The Mail

[COVENANT, Number 16, December 2003]

Mary Miller Dio of MD Splendid work! Keep it up!

The Revd John Rice Dio of VA Good May issue. Good that the Bishop of Nevada sheds light on the positive side of Canon 9. Episcopal elections and the consultative processes stink. Beauty, hype, and worldly success still govern.

Jane & Ralph Black Dio of TN Keep up the good work. We love and support you and your effort.

Connie Furrer Dio of SCarolina A most refreshing paper. Please subscribe me.

Verna Fausey Dio of TN The Bishop of Tennessee does not speak for me, nor does he speak for many others. I am saddened that this bishop, along with some others, hides his prejudices behind tradition, scripture, church teaching and morality...

Dorothy Ann Russo Dio of TN Hooray for "Covenant."

The Revd Ed Bacon Dio of LA I am grateful that God didn't wait for the world to come to theological consensus about incarnation prior to Mary's pregnancy.

Kate Bishop Dio of No Indiana Phillip Jenkins, professor of History and Religious Studies at Penn State said in a recent article: "Sexuality issues have come to be a symbolic means of declaring the independence of rising African churches against Western cultural and religious imperialism."

This must be a new way of describing scapegoating. With a long tradition of noninterference and autonomy in the Anglican Church, where does this idea come from?

Why would emerging African countries choose a western-based church? Are CofE and AAC cash cows? Are they angry over losing their wives to monogamy? If so, why affiliate with a bunch of fundagelical monogamists?

How much western money via Anglican churches, flows into Nigeria and other African countries? Is it the money? Are they embarrassed by the Robinson thing in tiny New Hampshire, an ocean and two continents away? Wouldn't a phrase like, "Oh, it's those Americans again," suffice?

If this is a power move, what do they want to take over? It certainly is not likely that England will roll over and play dead. Even if that happened, what do they have but a western culture that has no clue about the Africans. None of it makes any sense. Anyone want to try to unscramble this, please do. I would like to be enlightened.

The Revd Neil Gray Dio of Florida I want to thank you for keeping me up to date on things. Is Covenant still in need of and receiving contributions? I wish I could express how deeply grateful I am for what you are doing. You know I live canonically in a den of thieves and a nest of vipers, blind to the work of the Holy Spirit and deaf to reason, so the contact with sanity you have provided has been light shining in the darkness! Contributions? You're kidding? -- Ed

Furman Stough Bishop of Alabama (retd) I may have missed something along the way in my years of theological study. I was not aware that Anglicanism was a confessional expression of Christianity. We are a credal Church. Changing the nomenclature is an attempt to justify separation. It is interesting how we seem to be making things up as we go. It is also interesting to note that various groups are now vying for the minds and hearts of folks via intimidation, name-calling and use of terms that further divide rather than attempt to heal. Interesting we should call ourselves the Body of Christ while behaving in frightening measure like troglodytic barbarians. I am finding it harder to synthesize the capacity, on one hand, to boldly proclaim the Gospel, while, on the other skulking about with sneers of anger and expressions of distrust and abuse. What is, in fact, at the real heart of orthodoxy? I doubt sexuality has much at all to do with it.

Bob Hewitt, Dio of Colorado We have yet to hear from the schismatics (AAC, et al) on whether they will ordain, or will not ordain, women in their proposed new Anglican grouping... It seems obvious to me that their silence means that no women will be ordained in their dissident group, and that no women already ordained will be allowed to function in any ordained capacities. If women in the proposed new group expect to be treated as full human beings they are mistaken. Those who call themselves "Traditionalists" seem to have utmost in mind satisfying the concerns of the Patriarchs of Eastern Orthodoxy, and Il Papa of Rome, in whose jurisdictions women are, and will be, eternally and intentionally captive to male domination.

Heterosexual males know that if they have no more scapegoats left to blame for their problems, no more inferiors to whom they can feel superior, patriarchal civilization will collapse.

We have reached a point in history, once again, when hatred has disguised itself as love, and when thievery is called for in the sacred name of tradition.