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 We usually do not publish letters written in response to other letters.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 14 to 21 January 2008

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.

Attitudes and identifiers

The description 'underdeveloped country' used in a recent front-page letter caught my eye and reminded me of an alternative way coined by an Episcopal Priest in the late 1960's of speaking about such places.

The Reverend Daisuke Kitagawa who came from Japan to study in the USA was detained in this country and sent into the Japanese American internment "camps" during World Ward II. After the end of the war he was in the Episcopal Church's National Office of College Work. He went to work in Geneva for the World Council of Churches and made numerous trips into Africa. Instead of using the common but demeaning description, "underdeveloped countries", he wrote and spoke about such places as "areas of rapid social change".

Father Dai Kitagawa died on Good Friday, 1970, but he taught me how important words of identification can affect our attitudes about others in this world of persons.

The Reverend Canon Timothy Makoto Nakayama
St. Mark's Cathedral, Diocese of Olympia
Seattle, Washington, USA
frtim@yahoo.com
14 January 2008

Can you help?

Anyone know how to locate the poet, John Leax? During the last year his poem, 'The Work of Wood', was published in a religious magazine, Christianity Today, I think. He has published other religious work.

I have tried in vain to contact him. I hope you or some of your readers may know.

AO is an important part of my week. Thanks to all and keep up the good work.

Henry Holman
Christ Church, Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA
amd@dbtech.net
16 January 2008

Earlier letters

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