And so long, Peter, as you and your cohort consider progressive Christians as the enemy, the polarization will continue. So long as evangelicals let the right-fringe be their public face and keep on kicking the crap out of moderate conservatives, they will not be able to start even a modest cooperation with other Christians. So long as every political issue gets welded to the abortion question, dialogue and cooperation will be very difficult.
Can your people, pray, study scripture and work with partnered gay clergy if the issue is immigration reform or care for the elderly? Can your people pray and work with those hanging on the "new look" at our nation's racial history if the issue is voting rights or fair housing practices?
Meanwhile, the progressive Christians, or dare I say the moderate progressives, have to do the same for the far left of their ranks, the people for whom gender issues, government organization, and denunciation of their enemies become their only sermon topics. (I wrote here, last year, I think, my disgust at a zoom gathering for my seminary alma-mater where every speaker had to first of all state his approval of the "new" sexualities and every participant in the discussions was someone who made it clear he or she or they spoke from a "gay," "lesbian," "queer," etc etc. perspective.)
You and your allies, Peter, do not have to embrace Nadia Bolz-Weber and all her writings, but you do need to embrace those of us progressives who find some - not all - of her work helpful. You don't have to approve of married gay pastors, but if you're going to work with us at all, you will have to be ready to work with some of them. And if your church body puts a hyper-LCMS loyalist on the board of LIRS, I'd sit alongside that person and work to help immigrants. Would he sit beside me?
I'm willing to say, if necessary, where I think Pastor Bolz-Weber goes off the beam; but others have to be equally critical of the Falwell kid (nothing like his father, really) and the "independent" (which means un-churched and un-monitored) Christians seeking favor in high places. Yes, there are home-schoolers who are racist, own up to that.
(And as I write this, I see that Mark Brown has a resolution describing my entire church body and our ecumenical partners as heretical and unworthy of any cooperation at all. I guess I should really weep for the dismal future of Lutheranism. If it goes on this way, it will not survive our children's generation.)