort to explore certain aspects of Christian history that interest me. The vast majority of devout Christians understand this fact and consider ‘The Da Vinci Code’ an entertaining story that promotes spiritual discussion and debate. Even so, a small but vocal group of individuals has proclaimed the story dangerous, heretical and anti-Christian.”

The problem is the novel’s opening statement: “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” After that, Brown proceeds to argue that Jesus was a charismatic man who married, had a child and created a goddess-friendly faith. The early church, however, twisted his teachings. Thus, as a brilliant skeptic says in the novel, “almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false.”

Still, it’s crucial to note that Brown is not opposed to Christianity, per se. In the online interview he stresses that he considers himself a Christian, but one who is seeking his own path of enlightenment. Brown sees himself as someone who is searching for a crossroads where science, sacred sex and all the world religions meet and work out their differences in the embrace of an all-embracing goddess, god or pantheon of gods to be negotiated at some point in the future.

“If you ask three people what it means to be Christian, you will get three different answers,” he said. “Some feel being baptized is sufficient. Others feel you must accept the Bible as absolute historical fact. Still others require a belief that all those who do not accept Christ as their personal savior are doomed to hell. Faith is a continuum, and we each fall on that line where we may.”

Who is Dan Brown? He is an evangelist proclaiming the message that there is no orthodoxy other than his liberating orthodoxy that says traditional Christianity is heresy. His goal is to liberate Jesus from all those picky ancient creeds.

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Last week’s 47th convention of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America passed a resolution that addressed both sexuality and the Iraqi war. But this time the lofty words led to an historic change.

The assembly voted to oppose “divisive and dangerous” positions taken by “left-wing” and “right-wing” groups. To be specific, it rejected “support for same-sex marriage, support for abortion, support for ordination of women to Holy Orders, support for the concept of war that is ‘pre-emptive’ or ‘justifiable’ and the labeling of other faiths and their leaders with hateful terminology.”

The archdiocese — a blend of Arab-Americans and many converts — vowed to avoid groups that “promulgate these extreme positions” and renewed its commitment to seek Orthodox unity in North America.

Then the delegates cheered as Metropolitan Philip Saliba announced his decision to withdraw from the National Council of Churches USA.

The archdiocese joined the old Federated Council of Churches in the 1940s and had been active in the ecumenical movement ever since, said Father Olof Scott, of the church’s interfaith relations office. But recent decades have been tough.

The Orthodox believe “we’re getting further and further away from the primary goal of looking to bring Christianity back into a unified fold,” he told AncientFaithRadio.com. Now, the “churches of the mainline Protestant world really don’t want to hear our message. It is with that frustration that we felt that we can put our efforts to better use elsewhere.”

The national council has not responded to the departure of one of its 36 churches, said the Rev. Leslie Thune, its spokesperson in Washington. General Secretary Bob Edgar — a former Democratic congressman — is currently out of the office, but has promised to meet with Metropolitan Philip as soon as possible to discuss his concerns.

“We did not even know that this was in the works,” said Thune.

However, she noted the council’s oft-repeated stance that it does not take stands on divisive doctrinal issues, since many of its member churches have clashing beliefs on such matters.

Nevertheless, Scott said the Antiochian archdiocese quit the council, in large part, because of what he called an “almost a politicized agenda” under Edgar — with a strong emphasis on sexual liberation and opposition to conservative Christianity.

A turning point came in 2000 when Edgar removed his signature from “A Christian Declaration on Marriage,” a statement signed by representatives of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Southern Baptist Convention and the National Association of Evangelicals. The text defined marriage as between man and a woman.

After speaking at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Breakfast during an NCC general assembly, Edgar issued an apology and affirmed his support for same-sex unions. He told Presbyterian News Service: “I support marriage, and I support more than marriage the love between two people, and I don’t differentiate whether it is between a man and a woman or a woman and a woman or a man and a man or whatever. We need fidelity and care in relationships.”

