I am becoming increasingly distressed by the increase in anti-Semitism.  It is disturbing enough when such racism rears its satanic head in society as a whole.  But when it begins to appear in churches and in the Episcopal Church, it is an abomination.

It is both "unofficial," as in letters to the editor excoriating Israel as a "criminal state," and official, as in the growing demand that the Episcopal Church divest itself of all investments in companies that do business in Israel.

When does opposition to policies of the Israeli government slip over the line into anti-Semitism?  When, of all the countries, Israel and Israel alone is identified as the cause of all the problems in the Middle East.  The basic question that is avoided by those who claim merely to be opposing Israeli policies is: How does one make peace with an existential enemy?

To identify Israel as the criminal state not only in the Middle East but also in the world is patently anti-Semitic on the face of it.  In nearly every Arab and Muslim state, the Jewish citizens were expelled and property confiscated without compensation.  Yet in Israel, Israeli Arabs have full citizenship and Israeli Arabs even sit in the Knesset.

Anti-Semitism is the parakeet in the mine.  It is the oldest, the most pernicious and the most pervasive of all racisms.  That anti-Semitism is rearing its ugly head in this country is terrifying enough.  That it is beginning to appear in our own church is shameful beyond words.  Am I being an alarmist?  Not according to Elie Weisel, who titled his latest book, The New Anti-Semitism.

I liked the article “And a little child shall lead them” (December) and agree wholeheartedly and completely with Deborah Kissinger (Personally, December page 24). I always insist that each newly baptized infant -- and everyone else -- receive Holy Communion that day. I preach that no child who is baptized as an infant should ever remember his or her first Communion.

And when a parent objects that the child cannot understand, I challenge them with: "Why don't you tell me what you understand about it? You can enlighten me, because I don't understand it." I agree that the child, in its childlike faith, probably understands more than we do.

I am relieved to find literal Bible-believing Episcopal churches in Long Beach, Newport Beach and North Hollywood, Calif., along with all other ex-ECUSA parishes who left over the issue of homosexuality.
I am relieved to find literal Bible-believing Episcopalians, because I am having trouble getting some committees started, and I thought members of those churches could help:

Where do the women of the parish stay when they are menstruating?  Have the parishes set up some kind of "Red Homeless Shelter," since the women cannot touch anything or even be allowed in their homes? (Lev: 15-19)

Who verified that the pastor's wife was a virgin when they were married?  Our pastor is evading our questions. (Lev: 10-15)

Does the vestry examine each bald man as he enters church to make sure there are no red spots on his head, or do the welcomers do it? (Lev: 13-40-44)

Do any of the children mind that they are not allowed to play football or eat bacon?  We want to have a Children's Education class about this one, so the kids will be happy. (Lev. 11:7)

And I really am curious:  How do they explain Matthew 22:36-40 (about the first two commandments)?  I mean, the Diocese of Uganda must offer some disclaimer, some loophole?

Jesus said that these two laws are the greatest of the Kingdom and supersede all else.  How do these folks manage to get around them and still call themselves Christian?  I admit, I am amazed at their dexterity.

Recently I requested that Episcopal Peace Fellowship remove my name from its membership list. My decision was based on what I perceive as EPF’s rather ambiguous position in regard to peace and justice -- a lack of clarity and passion exemplified by the article “65 years of peacemaking: EPF launches $300,000 pledge campaign at anniversary dinner” (December).

In that article, Episcopal Peace Fellowship expresses an “unambiguous preference for nonviolent approaches to conflict, condemning the aggressive use of war …” The irony of this statement is, of course, in the use of the word “preference.” I strongly prefer fresh black-eyed peas the way Mama prepared them when I was a boy. But if you invite me to dinner and fix the frozen kind, I will eat them. EPF favors nonviolent approaches to solving human problems, but it does not renounce every use of violence.

EPF prefers the nonaggressive use of war (whatever that is), but it does not reject all war, nor is it willing to commit itself with unambiguous resolve to pacifism -- to ahimsa (nonviolence, noninjury) or  satyagraha (Gandhi’s concept combining the Hindu words for truth and holding firmly). Episcopal Peace Fellowship does some good work, but because it is not deeply rooted  in the values of contemplative Christianity, it is unable to offer solutions radical enough to meet the challenges facing humankind.

