I read with sadness about the upheaval in the Anglican Communion because of Bishop
Gene Robinson. We are all God’s children. Five to six percent of the population is thought to be homosexual.

I’ve been a practicing heterosexual pediatrician for over 40 years and have watched a certain number of babies I took care of from birth develop into gay and lesbian adults. I have not seen them become evil -- they have remained fine people, often distressed by what was happening to them. Children as young as 3 or 4 know they are different, but they don’t understand the situation until they are teen-agers. They suffer from stress, loss of friendship, family conflict and sometimes verbal and physical maltreatment. This may result in depression, anxiety or suicide.

I have had the pleasure of working with one gay family and quite a few lesbian families who have adopted children. The children have received wonderful, nurturing care and are growing up to be very normal people. Their parents have not tried to convince them to be homosexual. I don’t believe one can do that. Their parents don’t want them to suffer the same social stigma they themselves have had. I see happy, very normal children in these families.

Now what would Jesus say? Love your neighbor. Give acceptance and understanding and friendship. As Christians we need to combat the isolation and social stigma of homosexuality. We should work together to do this.

Anglican, shmaynglican. I deeply doubt that I am the only one who is by now totally weary of being bullied by authorities largely outside what the 1801 Convention established as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

The current report [The Windsor Report from the Lambeth Commission on Communion] invites “a new, enhanced role for the archbishop of Canterbury,” who may at will or whim call or not call worldwide Lambeth conferences and meetings of  “strengthened” primates, all supported by a new Council of Advice “when difficult decisions are required.” Those keen on this structure should recognize that it already exists in pope, college of cardinals and curia.

Separation might incur other problems, but I do not believe it would threaten our three-legged stool of tradition, Scripture and reason. Reason has always guided our cherished form of worship. Reason also influences our reading of Scripture; e.g., we eat shellfish, and leprosy is not diagnosed by priests who check lesions for white hairs.

I think it is time to stop pretending that separation is a totally unthinkable thought.

I so enjoyed Walter Cronkite’s commentary (“A Department of Peace: Congressman’s proposal would provide powerful counterpoint to department of war,” November) and learning that someone in Congress has dared to propose it. What a novel idea for Christians to contemplate.

Having served in both U.S. Navy and U.S. Army, the current strategy for the use of our Armed Forces has caused me mental anguish.  For all the rhetoric from the White House and Christian conservatives' support for the current wars, I find it ironic our Bible-believing leadership ignores biblical principles for dealing with enemies.

Paul in Romans 12:20 quotes Proverbs 25:21-22, saying,   “If you enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.  In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”  Paul quotes Proverbs 25:21-22.    Jesus also seems to affirm this type of action when he says, “Pray for your enemies.”  

I have often wondered what would have been the reaction of our enemies if we flew in planeloads of food, clothes, water as a free gift, rather than stealth bombers and laser-guided bombs. 

I guess I’ll never know, as our current foreign policy strategy seems to be embargos, deprivation, bombing enemies, all of which appear to me to be 180 degrees from Scripture as I read it. 

I will lobby for “A Department of Peace,” realizing that may be the last thing on the mind of many in government.

The commentary by Walter Cronkite in your November issue regarding HR 2459, being introduced by Dennis Kucinich, impressed and intrigued me greatly.  However, when I attempted to learn the status of this bill I was unable to do so.

I was able to print the speech he gave on March 20, 2002, which was entered in the Congressional Record. I thought that what he said was so important.  I wrote to my representative and asked that he support the bill, but I am wondering if it has already been buried in committee.

The last thing this overburdened, overtaxed, completely unnecessary society needs is a Department of Peace (Commentary by Walter Cronkite, November). This has actually been sponsored in the U.S. House of Representatives -- HR2459 -- by liberal Ohio U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a minor candidate for U.S. President.

Kucinich would make this a cabinet post and advise the Department of Defense and the Secretary of State. There is no mention of the price or cost of this new federal bureaucracy.

In the November article “Bishops seek reconciliation,” Mexican journalist and commentator Richard Rodriguez is quoted as saying to the bishops, “Christ was the great experimenter who dared to come to love us in ways that frighten us.”

What strange words I find these to be. I can say without qualification that Jesus’ love for me has never frightened me. In fact, quite the contrary: I have experienced a Lord whose love casts out fear. I cannot even imagine what Mr. Rodriguez could possibly mean, nor why such a distorted vision of our Lord’s merciful, renewing, saving love would be a part of the diet fed to the bishops during their reflection time together.

