Sir, As a free church minister I listen with fascination to the various arguments emerging from the Anglican Communion (report and letters, July 7).

The Communion’s main advantage of being able to accommodate wide and varying beliefs has now become its Achilles heel. The various separate groupings proposed by the Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals seem, in the long term, to be the only practical solution. For instance, if there was established a clear grouping of evangelical ministers and churches, others might be attracted to them.

People forget that most free church denominations were formed by people leaving the Anglican Church. Baptists in the 1600s, Methodists in the late 1700s and even Pentecostals in the last century. The latter grouping originally occurred in 1906 with the pentecostal experience of the Rev A. A. Boddy in All Saints’ parish church at Monkwearmouth, Sunderland. In 1922 the people associated with his experience were so threatened by the liberal tradition of the Anglican Church at the time that they felt compelled to set up the denomination known as the Assemblies of God.

May it not be that many of these groups would see the advantage of belonging to a vigorous and renewed evangelical section in the Anglican Church that was completely free of liberal theology?

The Rev Anthony J. Carr
Wroxall, Warks

Sir, Writing from the other side of the religious fence, Christian friends may wish to know that we too had agonies over the introduction of women rabbis some years back. Fortunately, it was decided not to have big debates over policy but simply to go ahead and see what happened.

The result was that despite worries of mass resignation and fears that the heavens would fall in, neither occurred. The female rabbis were sufficiently good at their ministry that they were seen as rabbis rather than females and won both popular acceptance and the respect of male colleagues.

We now look back with mild embarrassment and wonder why there had been such a fuss in the first place.

May the Church be blessed with a similar outcome.

Rabbi Jonathan Romain
Maidenhead, Berks

Sir, When he refers to Anglicanism’s sense of identity, Professor McGrath (“Here we go again”, Opinion, July 2) makes no reference to the secession that followed the introduction in 1662 of the Book of Common Prayer with its recitation of the 39 Articles of Religion.

Our predecessors, protestant dissenters, eschewed the imposition of its doctrines. Since then our understanding has evolved with the developing insights of science, biblical criticism and philosophy. Many of our congregations became Unitarian in character in the latter part of the 18th century. Now, as Unitarians and Free Christians we continue to treasure each individual’s freedom of belief. We have had no problem in accepting women ministers (more than a hundred years ago, now). Nor have we any reservations about accepting people of differing sexual orientations into the ministry. Simply we try to follow the teachings of Jesus without any hang-ups over dogma. It is sad to recognise that others seem unable to do this.

Kate Taylor
Press officer, the annual meetings of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, 2008

Explore Letters

• Feedback