The Best of Both Worlds?

Here's a thing to think about: what is the biggest problem with a polarized culture?
Is it the polemical shouting between "combatants," rather than the dialogue between people?
Is it the rigid ideologies?
Is it the hateful propaganda that gets lobbed in either direction?
Is it the fact that it can eventually lead to violence?

Or is it just the fact that that the truth is often orphaned?
I have, in the course of my time serving the church, migrated from a moderate/conservative position to what I would describe as a more progressive/liberal position.  It's a long story, and rooted in my experiences of various kinds of suffering, and finding the certainty and rigidity of my former ideology rather unsatisfactory.  This move has been, contrary to what my former self would have imagined, very much rooted in my relationship with God and the Word as we find it in Scripture.
It really is this Jesus character that pushes me to the left, but I know it would not have been possible, even for him, to move me had I not had my compassion and empathy forcibly jump-started by the experience of grief and loss when my brother died, and by the horror that befell the community I served for ten years.  When you stare down the barrel of a father that kills his wife and two little girls, smug answers and platitudes no longer hold much water.  Grace becomes our only hope, the rules are silly nonsense that are meaningless at best and hurtful at worst.
That's my story in a nutshell: I see what a mess we make of ourselves without God, I understand sin, and I have seen and felt some of its most horrendous consequences.  I think I understand the cross better now, but I am not naive enough to think I understand it perfectly.  I need room for questions, sometimes angry questions.  I think the church has utterly failed at being the answer people, and this is primarily due to the fact that Jesus intended us to be question people.  He taught his disciples to ask questions in a certain way, he taught them to look at the world through a different lens.
Some people prefer to believe in gods who are distant, or only get involved on their terms.  Some people believe in gods who are generally benevolent, as long as you do something or other in just the right way, but watch out if you cross them.  Then there is the God who is genuinely revealed to us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  Can this God get angry?  Sure, but for that there is forgiveness.  Does this God get involved with us?  Most certainly, but mostly not as the hero that saves the day, more often as the steadfast friend who will not leave you when the way is dark.
I have found progressive Christianity to be much more tolerant of the questions that need to be asked in order for faith to be relevant, but something is missing.
I hate the word "accountability," because it sounds too business-y for my taste, so lets call it a challenge to commit.  See liberalism in general is so busy making sure that everyone is heard and validated that it has a hard time setting any boundaries or marking out the narrow gate.  It does prevent a certain pharisaic legalism, but we should also remember that being utterly lost is not helpful either. Just because we like to be question people doesn't mean we shouldn't stumble across the occasional answer, or at least affirm Jesus and a life of discipleship as some sort of valuable answer.  Progressive Christianity needs to struggle to stay Christian, because Jesus is specifically important, and the church needs to be about making disciples, people who follow.
For all the doctrinal rigidity and attendant meanness of certain evangelical/conservative strains of the faith, one thing many of them seem to do well is get people to commit.  Tithing is preached and sometimes enforced, mission (the hands-on variety) is esteemed and encouraged, faith sharing in pushed and pushed and pushed some more, in other words, they make disciples of something, which if you squint your eyes hard enough might actually look like Jesus.
I think we really need to get the band back together.  We need to push the politics out of the way and learn from each other.  Liberals can be paralyzed by feelings and making sure that everyone is validated.  Conservatives can just be downright mean.  Both sides can retreat into their dogmatic tree houses and hang up signs that ban the other, and name each other the enemy, and generally bring disgrace on the Body of Christ in the world.  And while were at it, let's remember that none of us can really lay claim to the moral high ground, but that's okay, because Jesus didn't exactly like the moral high ground, in fact he generally tried to pull people off it: "Let the one who is without sin, cast the first stone."
It's fairly clear that the church is in a time of flux (and probably has been for some time).  This change may take the form of revitalization of existing structures, but more likely it will come out of dying and being resurrected.  I think that what will emerge from the tomb needs to contain the genetic material of the whole church, and hopefully it will.