Reply #15: I'm sorry, - there's a basic flaw in your theory.

[SOteric]

Liberal and moderate Christians aren't motivated or inhibited by matters of a social contract in moving against their more fundamental brethern. Well, - perhaps there are a few, but in general this is not the case.

We don't move and organise against the fundies because it's against the most basic of our beliefs and teachings. We've been instructed by Christ to "be thou in communion with one another," we've been taught to turn the other cheek, we've been commanded to love our neighbours as ourselves. We've had tolerance, forgiveness and compassion modeled to us as the ways to follow the Christ in whom we have invested faith. The much contested teachings of Paul are all about various early churches spatting and feuding with one another and how very much against the teachings of Christ himself those contests of grace actually were.

No part of that faith and those teachings indicates that we may love, forgive, embrace and tolerate only as long as everyone else plays by the same rules. And no conscious part of the Faith matriculates a set of sentiments with regard to how society can best function with diversity.