There have been many signs of tension. Two years ago, the Russian Orthodox Church cut all ties with the U.S. Episcopal Church following the consecration of the openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Russian Patriarch Alexy II recently said he was worried about the leadership role that churches offering a “free interpretation” of sexual morality hold in the World Council of Churches.

Last month, the Orthodox Church in America — which has Russian roots — studied a document that said the “most advisable course” for its ecumenical work “would be eventually to withdraw from the NCC and the WCC.” After all, said this “Orthodox Relations” text, there are more Protestant and Pentecostal Christians outside of these councils than there are inside and neither includes the Roman Catholic Church.

The Antiochian archdiocese agrees. Decades ago, said Scott, Orthodoxy needed a seat in the National Council of Churches in order to “put a face” on its often mysterious rites and parishes. But now the momentum is toward work with more conservative believers.

“We don’t need the NCC,” he said, “for the identity of Orthodoxy in the new world. People know who we are. We are strong. We are vibrant. We are growing.”

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That may sound strange, since the Southern Baptist Convention and the Republican Party that Reagan built now appear to be wedded at the hip. But people tend to forget that Jimmy Carter really is a Baptist. So are Al Gore, the Rev. Bill Moyers and Britney Spears, while we’re at it.

People also forget that Reagan was not a Southern Baptist or even what most would call an evangelical. He grew up in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), in the Illinois heartland of mainline Protestantism.

Still, I believe it’s safe to say that America’s deep political divisions on moral issues are the result of three cultural earthquakes — Woodstock, Roe vs. Wade and the Reagan revolution.

These events shaped modern Democrats as well as Republicans. They shaped religious conservatives and the growing bloc some researchers are calling the “anti-evangelical voters.” And these events created or deepened cracks in most religious sanctuaries that remain today and have, if anything, only gotten worse.

Take the Southern Baptists. I believe the rise of Reagan split that massive flock of 16-million-plus believers just as much, if not more, than doctrinal debates about “biblical inerrancy.”

Millions of Southern Baptists saw Reagan as a near messiah. For Southern Baptist conservatives, Reagan offered hope that the cultural revolution of the Woodstock-Roe era might in some way be overturned. They were wrong, of course.

Nevertheless, these conservative Baptists lost their historic fear of politics and jumped into the public square. But while the conservative grown-ups created the Religious Right, their children were in their multi-media bedrooms watching HBO and MTV.

The parents thought they could vote in the kingdom, but things didn’t work out that way. What they got instead was “I Love the ’80s.”

There were some Southern Baptists who saw Reagan as the Antichrist.

I saw this close up. I had a friend in graduate school who literally lost his moderate Southern Baptist faith because of the election of Reagan. How could he believe in a just and loving God, if a Reagan could be elected president?

After all, the Reagan loyalists hated the really cool movies and they liked the really bad movies. They didn’t read the proper books and magazines or laugh at the hip comics. And Reagan was embraced by all of those “fundamentalists” who wanted to ruin the Southern Baptist Convention, which they believed was poised to achieve mainline Protestant maturity.

Most of all, they believed that Reagan was dumb. And if Reagan was dumb, that meant that hating Reagan was smart. Everyone who was smart agreed. If you didn’t agree, then you were dumb.

So defeating Reagan was part of voting in a smarter, more nuanced kingdom.

What these anti-Reagan Baptists and new evangelicals really needed was a progressive, smart, complex Southern Baptist in the White House — someone like Bill Clinton. That would be perfect. But things didn’t work out precisely as they imagined, either. They got “Sex & the City.”

Many of them liked it. Many didn’t, but the alternative was worse. The alternative was being labeled a religious conservative, the kind of person who liked Reagan.

There seemed to be no other option, no middle ground.

But perhaps Reagan wasn’t a messiah or the Antichrist. What if he was just a normal mainline Protestant churchman from the 1950s?

