Garrison Church
Sir: I respect the strength of Mr Moore's feelings (Another Voice' 21 September) but his article contains too many unwar- ranted inferences and assumptions. Here are some of them.
Has he any evidence to suggest that if the split comes 'in most places the traditional- ists would win'? The ecumenical factor is important; but the 'Anglican Communion' of which he speaks already contains many hundred women priests legally ordained. The arguments for the ordination of women in no way imply that the Bible is not a sacred text, still less that Church and Scripture 'have no authority'. I doubt whether Dr Carey himself would accept that he does not believe in a priesthood. How many Anglo-Catholics 'traditionally hate' the Book of Common Prayer? And lastly, it was not for stating objective fact about Anglicanism that Canon Bennett incurred the criticism which preceded his death.
Mr Moore has polarised the situation far too much (who's making the flesh creep now?). The great mass of English church- men stand somewhere in the middle of that triangle of forces — Catholic, Evangelical, Liberal — which holds the show together in a state of healthy and creative tension. I regard myself as a traditionalist, but I have been a card-carrying member of the Move- ment for the Ordination of Women since its foundation. That is why the package- deal approach is so misleading. My own (limited) evidence would suggest that most of us now face the prospect of women priests with varying degrees of enthusiasm or acceptance.
Perhaps we look at the Church in differ- ent ways. I regard it not as a beleaguered fortress but as a pilgrim army on the move, treasuring the ark of the covenant in its midst but caring too for a vast and ill-disci- plined throng of camp-followers.
James Cobban 10 Coverdale Court, Preston Road,
Yeovil
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