It used to be a matter of determining and discerning which side of a relevant issue you would stand upon, and "sitting the fence" amounted to an accusation of indecisiveness—or worse—cowardice. 

The growing trend seems to be that you are suspect for taking a side at all. To take a side and to hold a firm opinion is viewed as symptomatic of simplicity.  If you feel strongly about an issue, then you clearly haven't thought it through—you have failed to fully explore the intricacies of true complexity.  There is always truth on both sides, and the responsible thinker always acknowledges the full breadth of truth. The result is that if you hold strong opinions, you're obviously something of a simpleton—a superficial thinker who has clearly rushed to judgment. You are simply prejudiced: a bigot.

Responsible thinkers, this view would hold, are those who rise above the scathing polemics and carefully, assiduously, consider the finer points of both sides. The result must be that you remain above lowly convictions with all their potential belligerence. The old word for this is sophistry—arguments as a form of deception or avoidance—but those who practice it today surely consider themselves sophisticated in a positive sense.  In the best case, this is the "riding the fence" position elevated high above suspicions of cowardice; in its worst case, it is heretical, putting truth and falsehood on level ground.

The present re-vote on ordination standards reveals that we are trapped in a terminal vortex of perpetual rehash.

While gay activists successfully milked a persecution complex into the cultural Behomoth it is today, we Presbyterians stood by unwavering in our stout role as disinterested spectator, because we. . . um. . . really don't like to make hasty judgments.  Seeking to rise above "all this awful arguing," we have inadvertently held the door open for the barbarians.  The longer we hold the door open, and the more barbarians that gently waltz in, the harder it will be to say we've been invaded at all.

The PCUSA, if it will not turn, will end with these same Presbyterians shrugging their shoulders with sheepish resignation, proclaiming with neither conviction nor winsome persuasion—not the Gospel of Jesus Christ—but rather:

1.  Is it really so bad?

2.  This is love!  This is what unity is all about!

3.  How dare you call the barbarians barbarian!

4.  The barbarians aren't bad people once you get used to them!

In 1944, Peter Marshall preached a timeless message entitled "Trial by Fire."  In it, he calls for the Church to produce "Elijahs. . .men and women. . . with opinions and a will. . . to stand up to tyrants and damn their treacherous flatteries!"   The PCUSA would do well to seek out, call, install, and otherwise empower some young Elijahs who will refuse to put truth and falsehood on a level, and who will with great passion and uncompromising backbone hold church and culture accountable to the Word, and who will take absolute delight in naming and deflating the hypocrisies of our denomination.

The Presbyterian world must not come to its end with a collective shoulder-shrug  while barbarians stretch out snoring on the sofa.