EVERY WEEK WE PUBLISH a selection of letters we receive in response to something you've read at Anglicans Online. Stop by and have a look at what other AO readers are thinking.

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Letters from 25 October 2004 to 31 October 2004

Like all letters to the editor everywhere, these letters are the opinions of the letter writers and not Anglicans Online. We publish letters that we think will be of interest to our readers, whether we agree with them or not. If you'd like to write a letter of your own, click here.

What a lovely poem

Another winner last week -- what a lovely poem! Thank you.

Grace Cangialosi
Richmond Hill Retreat Center
Richmond, Virginia, USA
gracecan@rocketmail.com
25 October 2004

Naive but valid

Thank you for Mary Oliver's poem, When Death Comes. I'm assisting for the first time at a funeral this afternoon. The family has the shadow of genetic cancer over them. Mary's poem is a gift to me.

So stuff your ears for the meantime. A priest I consider wise once said: "I wish we could treat the whole Bible as poetry." How naive - but how valid.

Reverend John Webster
St Mary's, Beenham (CofE)
Reading, UNITED KINGDOM
john.webster@energis.com
29 October 2004

How did you die?

One more poem -- it was my mother's favorite. Written by "the poet laureate of childhood", Edmund Vance Cooke.

How Did You Die?

Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven soul and fearful?
Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it,
And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it?
You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It's nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there -- that's disgrace.
The harder your thrown, why the higher you bounce;
Be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn't the fact that your licked that counts,
It's how did you fight -- and why?
And though you be done to the death, what then?
If you battled the best you could,
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the Critic would call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he's slow or spry,
It isn't the fact that your dead that counts,
But only how did you die?

Martha Cross
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral
Little Rock, Arkansas, USA
25 October 2004

Absence of authority

My position in secular politics is well to the left of those called "liberals" in the USA, and I unequivocally support homosexuals in issues such as equal employment rights. I suppose it ought to be easy to convince me of the theologically liberal position, but this week's letters fail to do so.

First, those advocating the liberal position completely fail to address the problem that we are adherents of a revealed religion whose scriptures and tradition condemn homosexual acts as sinful. There is a difficulty here. We could argue about how we address it (e.g. my own "don't ask, don't tell" attitude, arguably inconsistent, but workable), but we must acknowledge that the difficulty exists.

Secondly, advocates seem unsure of whether homosexuality is an inbuilt and immutable characteristic or, in the words of one correspondent, a "sexual preference". If the former, there is a possible argument for a change in the Church's position. If the latter, why should this paraphilia be privileged over others, such as sadism or masochism?

Thirdly, I am baffled by the correspondent who is concerned about Bishop Robinson's "adultery" in the absence of same-sex marriage. Since he has put away his wife, he would still be an adulterer in taking another (as are heterosexual adulterous ECUSA bishops like "Two Wives" Wantland!).

Fourthly, the big issue - the absence of authority. No, we don't want an Anglican pope. There is only one Pope, and no correspondent addresses what is perhaps the most important issue of all - the recovery of authority through reunion with the See of Peter.

Alan Harrison
S. Mary the Virgin, Hayes, Diocese of London
Uxbridge, UNITED KINGDOM
cbstath@brunel.ac.uk
25 October 2004

Just a note

Just a note to let you know how much I enjoy your weekly letter and the news articles that expand my world view to the Anglican Church at large.

I have passed your web site along to my friends and Peace and Justice associates.

Milton Leake
St. John the Baptist Episcopal, York
York, Pennsylvania, USA
25 October 2004

Another point of view

Lest a recent letter to Anglicans Online from a parishioner at Saint Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church in Dallas leave the wrong impression, let me say that the MAJORITY of parishioners at SMAA applaud the Windsor Report AND our Presiding Bishop’s measured response. We do not want to be a part of the Anglican Communion Network, though our Diocese has voted to become a member. We pride ourselves on being a centrist parish.

Bishop Griswold has done a masterful job protecting ECUSA’s commitment to embracing ALL Episcopalians, not just those who are acceptable to every member of the Anglican Communion. He has exhibited great patience as a small group of bishops have tried to establish a parallel province while other bishops have crossed not just diocesan boundaries, but provincial ones as well.

In short, the majority of parishioners regret the turmoil that has occurred as a result of the consecration of Bishop Robinson but we support our Presiding Bishop as he takes the time to thoroughly digest the Windsor Report and consult with our House of Bishops when they meet in January. All those throughout the Anglican Communion will remain in our prayers as they reflect on the important decisions that lie ahead.

Dianne Betts
Saint Michael and All Angels
Dallas, Texas, USA
dcbetts@airmail.net
25 October 2004

'Our Lord came to redeem all'

I, too, regard the Windsor Report as a classic piece of via media reasoning. I'd like to share a couple of insights: one is my own, the other is something taken from a sermon I heard this past Sunday.

Our Primate, the Most Rev. Andrew Hutchison, preached on Sunday, October 24, at St. John's. He gave us an interesting view of the report when he said, "the Church, when reaching decisions, does so under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It may well be that the Holy Spirit, in wisdom, does not deem that what is right and necessary for the North American Church is right and necessary for the African Church or the European Church or the Australian Church." I have always felt that the Holy Spirit leads but does not push, and in her wisdom, the Spirit will wait until we are ready to take the next step in our journey of faith, both individually and corporately. Perhaps that's what St. Paul was talking about in that famous passage about milk and meat!

