Madam, - "GL", in his piece "God's 'dwelling place'" (Thinking Anew, July 5th), notes "a particular characteristic of the ministry of Jesus: 'Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest'. Only a church with open doors and a faith community with open arms can be faithful to that commitment".
But what do "open doors" and "open arms" mean in practice?
In the 6th century Suibhne tellingly described his little oratory as "a place. . .a garden. . .without a fence around it". And the Rev Samuel Perrott, dissenting Cork minister at Prince's Street, made essentially the same point in a sermon delivered at Youghal on December 30th 1795, in declaring: "Christ erected no fence around his Church, and they are blameworthy who insist upon it".
Perrott was talking about rules, particularly creeds, governing admission to communion and baptism, and thus, prophetically, 200 years before, foresaw the kind of storm that followed Mary McAleese's reception of Anglican communion.
There were no creeds in the modern sense in the time of Jesus, and this suggests that the only churches truly manifesting an "open doors" or "open arms" policy now are the non-credal ones.
In the Ireland of today that limits the field very greatly: we are left with the Quakers, the Unitarians, the Non-Subscribers, some Congregationalists, and the redoubtable Pat Buckley. - Yours, etc,
Dr MARTIN PULBROOK, Enniscoffey, Co Westmeath.