Maybe he had good intentions and he did his best. Maybe he accomplished many things on the global level and didn’t do so much on the cultural level. Maybe his beliefs were sincere, but not very specific. Maybe he made some people feel good and others feel bad. Maybe his greatest domestic political legacy is the Religious Right and the Religious Left.

But questions remain. Was Reagan truly a cultural and moral conservative? Did he cause the “pew gap” the researchers find in all the polls of modern voters? Could Reagan, if he had really tried, overturn the culture of Woodstock and Roe? Could he have helped Americans do a better job of focusing on their families? I have my doubts.

There are things that politicians cannot do.

It’s a culture thing. It’s a moral thing. It’s a faith thing.

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America’s third-largest flock just survived another quadrennial General Conference rocked by media-friendly fighting over sex. Now it’s time to dissect the numbers.

Delegates voted 570-334 to affirm the historic doctrines of the Christian faith.

Efforts to back laws defining “marriage as the union of one man and one woman” passed on a 624-184 vote. Same-sex union rites fell — 756-159. Should the church delete its “faithfulness in marriage and celibacy in singleness” standard for clergy? Delegates voted 806-95 to say “no.”

The big news was a 579-376 vote against weakening the Book of Discipline’s law that self-avowed, practicing homosexuals cannot be clergy because homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.” Delegates also rejected a resolution from gay-rights supporters that said: “We recognize that Christians disagree on the compatibility of homosexual practice with Christian teaching.” That vote was 527-423.

After three decades of pain, it seemed the numbers were stacking up for United Methodist conservatives, whose churches are thriving in the American Sunbelt and the Third World.

But a final plot twist remained in Pittsburgh. A key leader caused fireworks by saying it’s time to end the war over the Bible and sex — by separating the armies.

“Our culture alone confronts us with more challenges than we can humanly speaking confront and challenge. That struggle, combined with the continuous struggle in the church, is more than we can bear. Our people, who have been faithful and patient, should not have to continue to endure our endless conflict,” said the Rev. William Hinson, retired pastor of the 12,000-member First United Methodist Church of Houston, at a breakfast for conservatives.

“I believe the time has come when we must begin to explore an amicable and just separation that will free us both from our cycle of pain and conflict. Such a just separation will protect the property rights of churches and the pension rights of clergy. It will also free us to reclaim our high calling and to fulfill our mission in the world.”

To understand the roots of this move — which parallels divisions looming in other oldline Protestant churches — it helps to dig a little deeper into the United Methodist numbers.

Hinson is president of the “Confessing Movement,” with 1,400 churches with 650,000 members. Gay-rights supporters have a Reconciling Ministries Network of 192 churches, with 17,000 members.

But there are 35,000 congregations in all, with 8.3 million members. Sickened by decades of decline — membership was 11 million in 1970 — the last thing Methodists in the institutional middle wanted to hear was the word “schism.” Before the conference closed, delegates linked hands, sang a hymn and passed a symbolic call for unity, 869 to 41.

And there was another number that deserved study. General Conference voted by a narrow 455-445 to clarify which Discipline violations can lead to a trial. The list of chargeable offenses now includes failing to be “celibate in singleness or being unfaithful in a heterosexual marriage; being a self-avowed practicing homosexual; conducting ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions or performing same-sex wedding ceremonies.”

But leaders on both sides noted that about 20 percent of the delegates this year came from Africa, Asia and Latin America — where churches are more conservative. Efforts to enforce the Discipline’s teachings might fall short, if left to delegates from North American churches. United Methodist progressives also continue to dominate the church’s bureaucracies and seminaries.

So be it, said theologian Thomas Oden, a former United Methodist liberal who now is a conservative strategist. The key during the next four years is for local church leaders to weigh options for how to end the national warfare over the Bible and sex.

“We don’t particularly care about the powers that be. What we care about is the doctrine and the Discipline in our church,” he said. “That’s were our focus is and that’s where it will stay. … But the actual enforcement of those teachings remains a problem for us, as it is for most Protestant churches today.

