From the Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton of Chatham, N.J., for the CTB From the Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton of Chatham, N.J., for the CTB Collaborative (two dozen other members of the collaborative signed this letter):

Doug LeBlanc's article "Loving the questions: Disarming the road to the answers" in the December issue of Episcopal Life provides a wonderful opportunity to reclaim the via media of the Episcopal Church we love, in the Anglican Communion we treasure. The Claiming the Blessing (CTB) Collaborative welcomes this opportunity to respond to his thoughtful questions.

Yes, the CTB Collaborative does believe that the two major creeds are statements of theological reality. We also believe that salvation history is still being revealed and that our baptism calls us to be active participants in God's salvific actions in the world. This does not mean that in the more liberal or progressive aisles of the church the creeds are treated with less respect than they deserve. To the contrary! We believe that the creeds are not static documents, but active and dynamic in the midst of those who have eyes to see.

The creeds are, at the very least, critically important for their historical value in giving us a map of how we got from "there to here" in our theological development and understanding. We believe in God, but some of us do not believe that "God the Father" is the only appropriate way to refer to the first person of the Trinity. Yet, because of a deep respect for the creeds, we are perfectly able to stand in solidarity with those who have gone before, those who are present still and those yet to come who believe the exact wording to be true. Many of us can still say the Nicene and the Apostles creeds without crossing our fingers or flunking a lie detector test. Far from "liturgical throat clearing," it's more like reading the creeds in one language and translating them into one's own language. We make contemporary, relevant and respectful theological translations -- sometimes silent, sometimes aloud -- with regularity. We believe a larger portion of the church than one might suspect does this all the time.

What may be to some an impersonal formula such as "Creator, Liberator and Sustainer" is actually a statement in the understanding that actions speak louder than words. To many Christians, the history of God's actions in our lives of faith is of greater consequence than the gender roles that have, in modern English translations, been ascribed to the Trinity. Interestingly enough, many of us are more comfortable with ascribing the feminine to the third person of the Trinity than with a gender neutral ascription. We are, in the end, complex creatures of God, coming close to being an accurate reflection of the deep mystery of God.

Do we, as Anglicans, know nothing of the plain truth of Scripture? What a delightfully provocative question. What is plain truth? Pilate asked a similar question of Jesus (John 18:38), and then Pilate washed his hands. We believe that "the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation." (BCP 526) Is this what you mean?

As for the Articles of Religion, these Calvinist documents are aptly placed in the section of the Book of Common Prayer under the heading of "Historical Documents of the Church" -- right alongside the Council of Chalcedon, the Creed of Athanasius and Tables for Finding Holy Days. They are helpful documents, but the spirit of Anglicanism is neither a confessional nor strictly doctrinal faith. Rather, we are, ultimately, a pragmatic faith, with a rich legacy of such reconciliatory precedents as the Elizabethan Settlement and the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral.

The Claiming the Blessing Theology Paper (http://www.claimingtheblessing.org/docs/CTBTheology(Final).pdf) places our understanding of the justification for the church to bless gay and lesbian couples directly within our understanding of the Hebrew Scripture's perception of blessing, the promises made in our Baptismal Covenant "to respect the dignity of every human being" and the rubrics of the prayer book on page 13, which state, " ... and for other special occasions for which no service or prayer has been provided in this Book, the bishop may set forth such forms as are fitting to the occasion."

Finally, we recognize that, in opening wide the doors of the church, we risk losing those who will not enter because of those who claim equal occupancy in the "big tent" of Anglicanism. We understand the dynamic. It is an ancient one: A little impurity makes the whole impure. David Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council, recently was asked by news commentator Bob Press, "Don't you think ... that this is a way to open up the church to bring in more people? To which Anderson replied, "I don't think so. If you keep lowering the standards to a certain point, you can, I guess, get everyone in, but Scripture talks about the way to salvation being narrow, not broad and wide." This seem to us a reflection of the exhortations of the prophets Ezra and Nehemiah to build a wall, divorce Gentiles from pure Jews and shun the half-breed children (Ezra 9, Nehemiah13). A little impurity makes the whole impure.

And yet, in the Gospel of Luke, which we hear in Advent, John the Baptist says, "all flesh shall see the salvation of God" (Luke 3:6). God came in the flesh and lived and took that prophetic teaching and turned it upside-down and right-side-up. Jesus taught that a little purity might just make the whole pure. Isaiah suggested the radical idea. John the Baptizer prepared our hearts to accept it. And Jesus lived it. He was resurrected for it. In Christ all flesh shall see the salvation of God. What can be more inclusive than that -- if we choose it?