Recently, the New Yorker magazine published a clever, very sad cartoon showing God sitting in a cloud looking down on creation. The caption was: “Maybe if I’d have put in a full week things would have turned out better.”

How terribly hurt and discouraged he must be -- archbishops, bishops, clergy, laity at each other’s throats trying to decide who’s in and who’s out.

If only, instead of all the energy, focus, funds and anger exerted on our in-house issues, the leaders of all denominations, religions and sects could convene and listen to each other with tolerance and a true desire to accept the fact that just as each child in a family views his or her parents differently, so God is seen differently by all his children.

The basic thread of a God/Creator to be praised, honored and obeyed runs through all the religions of mankind. Because of this, such a meeting might not be an impossible dream, but a God-blessed event.

I have just received the November 2004 issue of  Episcopal Life.  Normally, I throw it away without even looking at it, but in light of the Lambeth Commission’s report, I decided to see what the mouthpiece for the church hierarchy had to say.  I was especially struck by Douglas LeBlanc’s article and the call for some grace in all of this madness.

One of the reasons that I left the Episcopal Church is the reality that there is no room for orthodox believers in the Diocese of Western Michigan.  Over the past several years, orthodox believers have been systematically excluded from the decision-making process within the diocese.   My wife and I are not alone in that decision to leave, and it is apparent from the current financial crisis in the diocese that others have chosen to vote on the decisions made by the leadership with their feet and their pocketbooks as well.

LeBlanc calls for patience and humility to help us through this issue.  After the 2003 diocesan convention, it was apparent that the leadership of the Diocese of Western Michigan is not the least bit interested in compromise or even discussion on the issues surrounding homosexuality.  The question that I asked then and that I pose now is:  Why should I stay in a church that doesn’t care about my convictions and refuses to give orthodox believers like myself any voice in the decision-making process?

The [Lambeth] Commission [on Communion], which recently rebuked the Episcopal Church for electing Bishop V. Gene Robinson, has asked the church to apologize.

According to the report, the action threatens to deeply divide the worldwide Anglican Communion. The report even calls for the bishops who participated in the ceremony to withdraw from any church functions until a public expression of regret is offered.

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold did express regret that the ordination of Bishop Robinson was difficult and painful for many church members throughout the world. But, in the end he affirmed "the presence and positive contribution of gay and lesbian persons to every aspect of the life of our church.”

It is noteworthy that many of the Third World Anglican leaders who condemn Bishop Robinson’s elevation also strongly condemned the election of the first woman Episcopal suffragan bishop, Barbara Clementine Harris, in 1989. The threatened split did not occur then.

The truth is that the American Episcopal Church has had an admirable record in the area of human rights. It played a prominent role in the anti-slavery movement leading up to the Civil War. It strongly supported the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Remember that Jonathan Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian, went to Alabama in 1965 to help in the drive to register black voters and was shot to death on the street by a white lawman.

In 1969, there was opposition when John Burgess became the first black Episcopal bishop in Massachusetts. In the 1970s, there was opposition when the first women were ordained as Episcopal priests. In 1989, Barbara Clementine Harris faced strong opposition, at home and abroad . Finally, there was Bishop Robinson last fall.
An institution that shows such strong leadership in human rights doesn’t need to apologize to anyone.

The IRS tramples on freedom of speech and freedom of religion by its guidelines for 501 (c )(3) regarding the tax-free status of nonprofit and tax-exempt organizations. The IRS is investigating the NAACP for its chairman Julian Bond’s remark attacking President Bush. (San Francisco Chronicle, Saturday, Oct. 30, 2004).

Tax-exempt status is granted to organizations that are nonprofit, like schools, churches, universities, social agencies, theater groups, museums and other organizations that are trying to assist people that are poor, oppressed and disenfranchised.

The IRS tells those groups they may not participate in American political activity. This government agency dictates what people in the organizations may say or do in the American political process. This is an abridgement of freedom of speech.

It tells the clergy, who are citizens of the United States, that they may not speak from the pulpit of their political opinions. The Bill of Rights says that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”  The IRS must amend its guidelines and the American Civil Liberty’s Union, of which I am a member, must challenge this abusive regulation.