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This page last updated 11 January 2007
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Letters to AO

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.

Alas, we cannot publish every letter we receive. And we won't publish letters that are anonymous, hateful, illiterate, or otherwise in our judgment do not benefit the readers of Anglicans Online. We usually do not publish letters written in response to other letters.

We edit letters to conform with standard AO house style for punctuation, but we do not change, for example, American spelling to conform to English orthography. On occasion we'll gently edit letters that are too verbose in their original form. Email addresses are included when the authors give permission to do so.

If you'd like to respond to a letter whose author does not list an email, you can send your response to Anglicans Online and we'll forward it to the writer.

Letters from 1 to 7 January 2007

Like all letters to the editor everywhere, these letters are the opinions of the 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.

Goy to the world? Not at all

The commemoration of the Circumcision and Naming of Jesus should also say to us that Jesus is Jewish, a fact of which Geza Vermes, for example, has done so much to remind us but a fact tragically so often forgotten by Christians in the past.

And if we begin the New Year with the Jewish Jesus, we also might remember two of his friends who happened to enter into fuller life on New Year's Day. One is Samuel Crowther, the first African bishop, so marginalised by white CMS missionaries and other Europeans. The second is "the small woman", Gladys Aylward, who, with women such as Deaconess Mary Andrews of Sydney Diocese and Florence Li Tim Oi, our first woman priest, served so valiantly in the Church of China.

Wishing you all a happy new year, with thanks again for a sane, practical, moderate and eirenic ministry that is a blessing to so many.

John Bunyan
St John the Baptist's, Canberra and King's Chapel, Boston
Campbelltown, NSW, AUSTRALIA
jrbpilgrim@bocnet.com.au
2 January 2007

It's not fire, it's Silent Light

This past week you printed a couple of letters from visitors or occasional worshippers at Episcopal Churches in the U.S. One correspondent reported annoyance and puzzlement at the custom of the congregation remaining quietly in their pews while the candles at the altar were extinguished. You chimed in to say that he should certainly find a better and hipper parish. You seem to have seized the opportunity to ridicule rather that to explain the habit.

The "fire worship" your letter writer witnessed is something of a dying custom among Episcopal congregations, and is widely ridiculed. It represents, however, a stopgap against the widespread tendency to approach and leave our worship too carelessly. It used to be a widespread practice to kneel in personal prayer for a moment at the end of the service--and the time needed to snuff the candles seemed about right. Today, it is far more common for everyone to immediately hop up and begin chatting with their neighbors. Visiting with friends is, of course, also a Christian activity, but one for which there is generally plenty of time and space. Time in silence with God, however, is hard-won and vulnerable in today's world. One doesn't have to be "pickled" or unwelcoming to feel that something has been lost when such contemplative silences are lost.

Warren Woodfin
St. Ignatius of Antioch (Episcopal), New York
New York, New York, USA
2 January 2007

Funeral eucharist or collection of eulogies?

I have been an Episcopalian all my life. It's seldom that I discuss church policy or doctrine, and most rare to communicate about it, but watching the Episcopal funeral rites for the late President Ford, I felt compelled to write you.

It is rare for the Episcopal church to be in the public eye except for our recent controversy. A public view of religious proceedings is usually focused on the Vatican or on TV evangelical programs. Except for England's royal family weddings and funerals and the late President's Ford's funeral it is rare that the public is exposed to Anglican rites.

However, on these formal occasions of State, one thing that has been notably absent is the celebration of Holy Communion. During the Ford funeral rites- at St. Margaret's in California, the National Cathedral in Washington DC or at Grace Episcopal Church in Michigan, only prayer service was offered. Not one of those services celebrated Holy Communion and offered the Sacraments.

Disregarding our present controversies over women and gays in the church for a moment, it appears that we as a church haven't yet come to grips with who we are and what we value in our communion with God. What could be more important than on the day of burial of a family member that we receive the Holy Sacraments? Or is this something that we just dust off for Easter Sundays or Christmas?

Some individuals of different Protestant faiths that I have talked to aren't even aware that we celebrate Holy Communion since it is rarely celebrated and seen on these important public and religious events. I have heard that communion was left out because the family wanted a simple service. The late President's Ford funeral was not at all simple. Further, families should not be dictating Episcopal funeral rites. If time is an important consideration, then you don't need five or six eulogies during the funeral. Omitting Holy Communion from our funeral rites should not define or mean a simple service. Even the late President Kennedy's funeral in St. Matthew's Cathedral was much simpler, with only a few remarks from a Cardinal, but the Mass was celebrated.

We seem to have no standard in our churches. I never know when I am attending a regular service, wedding or funeral if I will have the opportunity to receive Holy Communion, We need to take a serious look at our church and define who we are. Because right now who we are depends on which episcopal church you attend. We need to have an Episcopal Church that operates and prays like one Church instead of what looks like mini denominations within our present Church.

Richard T. DeVito
Cathedral of the Incarnation
Long Beach, New York, USA
Rtd3570@aol.com
5 January 2007

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Earlier letters

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

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