From the Rev. Henry C. Johnson of State College, Pa.:

I applaud Doug LeBlanc's critique of the illicit New Hampshire "consecration." He goes to the heart of the issue and its contradiction of everything the church has stood for, not to mention Catholic and Christian tradition throughout the ages. Appealing to the "Articles" is apposite. Concerned Episcopalians also might search the "Book of Homilies." Does anyone even remember the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral and the role of Scripture?

Is it now useless to call to witness the revered doctors of the Eastern and Western church, including our own defenders of the faith from Anselm to Temple and Ramsey? Holding history meaningless, the self-justifying defenders of apostasy will doubtless cast the sickly pall of secular hermeneutics over such witnesses, too, ruling them irrelevant. The individualistic, proactive notion of the Holy Spirit is operative in so many recent prophetic words and actions: private revelation, which supposedly trumps the prayerful conclusions of the Body as a whole and over time. Were all our fathers in the faith bereft of the Holy Spirit?

The furious call for reconciliation requires exposing it for what it is. The term is but a euphemism for acceptance, or, as the popular expression has it, "becoming comfortable with it." Such arrogant psychologizing, already saturating much of ministry, is wholly out-of-place in matters of fundamental belief. As a priest and professor in a major research university for a number of years, I'm no stranger to the difference between honest discussion and rhetorical games that prove nothing.

From Bruce Garner of Atlanta:

Here we go again, dwelling on something that is not even a part of our core doctrine of belief. We just don't seem to be able to let go of this obsession we have.

Yes, there are indeed passages of Scripture that from our perspective say that homosexual practice is to be condemned. But there also are passages that condemn divorce, that seem to support slave-holding, as well as others that dictate clothing that one may wear, how often a bishop may be married, how short the hair may be cut in men. I suspect that we can find a prohibition or proscription about nearly anything we want to if we look at Scripture closely enough. But is that the point?

The point is not what is in the Scriptures but how what is in there is intended to be used in our building a right relationship with God and each other. We are dishonest when we single out a particular issue and make it the red herring. Yet we are prone to doing that and especially prone to do so with issues of human sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular.

The Ten Commandments do not mention sexuality aside from the reference to adultery, which is about a contract, not sex. The Beatitudes don't mention sexuality. Jesus' most famous sermons don't mention sexuality. The Great Commission doesn't mention sexuality. The 25th Chapter of Matthew's Gospel doesn't mention sexuality. The teachings of the one we claim as our Lord and Savior just don't, as the kids say, even go there.

Why can't we devote a bit of time and energy to those issues that are our core doctrine of belief? The Baptismal Covenant might be a good place to reconnect and get our bearings.

From Nigel A. Renton of Berkeley, Calif.:

Doug LeBlanc asks good questions. Nevertheless, I would quibble with his statement that "most people agree that (the Articles) reflect Anglican thought of the 19th century." Although the fledgling Episcopal Church adopted them at the General Convention of 1801, many of us would argue that they represent 16th-century thought, when they were largely written. Even if they had been wholly original, surely something adopted in 1801 would have been more reflective of 18th-century thought?

From the Rev. Jim Edwards of Reno, Nev.:

I read an engaging account of the travails that accompanied the translating and publishing of an English version of the Bible. The author suggested that having the Bible available in the vernacular probably contributed significantly to the American Revolution. I was reminded of this as I read Doug LeBlanc's column. He strongly suggested there is "a plain sense of Scripture that can be understood even by lay people." This raised questions for me.

We human beings have been powerfully blessed in our relationships with God, we Christians not least by the Bible. What is this book? In one of his helpful volumes on Islam, Seyyed Hussein Nasr describes the Quran as the incarnation of Allah (God) in the same sense in which we believe Jesus to be God incarnate. We Christians, on the other hand, do not have the same understanding concerning the Bible.

It is much more accurate for us to describe our Scripture as sacrament in the same sense in which we name Eucharist sacrament. That is, the bread and the wine remain bread and wine. The change that brings about Real Presence is one of relationship. So also the words, sentences and narratives of the Bible. They remain the communication of specific human beings with their specific communities at a specific time and place in history.

So we can, precisely as members of the Christian community, study and share reflections about the context of the times and places, seek to know what the biblical authors were addressing and what they had to say about and to those times. Only then can we have an accurate sense of what God is saying to us in our times and circumstances. To depend solely upon our modern translations of the Bible puts our understanding of the word of God in serious jeopardy.

To accept the challenge implicit in Doug LeBlanc's questions, if our Christian Scriptures' main message is not seen as total inclusiveness, have we not utterly missed the point of Jesus' teaching?