“We know that we will be struggling with that issue for decades. That’s the question: We know what our church teaches, but do we have the will to enforce it?”

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Few, if any, facts were in dispute. The Rev. Karen Dammann was living openly in a lesbian relationship and leveled with her superiors. And everyone knew, after a generation of bitter strife, that their Book of Discipline banned “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from ministry, because gay sex is “incompatible with Christian teachings.”

Rush wasn’t surprised by the trial and he wasn’t surprised by the verdict — not guilty.

After all, he survived a similar ecclesiastical minefield two decades ago in Colorado.

“What surprised me was the way the news reports brought it all back,” said Rush, 67, who rocked the whole United Methodist Church when he left the closet in 1981. “It was spooky, like a flashback. … I remembered that whole feeling of powerlessness and total vulnerability.

“I think that’s probably a good thing. No matter how much progress we’ve made, we need to be reminded that things aren’t settled yet.”

Rush eventually retired with his clergy credentials intact. In the mid-1980s, his peers in the Rocky Mountain region twice ruled that there was “insufficient evidence” to bring the AIDS activist and former youth pastor to trial. After all, church law focused on “self-avowed practicing” homosexuals and Rush simply declined to answer questions about his sex life.

“I remember my lawyer saying, ‘Make them prove it,’ ” said Rush, whose easy-going manner still betrays his Mississippi roots. “What were they going to do, hire a private investigator? No one wanted to do such an unseemly thing.”

The Dammann jury found a similar technicality. While the Discipline says “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teachings,” the jury ruled that it never formally, legally, makes a “declaration” of this. But the jury did find this declarative statement: “Inclusiveness means openness, acceptance, and support that enables all persons to participate in the life of the Church, the community and the world. Thus, inclusiveness denies every semblance of discrimination.”

Based on decades of experience, Rush knows what will happen next. Furious conservatives will, on April 27, arrive at the two-week national United Methodist General Conference “with their nostrils flared and breathing fire,” he said. At the same time, the confidence of the church’s progressive establishment will “move up a notch or two” after a much-publicized victory. Both sides will go to Pittsburgh “with their guns loaded,” he said.

The Internet is buzzing with drafts of resolutions to fix the Discipline and to force the bishops to get their flocks under control. Leaders on both sides acknowledge that the evangelical, growing churches of the heartland and Bible Belt hold a clear majority. Some of their leaders will call for repentance and reform in the Pacific Northwest.

“Fact is … we don’t need anything more in the Book of Discipline. We just need folks who are willing to abide by it or enforce it,” said the Rev. James V. Heidinger II, president of the Good News renewal movement. “We could tweak and tighten, but unless folks are willing to abide by the will of General Conference, they will always find some words to parse or interpret differently.”

Strangely enough, Rush basically agrees with this legal opinion. Laws cannot hide the fact that the United Methodist Church contains two radically different approaches to the faith, he said.

Traditionalists believe there is an “established,” “infallible” and “permanent core of doctrine that people have to believe if they are going to be Christians,” said Rush. But the “liberal side of the church sees itself as open and expansive and its doctrine, quite frankly, is not as well defined. It sees faith as a kind of process and it is constantly changing. …

“One side knows how to lay down the law and the other side knows how to emote.”

But the infighting will continue, said Rush, because everyone is afraid to push the scary button labeled “schism.” That would be financially devastating.

“Everyone dances around that button,” he said. “They really aren’t trying to be clear and specific. They have to keep the Discipline vague enough to keep everyone in the tent. You end up with a kind of spiritual schizophrenia, but it holds things together.”

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The late 1960s were heady times at Yale University’s Berkeley Divinity School, he said. The sexual revolution inspired people in clerical collars to do things that, today, would turn a sexual-harassment attorney into a pillar of salt.

“It was the spirit of the day,” said Martin, who leads a renewal group called Vital Church Ministries near Dallas. “We were supposed to be broadening our theological horizons and getting in touch with our feelings and all that.

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