Madam, - The severity of David Adams's critique of Church services (Opinion, August 29th) prompts a response. While his own experience was negative and painful his article goes on to make generalised allegations which are simply not sustainable.
He castigates a rector's ingenuity "in finding a different form of words to deliver the same 15-minute threat of eternal damnation to the same audience week after week".
Apart from anything else the lectionary provides variety of theme and I doubt if even the most obtuse preacher would home in weekly on eternal damnation.
His diatribe about weddings and funerals is scarcely believable. "Marriage services are galloped through - or the recently deceased barely nodded at - as the vicar rushes to get down to, as he sees it, the real business of the day. . .the larger than usual captive audience that comes with a wedding or a funeral seems to add even more venom - and time devoted - to the haranguing of all and sundry about the mortal perils associated with anything remotely akin to enjoying oneself".
This description is light years away from an Irish wedding or funeral. For the past 40 years I have conducted or participated in more than my share of both in many kinds of churches.
Yes, some have been a little formal, a shade dull, but never, never galloped through. One exception is the time limit imposed at some crematoria. The reality is that most clergy and ministers spend hours of intense work planning and conducting weddings and funerals. Since when did any congregation have to endure "venom" or "haranguing about the mortal perils associated with enjoying oneself" at a wedding or funeral? This is patent nonsense.
David Adams is angry and resentful, and is free to express his feelings. But where is the journalistic balance or sense of proportion in his outburst? Churches and clergy may deserve criticism and castigation and institutional religion has many blemishes and defects. But we need to sense some semblance of objectivity from those who comment through the public media. This was largely absent from his article.
As they say up in your home country, David, "Catch yourself on man, cut out the guff and tell the truth." - Yours, etc.,
ROBERT DUNLOP,
The Manse,
Brannockstown,
Co Kildare.