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I will not go into details in this email regarding why the Camaro is considerably better than the Mustang, because I already did that in my response to the article (my name is Jeff). However, it is painfully obvious to anyone who reads this article that it is full of blatant lies and inaccuracies.

The last thing that I want is for people to read this article and take it to heart, considering it is terribly inaccurate. I can only recommend that it be taken down to prevent people from possibly being misled by the false information in the article.
-- Jeff Steeves


EAST VS. WEST, DOOLEY VS. KOEHL
Re: Stuart Koehl's letter (under "A Matter of Doctrine") in Reader Mail's Thinking Ahead:

My original letter was about the relative ignorance of the fellowship within the Christian Churches of their own doctrine and Scriptures. As I strongly suggested, this is because the present and preceding generation or two of clergy have felt practical social engagement with society’s ills was the real mission of religious instruction.

Mr. Koehl picks up a tangent and addresses the old "filioque” dispute between the Eastern and Western Churches. Mr. Koehl believes there has been a substantial acquiescence by Rome to the Orthodox Church’s centuries old rejection of “who proceeds from the Father and the Son” in favor of “"the Lord and Giver of Light, who proceeds from the Father" when speaking of the Holy Spirit in the Nicene Creed.

Being a Lutheran and having strained to understand the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” (1999) between the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches which had been strongly influenced by the Cardinal Ratzinger and then studying several other of his writings, we can understand Pope Benedict’s thoughts on ecumenical agreements are far more nuanced than one would think. It certainly isn’t what we are used to.

The key is Ratzinger’s concept of “substantial equivalence” or, put another way, “legitimate complementarily”. In short, employing a Biblical paradigm, there is but one saving Gospel in the New Testament, but Matthew, Mark, Luke and John do not confess the Gospel identically. Yet each all these “confessions” still share essential compatibility. By extension, a “differentiated consensus” in doctrine may be achieved by different church bodies without any unilateral insistence on identical language. Thus the Orthodox and Roman formulations are to be regarded as diverse but legitimate expressions of the same confessed mystery of the Holy Trinity. Ecumenical fellowship and the full and visible unity of the entire Christian Church may be achieved by abstaining from a rigid insistence that the same “language” or formulations must be used to confess and proclaim the same divine mystery.

Personally, I am not convinced this guiding concept of “substantial equivalence” actually works here on the ground; but it is clear Pope Benedict believes it does. The Pope has confessed the Nicene Creed minus the "filioque” along side the Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I in a special Mass at the Vatican; but I wouldn’t count on the Western Church actually dropping the "filioque” anytime soon.
-- Mike Dooley

DOCTOR'S ORDERS: LESS ROUSH "VENTING"
Re: Mike Roush's letter (under "But What About the Present?") in Reader Mail's Thinking Ahead:

Mike Roush is clearly off his nut. Perhaps his shrink thinks his uncontrollable venting is healthy therapy but think of the peace of mind the rest of us would enjoy if the friendly attendants in the white coats would tighten the straps on his straitjacket so he could no longer manipulate a keyboard -- Or the facts.
-- Craig Marshall
Lake in the Hills, Illinois