Sir, Though you raise interesting points on the archbishops’ letter to the Prime Minister (leading article, June 30; see also letters, July 1), I dispute your description of the “coded attack” on Christian Zionists as “a cheap shot”.

I believe their letter points with deadly accuracy to a phenomenon which few Americans would deny. It isn’t a matter of a few individuals who may or may not be sophisticated. Nor is it a matter of ignoring “the wider context of current US politics”. It is precisely within that context that the point is valid.

There is a close, well-documented alliance between the “dispensationalist” brand of fundamentalism, which sees the modern state of Israel as part of the necessary prelude to the Second Coming, and the present White House and its supporters. I think it unfortunate that these things seem opaque to those politicians (and journalists) in countries like our own who persist in thinking that religion can have nothing to do with politics.

Yours, etc,
TOM DUNELM,
Bishop of Durham,
Auckland Castle,
Co Durham DL14 7NR.
July 1.

From the Reverend Bob Kenway

Sir, Your criticism of the archbishops and the institution of the Anglican Church for their apparent ideological naivety is easily made. Old Testament prophets were frequently upbraided for their lack of realpolitik in the context of their own time. But you also object to the archbishops’ “coded attack on supposed ‘Christian Zionists’ in the Bush Administration”.

As an Anglican priest who regularly receives unsolicited propaganda from such sources, with their accompanying distortions of both a political and theological nature with regard to the Middle East, I would welcome an alternative theological view being expressed from the House of Bishops. Surely it’s precisely the bishops’ role to do just that, and to point out where political positions in the international arena might be being driven from a particular perspective.

Yours sincerely,
BOB KENWAY,
The Vicarage, Vicarage Close,
Calne, Wiltshire SN11 8DD.
bobandsadie.kenway@btinternet.com
July 2.

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