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This page last updated 31 January 2011
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 We usually do not publish letters written in response to other letters.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 24 to 30 January 2011

Like all letters to the editor everywhere, these letters express 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.

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Mercurial fulmination

'Sniff. No one who is sane and literate loves us.' You do need some kleenex and/or a hanky, and definitely a hug. And a short, literate note from a relatively sane person. As I've written before, I enjoy Letters to the Editor here and am disappointed the weeks there are none. Perhaps you'll garner some for next week. And then you can smile. And read. And perhaps fulminate if enough sane, literate, snarky people write. Have a good week of cheerful anticipation.

Katherine M
St. Andrew's Episcopal
Seattle, Washington,
USA
24 January 2011

(Editor: We have always been fascinated by noting which editorial topics provoke readers to write to us, and which don't.)

Jesus? Isn't he the shift manager at the tyre store?

While I cannot speak to the situation in England - although I understand that attendance at divine worship is abysmal - I can say with a degree of confidence that many people in the United States have really no idea who Jesus is or what he means to those who love him - or, at least, attempt to be his disciples. I work as a Registered Nurse in a state mental hospital with many people, both staff and patients, who have never been inside a church building and have not the faintest idea what those buildings represent except perhaps, and only perhaps, as an attractive place in which to hold their nuptials.

While I agree that many of our efforts at evangelism really do miss the mark and strike me as vain attempts at institutional survival rather than a spreading of the Good News because we know what we have to offer is, in fact, very Good News, that does not excuse the church from trying in every good and creative way possible to let Jesus' existence be known. If some of these efforts are destined to fail, we can take comfort in the fact that our Lord said as much. However, he did not say that we are excused from trying.

(The Rev) Carlton Kelley
Non Parochial
Richmond, Indiana, USA
cfkblh@yahoo.com
25 January 2011

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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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