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 We usually do not publish letters written in response to other letters.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 27 August to 2 September 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.

Not to mention the issue of getting a seat

As a matter of interest I find the Orthodox churches in London often give the finishing time of their services, eg
St Sophia.

This may of course be that many of the worshipers want to arrive 40 minutes before the end...

Jon Blanchard
St Thomas Finsbury Park
London, UK
jonb@londonguide.eclipse.co.uk
27 August 2007

Scripture, Tradition, and what?

My high school religion teacher said that we should always listen to heretics, because they always have something important to tell us. I have tried to keep that precept in mind when encountering those whose views differ from mine.

I was attracted to the Episcopal Church as a young man, because it seemed to embody that spirit. Reverence for Scripture and Tradition did not require abandonment of Reason even when doing so seemed to challenge some long held belief. This was a marked contrast from the faith tradition I left, in which people believed not only that the Bible was the inerrant Word of God but also that their particular interpretation of it was for all practical purposes infallible.

Lately the Anglican Communion is giving me the feeling of “déjà vu all over again.” Not only do some want litmus tests for doctrinal purity but some apparently feel that we need to be protected from those who disagree with us about anything.

Is the underpinning of faith so tenuous that bishops must ban those from speaking whose views differ from their own? This seems particularly ironic now that we know that Bishop Spong’s views are apparently not that different from those of Mother Teresa.

F. William Voetberg
Emmanuel Episcopal, Hastings
Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
voet@ameritech.net
27 August 2007

The foxes probably need it, too

I am a member of a fox hunt club here in Colorado. I am in need of a service for the blessing of the hounds. Would anyone be able to direct me to a source or provide me with a service? Many thanks.

Mary Ewing
St. Phillip in the Field
Sedalia, Colorado, USA
maryewingesq@aol.com
30 August 2007

(Ed: According to the History page on its website, Grace Church Keswick in Cismont, Virginia, USA has offered a Blessing of the Hounds service every year since 1929 and was the first US church to do so. We recommend that you contact them.)

It's so much less work than hijacking the Britannica, isn't it?

Allegations that Opus Dei hijacked Wikipedia entries for some Latin American countries to delete any mention of the explosive growth of non-papal churches in South and Central America, may actually have been understated. The Vatican itself may have been involved.

Rev. Peter H. Christiansen
South San Francisco CA USA
smi2le@sbcglobal.net
31 August 2007

Earlier letters

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