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This page last updated 26 March 2007
Anglicans Online last updated 20 August 2000

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 We usually do not publish letters written in response to other letters.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 Canadian 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 19 to 25 March 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.

Grace will abound

Thank you so much for your optimistic and heart warming letter posted this week. You mange to get right to the heart of what it is to celebrate being "Anglican" in this timely reminder that our Communion is and can only be mediated by the Holy Spirit, that it does indeed begin within context of the local church and that surprising connections and unlikely personal alliances are signs of real hope.

No doubt the quite unexpected level of agreement that the Primates managed to reach in Tanzania is a result of God's good grace despite all our divisions. Let us pray that grace will abound more and more and keep us moving closer to god so that we can move closer to one another.

Paul Richardson
All Saints C of E
Westbury, Wiltshire, UK
19 March 2007

Ordenación al presbiterado

He leido con mucho interes esta pagina, me gustaria saber que tiene para preparar a lideres hispanos que estan interesados en la ordenacion al presbiterado. Tengo potencialmente tres candidatos y dos mas que estan estudiando posibilidades de estudiar, hablan ingles y español sin problemas.

Gracias y Bendiciones

The Rev. Leonel Blanco Monterroso
Vicar, Santa Maria Virgen, Mision Hispana Episcopal
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
leonelb60@cox.net
19 March 2007

(Ed: No somos expertos en español, pero en las jefaturas de la Iglesia Episcopal de los E.E.U.U. hay una Oficina de Ministerios Latinos/Hispanos. Estamos seguros que podrán darle buen consejo.)

Some of us do care

While many Episcopalians may not care about these "battles," there are a great many Anglicans throughout the world that do. In fact, a majority of the world's Angicans do. ECUSA (TEC) must learn that it is part of a much larger community.

Moreover, like it or not, there are some issues worth battling over. The early church waged war against heretical beliefs and behaviors. Such wars were, and continue to be, needed in order to maintain integrity. These are not battles that have little effect upon the little person (and, according to God and the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer, there are no little people or places), but, rather, impact the very grassroots of our community.

I celebrate the fact that people want to follow God, and become involved in pastoral ministry --- men and women equally and alike. Nevertheless, with Martin Luther, I affirm that a minister must understand that if we do battle in every arena, except where it really matters, except where the war is currently being waged, we have failed in our calling.

The Rev. Dr. Donald P. Richmond
Chaplain
Apple Valley, California, USA
drichmond@kfh.org
22 March 2007

Altar servers in 1625?

For the past 4 years I've been an Altar Server at my church and have taken an interest in the Anglican religion because of it. I'm now 15 years old and have some questions about the Anglican history that I hope you or someone else will be able to answer.

In the past year I've been thinking of writing a novel which is set in the year 1625 in Southern England. The main character is an altar boy.

I'm not sure if you will be able to answer my questions but if possible, perhaps you could forward them to someone who can? It would be most appreciated.

In this novel I am trying to maintain accuracy as much as I can for this period of time. What I mainly wanted to know is if there were altar servers in the year 1625 in the Anglican church and if so what duties would they take on? are they similar to the ones we do today? I hope that someone will be able to answer my questions. I do have some other questions that I may ask in the future regarding the Anglican church, however I will ask these in following emails if I can find someone who can help me.

Thank you for taking the time for reading my letter and I hope that you can help me. If not, I would greatly appreciate if you can forward this to someone who can.

Thank you very much.

Nalani Trynka
St. John's Anglican Church
Leamington, Ontario, CANADA
shippothekit@hotmail.com
23 March 2007

(Ed: We shall see if any of our readers might know the answers to your questions.)

Encountering Nicodemus

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8 King James Version).

As a high school student in the mid-1940’s immediately after World War II, in the Anglican Japanese Mission in Alberta, Diocese of Calgary, in the then “Church of England in Canada” (since 1955, the Anglican Church of Canada), I heard the “Authorized Version” or “King James Version” of the Bible read in English during Holy Communion, Morning and Evening Prayer. The Bible verses I read in the KJV in those days became part of my memory, and although the English language has continued to grow and change, becoming virtually, in effect, a new language with each passing generation during the ensuing decades, newer English versions (translations) have been published and distributed, superseding the “thee’s” and “thou’s” and archaic vocabulary. However, I find myself harking back via my memory bank to the KJV verses (perhaps affected by the stroke [cerebral infarction] I suffered in Japan at the end of May 2000).

The story of Nicodemus and his conversation with Jesus is described by a Gospel Song whose words also come back to me:

A Ruler once came to Jesus by night
To ask him the way of salvation and light
The answer came back in words true and plain:
“Ye must be born again…. Ye must be born again….
“I verily, verily, say unto thee, ‘Ye must be born again’ ”

The verse I quoted at the outset in the KJV, is rendered in a newer English version (the Revised English Bible of 1989). Jesus says to Nicodemus:

The wind blows where it wills; you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born from the Spirit.

I remember my Priest father telling a story about a man hiking through the BC interior “Coast Mountains” for 3 days from a road camp in the BC Coast Mountains (where he was working to build the Hope-Princeton highway. This man had been reading the Bible, and the words of Nicodemus in John 3. He heard about my Father visiting one of the Japanese Canadian internment “camps”. He came through the dangerous mountain wilderness, seeking to have these verses explained to him. He called my Father, “Rabbi”, and after hearing the Message of Jesus proclaiming salvation, he asked and was Baptized as “Nicodemus”!

The various persons cited in today’s “Anglicans Online” are stories of people coming to the foundational bed-rock of living faith! May God’s Name be blessed and praised for new forms of Christian Mission incarnate in our “Anglican Communion”!

The Reverend Canon Timothy Makoto Nakayama
St. Mark's Cathedral, Seattle - Diocese of Olympia
Seattle, Washington, USA
frtim@yahoo.com
19 March 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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