Repentance from Via Media Founder

Mr. Spangler’s comments about Southwest Florida Via Media Episcopalians, quoted in The Southern Cross (July/August...Conservatives, p.5) seem hurtful enough to call for repentance. However, as none seems to be coming from Mr. Spangler or the AAC political group, I will offer my repentance for not working harder to get the Via Media message across in this diocese.

SW Florida Via Media is an association of centrist Episcopalians which unites theologically diverse persons around mutually shared convictions. Among these is to remain in the Episcopal Church as the American expression of Anglican Faith and to provide safe spaces for people of widespread opinions. We believe that the playing field is very wide and there is room for all of us. We demonstrated this commitment by joining the Cathedral congregation and our Bishop by co-sponsoring the conference "Going Forward Together" last January.

"Via Media" for "Middle Way" was Richard Hooker’s famous description of Anglicanism as the middle way between continental Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. He and his colleague, the puritan preacher Walter Travers, worked together at the Temple Church in London at the end of the 16^th century, setting a positive example for us.

Via Media Episcopalians reject Mr. Spangler’s characterization of our understanding of theology as "revisionist." We believe our desire to keep the church together without rigid theological conformity is guided by Gospel teaching, especially as it is expressed in Mark’s account of Christ’s confrontation with the Pharisees about the sabbath law: Mk 2:23-27.

Ted Copland