A year ago the bishops of the Episcopal Church received a 95-page report by eight theologians to provide the church with a “theology of same-sex relationships.” (The report was published in the Winter 2011 issue of the Anglican Theological Review.) As you might expect, the panel split into two parties, “traditionalist” and “liberal.”

What you might not expect — if you follow such debates in mainline Protestant bodies — was how the sides began to meet. Certain familiar arguments disappeared. New arguments took their place. And some of the new arguments converged in ways their authors perhaps had not intended.