Please tell Christine Hill of Sacramento, Calif. (Letters, December), the mother of a gay son, that, yes, there is support for parents of gay children, regardless of their religious affiliation. This Episcopalian and his Episcopal wife, the parents of a lesbian daughter, found support in a local chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), the organization after which Clergy Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays apparently is patterned.

Tell Ms. Hill to contact PFLAG Sacramento, PO Box 661855, Sacramento, CA 95866, 916-978-0410 or http://www.sacramentopflag.org/. Also tell Ms. Hill to tell her parish priest to get with it. Homosexuality is not a choice. You can choose to be Christian, you can choose to be Episcopalian, but you cannot choose to be gay.

It is horrible to see the unraveling of the Anglican Communion in a world that needs it so much. The affirmation of the election of Bishop Gene Robinson is the result of the arrogance and selfishness of those who push their gay agenda without regard for other Anglicans.

For example, on the BBC World News recently, I saw two American gentlemen say to the BBC reporter that they do not care at all about the Anglican Communion.  The Episcopal Church will become just another one of the myriad American denominations.  On the same program, Bishop Leo Frade was shown saying that he approved the Robinson consecration because of loving his neighbor. We should all love all our neighbors, but we are not all qualified to be deacons, priests or bishops.

I am just as shocked and disappointed as Charles Harper (“I was shocked: Carnival-like atmosphere of women’s march made mockery of church’s stand on abortion,” December) about ECUSA’s participation in the abortion-rights movement. This comes on top of ECUSA’s pro-homosexuality edict.

I believe Jesus' commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self,” should be respected more than current activist causes.
It seems to me that if we love our neighbors, we should love all our neighbors, born and unborn; and if we love our neighbors, we should educate our young neighbors about the pitfalls of falling into a lifestyle that may lead them into gravely unhealthy and sinful situations. We also should be there to lead them down the paths of righteousness if they want to leave those situations. I also believe that if we love our neighbors, we should not accuse our neighbors of bigotry because they disagree with current activist trends in our church.

With respect to Charles Harper’s commentary "I was shocked," I want to respond that I am deeply thankful that my church has taken a strong stand for women's basic rights and social justice by supporting the "March for Women's Lives." This march was about a great deal more than abortion. It was about women's health worldwide and the right to control one's fertility and therefore one's life.

When the 1994 General convention made a considered statement about abortion, it could not foresee that 10 years later other aspects of reproductive health whose value is taken for granted would be under attack by our government, as is now the case. Because of the Bush administration's doctrinaire approach to abortion, family-planning clinics in many areas of the world have been de-funded and closed. In some cases these are the only facilities providing non-abortion-related birth control and medical attention for AIDS sufferers. Consequently, the maternal death rate from unsafe abortion already is rising (http://www.reproductiverights.org/). How can you think this is not a matter for the church's concern?

I appreciate your desire to mend fences in our communion, but in the world at large a greater issue is at stake that overrides your distaste for the "carnival atmosphere" of the "March for Women's Lives." It is women's health and freedom.

The Rev. Tom Buechele eloquently describes the cruel passage suffered by would-be immigrants attempting to enter the United States through the border of Mexico with Arizona and New Mexico (“Missing the welcome mat,” December). However, his article is singularly lacking in any suggestion for how this suffering might be addressed.

Immigration restrictions could be eliminated, and the 1903 open-door era restored. The economic consequences of this are an interesting problem. To economists, restrictions on migration are merely restrictions on movement of factors of production. Economists in favor of free trade suggest that removing barriers to movement of factors of production such as labor will raise overall output and therefore overall prosperity. However, as with virtually any policy that affects prices, not everyone will be a winner, and the losers would include low-wage workers in the United States, who will be competing with a new group of even lower-wage migrant workers.

The economists' case for establishing free trade (in both goods and factors) is that the winners can more than compensate the losers so that everyone gains (although realists question whether such compensation ever occurs). Despite the potential economic benefits of an open-door policy, there seems to be widespread consensus that essentially nativist instincts make such a move politically impossible.  So a quandary is whether we want to aid low-wage workers from elsewhere at the expense of low-wage workers here.

