Letters: The contentious issues of religious conversion

Hard to reconcile

Sir: Although not an Anglican, I appreciate Michael Nazir-Ali’s dilemma (‘A change of mind and heart’, 23 October) and know many Anglicans whose loyalty to the C of E is being severely tested. But insofar as his theology is classically Protestant and evangelical, it is difficult to see how the former bishop can reconcile it with the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on the sacraments, the office of the Pope, the role of Mary, purgatory and justification, to name but a few contentious issues.

He speaks of how ‘what Anglicanism in its classical form has held most dear is being fulfilled in the progression of the Ordinariate’. Assuming that classical Anglicanism is summed up in the Book of Common Prayer and the 39 Articles of Religion of the Church of England, with their strong emphasis on the biblical and Protestant doctrine of justification through faith alone in Christ, Michael Nazir-Ali must have had a significant change of heart and mind, or be doing some remarkable theological gymnastics.