Hey, Ma - I made the front page! Of Religion Dispatches, that is.

Just to tease you without giving anything away, Jacques Berlinblau agrees with me in general, but also in the particulars of seeing certain Episcopal-like tendencies among the authors of the Manifesto:

I encounter many of the types of people who composed the Manifesto at scholarly conferences and assorted college campuses. What are they like? Generally, quite a lot of fun. Many come from thoroughly respectable drinking cultures and welcome into alcoholic fellowship believers and non-believers alike.

In private conversation, they tend to be fiercely critical of the demagogues whose simplifications they view as an embarrassment to, and degradation of, their theological tradition. Far less doctrinaire than prevailing Blue-State stereotypes may suggest, they tend to be very open to discussing alternative viewpoints.

In any case, what I think we are seeing in the Manifesto is a coming-out party of sorts. A more professorial and thoughtful strain of Evangelicalism is finding its public voice (Please note that “professorial” and “thoughtful” are not necessarily synonyms for “liberal”).

Really. Go read the whole thing. Heh.