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This page last updated 22 February 2016  

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 We usually do not publish letters written in response to other letters.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 the week of 15-21 February 2016

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.

There are often comments about our front-page letters on the Anglicans Online Facebook page. You might like to have a look.

Fast Food Sacraments

Thank you for your editorial on Ashes to Go which echoed my own thoughts so closely. Finding the midpoint between effective evangelism and meaningless ritual and symbols can be a slippery slope. While it is important to "reach people where they are" as you said, the penitential rite for Ash Wednesday is part of what keeps me home in the Episcopal Church.

Perhaps both are useful in meeting people where they are. I don't have an answer to your second question - what to do with people who reconnect with their faith through Ashes to Go - how to bring them back to the church stably... I can hope most clergy who distributed ashes at least bring their business cards!

Liz Olsen
Chicago, Illinois, USA
20 February 2016

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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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