I recently heard someone say of the present political scene that congress is not split on issues, but is split between those willing and those unwilling to compromise. She said that the argument is not over policy, but over whether or not there is or ought to be any common ground between the two sides. We live in an era of the polemic. In our present political crisis compromise has been replaced with consistency. Consistency is not bad, but it does have a cost – gridlock in Washington. A similar gridlock has occurred in religious debates in the public square. No longer is a vague atheism any good; one must follow through in…