Requiring a tamper-proof identify document as a condition of employment, with immediate deportation for immigrant violators and criminal sanctions for employer violators, would dry up employment of illegal aliens overnight and eliminate the motivation for the arduous desert crossing, but our national desire for cheap labor and concerns raised by civil rights groups have prevented movement in this direction for many years.

The Rev. Buechele is right that there is something wrong with our immigration policy, and addressing it would be a first step to eliminating the misery at the southern border. Our nation suffers from either ambivalence or, worse, cruel hypocrisy in its approach to immigration.

My question is where Christian teaching should lead us out of this dilemma. Perhaps Buechele or others have some further thoughts on this.

The Rev. Buechele's "Missing the Welcome Mat" in the December issue moves me to compassion and prayer for the desperate souls who risk their lives to enter the United States illegally, but some of his argumentation is faulty and upsetting.

The church has a duty to reach out to all people, including those who break the law.  The state, on the other hand, has a duty to guard its frontiers, which at this time are still the object of international mockery.  The answer to the tragedies that occur on our borders is to guard our frontiers diligently, making them so inviolable that aliens will desist from their attempts to breach them or cross them without authorization, a criminal act.

The United States is our home, which we are justified in protecting from those who would break its boundaries and enter it.  "Breaking and entering" in this case is not an analogy but a fact.  A crime against the whole nation is greater than one against a private dwelling and its occupants.  We can pity persons who perish as a result of criminal activity, but this does not mean that we should refrain from protecting ourselves from the crime.

When my paternal grandparents and a couple of great-grandparents immigrated to the United States in the 1850s, our army was making room for them by exterminating the native population or forcing it into agriculturally unproductive reservations. Later generations of immigrants took jobs that could have been given to freed slaves and even forced them out of employment they already held or prevented them from obtaining such employ. In my opinion, there is no virtue in the mere fact of being an immigrant, and certainly not in becoming one illegally.

Yes, those poor souls who suffer dehydration and other perils deserve our pity and our prayers; but so do our citizens who must pay ever-increasing prices for gasoline and breathe more exhaust fumes owing to the expansion of our cities, the result of uncontrolled population growth; so do those who drink water rendered unsafe by the pollution of our overused aquifers and those threatened by toxic wastes because there is nowhere to dump our garbage.  And let us not forget our citizens who are shut out of the labor market because employers prefer to hire illegal aliens whom they can intimidate into working for unfair wages, and the students whose summer jobs now are performed by illegal aliens.

We who desire a stop to illegal immigration and a reduction in legal immigration are accused of xenophobia by these organizations.  We are not xenophobes, however; we are the patriotic majority of the citizenry.

I completely concur with Charles Harper's commentary (“I was shocked”) in the December issue and am equally shocked and angry to learn that my church had an official pro-abortion representation at the strident women's rally last spring.  If Episcopal women choose to participate in such an embarrassing event, they should do so as individuals or join with other pro-abortion organizations and not behind our banner.  I resent their use of our Episcopal Church to legitimize such a sensitive and controversial cause that many of us as Christians find reprehensible.

Probably like many Episcopalians, I had no idea we were members of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive choice.  What does that mean?  Reproductive Rights has become a euphemism for unlimited abortion, and calling it religious is certainly an oxymoron.  I know of no religion that advocates legalizing the killing of babies up to the point of birth.  I pray that our Episcopal Church does not.

I am so weary of men protesting for the rights of the fetus over women and children. I am a retired R.N. who cared for numerous dying women from dirty, illegal abortions prior to Roe vs. Wade.  Only massive doses of antibiotics saved their lives.  Many in society were not saved.  All these women chose to take that risk rather than continue an unwanted pregnancy. Now that I am retired, I work with the Detroit Poor as a volunteer counselor.

The fetus you are trying to save is frequently programmed at birth for crime, early death or prison. Right to Life and the conservative right has brainwashed this country. How many of them adopt poor, handicapped or minority infants, donate much money to the poor, feed the poor continuously or work for legislation to provide a decent life for the poor?

The answer is to provide early parenting to young girls, free and available contraception, free and available tubal ligations and, if necessary, abortions. Only then will we offer a decent plan to girls and women. There is no medical care, prescription services, decent low-income housing, food stamps, Head Start for these children of the working poor.

If the rich get pregnant, they can fly to many European countries and get safe, legal abortions -- such hypocrisy. Right to Life has encouraged pregnancies yet offered no decent life for the mother and eventual, unfortunate child.

