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July 9, 2001 Issue

I am convinced that yelling at each other, and demeaning each other publicly or privately, will not bring about the effect that I am looking for in my Episcopal Church. The best of political and procedural maneuvers will not be satisfying. What is the use of a convention floor victory gained by only 1 vote? Or even 20?

If only to clarify for both liberals and conservatives our foundation and basic beliefs, we will need to have moments when we can share openly. To only throw stones is to miss the strategic value of the truism, "Know thine enemy." For then you can pray and work specifically for the changes you believe are of God.

I can't leave, either. I want to be obedient to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
The Rev. Robert G. Eaton
St. John's Episcopal Church
Tulare, California

As an Episcopalian for more than 30 years, I watched my denomination gradually accept nonbiblical teachings, then antibiblical teachings, and then observed the purveyors thereof seizing power and demanding compliance.

I watched the notorious Bishop John Shelby Spong deny every major tenet of the faith and receive no sanction or punishment. I am now watching the church openly persecute its conservative members, to the point where more than 8,000 have quit in the past two years, including more than 70 of its clergy. Sadly, I too have had to leave my denomination, where there is no longer any room for traditional Christianity.

In the process of shaping its own truths, the Episcopal Church has rejected not only the authority but the very content of the Bible, and has taken actions that defy its own foundational documents (the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral) and its own canon law.

A war is being waged for the soul and the witness of the Episcopal Church. Doug LeBlanc, I fear, has trivialized the issues that divide Episcopalians, as well as the pain endured by those who have been forced by conscience to leave their spiritual homes. Putting an arm around Louie Crew and his supporters will not resalt the salt that has lost its strength and needs to be thrown out.
Brian Leo
Mokena, Illinois

My husband and I are grieving that Douglas LeBlanc fails to discern and respond biblically to neopaganism in the Episcopal Church, but then in a tv movie review ["Neopagan Pity Party," July 9] states that such neopaganism is "irreconciliable" with Christian beliefs!

As members of the former St. John's Episcopal Church in Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania, we have paid dearly for maintaining our Christian beliefs and witness. The Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, Charles E. Bennison, also said he wanted "reconciliation" and "dialogue." What that meant, however, was our allowing him an official visitation in which he would exercise spiritual authority over us by preaching, celebrating Holy Communion, and confirming our youth.

We refused this, finding his stated beliefs to be "neopagan" and, to quote LeBlanc, "irreconciliable with Christian beliefs." We were given a date by which to bend the knee to Bishop Bennison and were threatened with "further action" (such as deposing our head rector and taking over our church buildings) if we refused.

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September 3 2001, Vol. 45, No. 11