A House Divided

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Scholars feel that mainline U.S. Protestantism has been on a long, anguished but inevitable path toward completely including homosexuals. "Many people say, well, it's a matter of time," says Lamin Sanneh, professor of religious history at Yale. But fast-growing churches in the Third World and evangelicals are unlikely to follow this path. Some Protestants, he says, take their cue from evolving "cultural standards," others from set ideas about Scripture and tradition. For the Anglicans, it will take a considerable leap of faith to bridge the divide. --Reported by Simon Crittle/Concord, N.H., and Marguerite Michaels/Minneapolis