My own insight is that concerns about sexual orientation are not foundational to faith! The Anglican Church does not lay out long screeds that one has to ascribe to before one can call oneself an Anglican -- just one (or three, if you count the Nicene, the Apostles' and St. Athanasius' Creeds as separate statements of faith). The Creed is our statement of faith, and if anyone can find anything in there about gender orientation, good on them. It has certainly escaped my notice for over 60 years!

Our Lord came to redeem all, not some. All, for me, includes people in every economic stratum, of every skin colour, the able and disabled, the educated and the illiterate, heterosexuals and homosexuals, infants and elders and every age in between. The Bishop of New Westminster has apologized for the hurt some have felt, but he has not apologized for being inclusive -- nor should he. Further, I do not want to create a mini-Pope by giving the Archbishop of Canterbury wider powers. That's not Anglican and could be more divisive than anything else.

Thank you again for your sane, reasoned, and oh-so-Anglican web site. You are an oasis in the desert!

Rene Jamieson
The Cathedral Parish of St. John
Winnipeg, Manitoba, CANADA
25 October 2004

Block that metaphor?

Heartfelt thanks for your front-page reflection of last week (25 October). I must admit, however, that my first reaction was to try and over-analyze your work: Are they hinting at the death of the ECUSA? Or the Anglican Communion itself? Is that picture of a maple leaf a veiled reference to the church in Canada? When they say, 'what does our life mean?' are they talking about our common life together, our life as we experience it, or our lives of holiness before our God and maker?

Then I shook it off, took a long tug from the lukewarm cup of coffee that sits next to my computer, redirected my browser from the endless blogs, articles and commentaries that have haunted my free time for the last week and gained some much needed perspective. Like the consecration of +Robinson, the blessing of same-sex unions in New Westminster and the departure of many of our brothers and sisters for greener and more orthodox pastures, the Windsor Report is here to stay. No amount of insta-commentary- doom-speak, name-calling, and condemnation of dissenters is going to change that. The best we can hope for now is the kind of prayerful and considered dialogue that has been asked for and promised but generally withheld by members of all factions in this debate. This type of conversation will involve, however, turning off our computers, and putting away our freshly downloaded copies of Windsor_Cliff_Notes.pdf (brought to you courtesy of your local 'revisionist' or 'fundamentalist' ideologue). Then, taking a copy of the real report in one hand and a Bible in the other, we need to sit down with a brother or sister with whom we disagree and talk, together.

Perhaps this reads as just more of the same 'Can't we all just get along?' rhetoric that has characterized the Anglican Middle in this controversy, but I think there is more to it than that. We may never 'all just get along,' and this may, in fact be the death knell for Anglicanism as we know it, but wouldn't it be a shameful thing for us to go to our community's grave -- as Mary Oliver puts it -- 'sighing and frightened, or full of argument.' Even when we all take our rightful place at the table, if we refuse to talk and listen to one another, we only validate and reinforce our dysfunctionality. Further, if we speak into the air, or worse, speak only to those that agree with us, we make a mockery of the whole concept of table fellowship. The time for choosing champions and cheering ourselves up is past. Our so-called 'communion' has, for too much of its history, been long on such rhetoric (words about words) and short on theology (words about God). The real importance of Windsor, therefore, is its offering of, perhaps, the first, real theology of communion in our era, and its call for theological justification in debates about the issues that divide us (Sections 32-33 and others -- for those of you that are keeping score).

Post Windsor, we have a new set of questions. Answers to the 'what?' and the 'how?' of our discussions about communion, authority and sexuality have proven to be less than satisfying. I believe that this is because we have jumped into the middle of a problem. The time has come to look more deeply at the 'Why?' and the 'To what End?' These are appropriate questions if we 'don't want to wonder if we have made life something particular.' They are appropriate questions as we head into Advent.

Even so, Lord, quickly come.

Arthur Callaham
University of Chicago Divinity School
Chicago, Illinois, USA
callaham@uchicago.edu
26 October 2004

'[Your letters to the editor] are overwhelmingly pro homosexual'

I came across your site via a link. Excuse me for intruding. However, I see your letters over the past week are overwhelmingly pro homosexual. I think sooner or later you will just have to accept that the issue will split the Anglican Communion and the issue is whether you can do it gracefully or not.

Reading a number of the letters, I am in no doubt that I am reading sincerity and conviction and yet I think you are fundementally wrong to deny the Bible's proscription of homosexual behaviour and how you can say Jesus would accept a homosexual activity beggars belief.

Jesus did refer make a reference to Sodom and Gommorah that reflected poorly upon those towns in the way that that was understood in first century Palestine (though perhaps not the way some of you might wish to understand that story with a 21st century mindset); he did talk about marriage as being for life and being between a male and a female quoting Genesis 2:24 and and he did tell the woman caught in adultery to 'go and sin no more'.

So when you run up against those of us who oppose the acceptance of homosexual behaviour, please understand that we do so for theological and moral reasons, our fidelity to the Word of God if you like and devotion to our Lord Jesus, and not because we hate or despise homosexuals, though in truth the homosexual act we view as unnatural -- the male and female body fit together beautifully in a way that a male and male body or a female and female body will never fit together.

God bless and for love of Jesus.

The Reverend David Palmer
Pioneers Presbyterian Church, Cheltenham
Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
djpalmer@pcvic.org.au
30 October 2004

Earlier letters

We launched our 'Letters to AO' section on 11 May 2003. All of our letters are in our archives.