From Mrs Joan
Ashcroft
Sir, - I am extremely saddened that Canon Giles Fraser's weekly
column has ended (
Comment, 8 February). I hope that he will continue to write and
speak for people like me to read and listen.
I always look forward to
reading it, and find I am instructed, challenged, made to think,
and sometimes to laugh. I am now 82, and pretty well retired from
being a Reader: so please, in the time left to me to read your
paper, continue to publish views that are thoughtful,
controversial, occasionally angry, but grounded in faith.
I would like to extend my
thanks and good wishes to him and his family.
JOAN ASHCROFT
18 Richmond Court
Ashton Keynes, Swindon SN6 6PP
From Dr Ieuan
Lloyd
Sir, - I regret the end of Canon Giles Fraser's column in the
Church Times. He has often brought us up suddenly to think
again about something we have held fast. It is very refreshing to
have this done to one from time to time. But to adopt this posture
constantly does run the risk of not being able to distinguish when
an opposing view is held from reason or from prejudice. His
contribution to the BBC programme Sunday (10 February) on
same-sex marriages is one such example.
It seems that he regards
anyone, including the new Archbishop of Canterbury, who is against
same-sex marriages as being necessarily homophobic: that is, that
there could not be in principle a respectable argument against
them. But this a priori view would itself be a typical
example of prejudice which one would use in a logic class. I know
of arguments against same-sex marriages by atheists which, even if
I disagree with them, I can still allow as being reasonable, as in
the case, say, of euthanasia.
A colleague of mine recently
told me that he finds increasingly that some people who disagree
with his views respond to them by saying that his views offend them
rather than that they disagree with his arguments. I hope Canon
Fraser has not become one of them.
IEUAN LLOYD
16 St Oswalds Close
Upper Tything
Worcester WR1 1HR
From Mr Michael
Watts
Sir, - Three cheers! Canon Giles Fraser has "hung up" his
pen. My blood pressure will be overjoyed.
MICHAEL WATTS
Raven Gill, Parkhead
Renwick, Penrith CA10 1JQ
Mindfulness and the Art of
Managing Anger: Meditations on clearing the red mist, by Mike
Fisher