I also was shocked to read Charles Harper's column in the December Episcopal Life.  I was not only shocked but also angered and quite puzzled.  It seems that resolutions passed by the General Convention do not apply to the hierarchy of the church.

In fact, it appears to be another case of pure arrogance on the part of the church to ignore resolutions and expend church funds to sponsor such events as the women's march.  If we can afford to pay priests to head up such organizations and sponsor such events, then we obviously have a surplus of funds, and maybe you don't need mine. I do not have a surplus.  Also, sponsorship of political events such as these may endanger the church's nonprofit status.

Mr. Harper is to be commended for exposing this hypocrisy. It would behoove those in the presiding bishop's office to heed the resolutions passed by the General Convention and stay away from political activities such as the March for Women's Lives.

I agree with Charles Harper's article.  I am a lifelong Episcopalian who feels his church is slipping away.  The church leadership isn't reflective of its members.  Thank God there seems to be change coming in California. Several bishops are retiring who have been far too liberal.

We need more change at the national level as well, or our church will become extinct. I've thought many times about leaving.  Abortion is just one of several far-left subjects the church seems to condone. [It] should be only in cases where the mother's life is threatened.

If Jesus were asked, I have no doubt how he'd respond.  I hope my church comes back to me.

A few thoughts concerning the letter from Lyle Horn (“Sabeel sought balance,” December) are in order. First, it is clear Horn is indicative of the new home of anti-Semitism. In the past, anti-Semitism largely was confined to the radical fringe of conservative ideology. It exist there still, but these days one is far more likely to find rabid anti-Semitism on the left.

I could point out the many errors in Horn's thinking, but it would be pointless to do so. People like Horn bring to mind a ruling by Judge H. Franklin Waters of the Western District of Arkansas. In his ruling, the judge observed that one should never try to teach a pig to sing. It cannot be done, and it annoys the pig. In this case, Horn is the pig. Horn is completely wrong about Israel, and nothing anyone can say would change his mind.

The larger issue concerns the Episcopal Church as a whole. Is the agenda of the church going to continue to be the product of anti-Semitism, or can the church open its eyes to the realities on the ground in the Middle East? My concern is, my young daughter sees church as a fun and a learning experience, and encountering anti-Semitism may change her feelings.

The December issue contained four letters critical of stories appearing in this paper about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  I once also supported Israel; but I made a determined effort, post-9/11, to learn the true roots of the problem, and what I discovered was disconcerting.  For example, how many Americans know that the PLO has formally recognized Israel’s right to exist since 1988, or that Israel has destroyed more than 1,000 homes just in the past year, or that The Wall was declared illegal by the Israeli Supreme Court?

We absolutely do not receive balanced coverage of this conflict.  Utterly innocent Palestinians are killed or seriously injured every day by the IDF, but only suicide bombings make headlines here.  How can we judge fairly if we do not hear all sides of the issue?  We should be praying and working for a peaceful resolution of this conflict with both sides in mind rather than adopting a one-sided approach that condemns only the sins of the victims.

It seems to me that the issue of homosexuality that presently is dividing much of the Christian church, including the Episcopal Church, comes down basically to differing theologies of biblical interpretation.

The Bible contains divine absolute truth valid for all time. It also contains historical relativity. An example of divine absolute truth valid for all time would be the first two commandments or summary of the law: “Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, strength and mind and your neighbor as yourself.” This is as valid today as in biblical times, and it always will be.

An example of historical relativity would be the teaching in Deuteronomy that those who do work on the Sabbath should be stoned to death. This was valid only for the ancient primitive tribal people of Israel.

The very foundation and basis of authority in the Christian church is, for us as Episcopalians, Scripture, tradition and reason. Together they compliment and balance each other. Of the greatest importance is the “scriptural principle,” which means that the Bible as a whole provides its own criterion for criticizing and balancing individual parts and passages with each other.

Tradition means basically the history, experience and teaching of the Christian church, continuous with but following the biblical period on through the present and future, such as can be seen in the prayer book and hymnal. We use our God-given reason to interpret both Scripture and tradition, applying the scriptural principle to both.

Hopefully and prayerfully, then, this takes place under the divine guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, God, the ultimate authority whose revelation of himself we have known and whose will we seek to discern.