EVERY WEEK WE PUBLISH a selection of letters we receive in response to something you've read at Anglicans Online. Stop by and have a look at what other AO readers are thinking.

Alas, we cannot publish every letter we receive. And we won't publish letters that are anonymous, hateful, illiterate, or otherwise in our judgment do not benefit the readers of Anglicans Online. We usually do not publish letters written in response to other letters. We edit letters to conform with standard AO house style for punctuation, but we do not change, for example, American spelling to conform to Canadian orthography. On occasion we'll gently edit letters that are too verbose in their original form. Email addresses are included when the authors give permission to do so.

If you'd like to respond to a letter whose author does not list an email, you can send your response to Anglicans Online and we'll forward it to the writer.

Like all letters to the editor everywhere, these letters express the opinions of the writers and not Anglicans Online. We publish letters that we think will be of interest to our readers, whether we agree with them or not. If you'd like to write a letter of your own, click here.

(Editor's note: the following letter was submitted to us last week, but in the chaos of a computer system upgrade we lost it. But now it's found. We apologize for the bungling and for the accidental snub of Mr Rindahl.)

Everyone Loses

In this week's cover article the following comment is made, "We wonder whether the Virginia congregations, when they are eventually permitted to return to their big stone church buildings..."

This statement assumes that the parish congregation was evicted from the building. In fact the parishioners who worship in these buildings are the majority members who voted to break away from the ECUSA diocese and are "the congregation." These parishioners, assuming no further legal wrangling, will be evicted from their buildings. This, in turn, leaves empty buildings (many with huge associated operating costs/debt maintenance) in the hands of the diocese. ECUSA has proclaimed a prohibition against selling the buildings to the original congregations. Instead, they will be sold off to others - even to non-Christian purchasers (At least one disputed building has been turned into a mosque).

Millions upon millions have been spent in order to obtain debts. The buildings will be liquidated to any purchaser EXCEPT FOR the people who want to be there and have worshipped there for all living history. A sad state of affairs regardless of whose side one supports.

Steven Rindahl
Christ the King Chapel
Ft Jackson, SC
16 January 2012

We launched our 'Letters to AO' section on 11 May 2003. All published letters are in our archives.