Anglicans Online News Basics Worldwide Anglicanism Anglican Dioceses and Parishes
Noted Recently News Archives Start Here The Anglican Communion Africa Australia BIPS Canada
Search, Archives Official Publications Anglicans Believe... In Full Communion England Europe Hong Kong Ireland
Resource directory   The Prayer Book Not in the Communion Japan New Zealand Nigeria Scotland
    The Bible B South Africa USA Wales WorldB
This page last updated 31 December 2012  

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 We usually do not publish letters written in response to other letters.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 December 2012

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.

Horizontal rule

Inclusive lyrics?

You're right that the hymns and service at Christmas provide a continuity that overrides unfamiliar or uncomfortable churches, and helps mitigate the stress of preparation and travelling. However, my son and I would take issue with the notion that this is accomplished by means of familiar lyrics to carols and hymns. Many of the most familiar have been tweaked (with the best of intentions) to suit modern sensibilities regarding inclusion of all of God's people.

Unfortunately, they've been tweaked differently in different publications. Thus, by the time one sings a carol for the 4th or 5th time (at 3 different venues), one ends up either singing the oldest, most familiar words, or in the case of a carol known in both English and its own native language, being seriously tempted to revert to the original French or German and avoid all the problems!

Robin Drake
St Anne's Episcopal (Reston, Virginia)
Herndon, Virginia, USA
31 December 2012

Horizontal rule
Earlier letters

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

Top

This web site is independent. It is not official in any way. Our editorial staff is private and unaffiliated. Please contact <a href="mailto:editor@AnglicansOnline.org">editor@anglicansonline.org</a> about information on this page. ©2000 Society of Archbishop Justus