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 We usually do not publish letters written in response to other letters.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 17 to 23 December 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.

Every schism has two sides

Sorry to see an American bishop being described by a correspondent as "now schismatic". From someone's point of view each one of us is schismatic including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Rome, but God at least,I guess, sees us as one in Xp and with others God's sons and daughters. Merry Xmas and thanks to those who bless us with Anglicans Online.

John Bunyan
St John's, Canberra (Episcopal) & King's Chapel, Boston (Unitarian)
Campbelltown, New South Wales, AUSTRALIA
jrbpilgrim@bocnet.com.au
17 December 2007

Carp nor koi

Re the Advent letter, poor dear old Rowan Cantuar has prepared a masterpiece of ellipsis, which , as you rightly pointed out in your article, embodies 1st Corinthians 9 v 22 well: The Archbishop has shown he can be all things to all men.

But let's forbear to carp. Straddling the divide between several provinces, many of which are in an understandable huff, can't be too easy. Let's keep looking forward to more messages along these lines, as the Communion tears itself apart.

Obi Udeariry
St. Andrew's , Aladinma, Owerri
Owerri, Imo State, NIGERIA
netwalker55@yahoo.es
18 December 2007

Out of the ordainary

From the desk of the Bishop it was announced that two new bishops would be 'ordained' for the Diocese of Tasmania.

Historically bishops have been 'consecrated' (BCP has "..Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests and Deacons...") But in questioning why this has been changed in favour of 'ordained' it was pointed out by the Diocesan Bishop that this was the form in the Australian Prayer Book. Presumably such a change applies only in the case of doing things holy to bishops and not generally or we may have to re-write much more than the Ordinal. For example "Take my life and let it be consecrated (ordained?) Lord to Thee..."

Trevor G Cowell
Christ Church, Illawarra, Longford
Perth, Tasmania, AUSTRALIA
platcha1@optusnet.com.au
18 December 2007

Earlier letters

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