HARRISONBURG, Virginia – Matthew Hunsberger grew up in the industrial city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. But he found the pull of his faith so strong that he transferred to Eastern Mennonite High School in Virginia so he could be immersed in church teachings.

This region of Virginia, near Shenandoah National Park, is home to one of the largest communities of Mennonites in the United States. But now, some 20 years after he first arrived here, Hunsberger, who is gay, is feeling tugged away from his home and his church.

“I can go now and legally be married, but it feels somehow incomplete because the church is such a part of my life. I work at a Mennonite institution and go to a Mennonite church. I really would like that marriage to be in the church,” Hunsberger said.

The Mennonite church – often vocal on peace and social justice issues – won’t perform his vows and views his sexuality with a wary eye. Though often viewed as a church of old-fashioned, plain-dressed pacifists who live agrarian lives much like the Amish, the reality is that “Plain” and horse-and-buggy Mennonites comprise only about one percent of the church.

The rest of the church, a Protestant Anabaptist sect founded during the Reformation in the 1500s, uses varying degrees of modern technology. And most adherents wear modern clothing. What unites all factions of the church is a commitment to pacifism and social justice. And it’s those very traits that are also threatening its unraveling, as the church – and the rest of America – comes to terms with recent progress in the fight for LGBT civil rights.

A recent conference in Kansas City was supposed to smooth over some of the Mennonite church’s deep divisions over the role of the LGBT community in the church. Instead, the conference seemed to stake a compromise on a very narrow strip of ideological real estate in the middle, which left few satisfied, some churches threatening to exit altogether, and other members engaged in silent protest by sealing their mouths with duct tape.

“It was very emotional,” said Jennifer Marsch, a delegate to the Mennonite USA conference from Linville, Virginia, who counts herself among the progressives. The Mennonite Church USA, with over 100,000 members, is by far the largest Mennonite group in the U.S. There are over 1.5 million Mennonites worldwide.

Delegates attending the annual conference voted to approve a “forbearance” measure, a new part of the church platform acknowledging that there is not currently a consensus within the church on issues of human sexuality. The forbearance encourages dialogue, discussion, and prayer. Yet delegates also affirmed membership guidelines that effectively shut the door on the church allowing same-sex unions, with a moratorium on further discussion for four more years. The forbearance was supposed to be a nod towards the church progressives, with the membership guidelines a bone for the conservatives.