Although this discussion is very dated, I like your observation. It’s a general principle that can be found anywhere. I have analysed the World Banks policy history and found that the Bank is constantly shifting its policies around a certain set of values, of which I have defined freedom, rightousness and care. Actually what we are talking about are reactionary movements. In the end I think that these shouldn’t be seen as movements around some equilibrium or centre, it are merely movements that express the idea of such a centre. This idea functions as the foundation for the reactionary movements that can be seen as expressions of peoples concerns with ‘the good’ as can be expressed in certain values. There is an extreme side to each movement but the movements in general can, i think, not be characterized as extreme or around the centre. The core of the movement is always close to the centre. As long as this is the case we can reasonably speak of ‘the church’ rather than a sect.

i think a good example of how it could be done is new word alive which i was at last week – so it split from spring harvest mainly as a reaction of mr.chalke’s writings and that issue wasn’t hidden, the speakers were all open about that – piper, for example, made it really clear that he came to support the reaction and when he got to speaking about penal substitution, he made it clear that “this is why this conference exists” – but it certainly didn’t feel like a week of anti-chalke stuff with everyone quoting that infamous paragraph from his book (in fact i didn’t hear anyone quote it) or with every talk just about penal substitution. so that might be a good example of a sensible reaction.