I must take exception to David Kalvelage's column, "Distressed Anglicans." "My guess," writes Mr. Kalvelage, "is that a sizable portion of the Episcopal Church will care not a bit" about the concerns of a group of third world Anglicans who are distressed by recent trends in the American Church concerning sexuality. Please note the following:

1. The vast majority of Anglican Christians live in the developing world. We westerners are a minority in a Communion numerically dominated by persons of color. On any given Sunday, you will find more Anglicans in church in the single nation of Nigeria than in the combined total of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

2. Most of these third world Anglicans would be called "evangelicals" in this country. They are doctrinally conservative, biblically-centered in their theological methodology, thoroughly traditional in their understanding of the Christian faith and its implications for daily life.

3. Anglicans in the third world who become aware of issues in the Episcopal Church - and especially about proposals to bless same-sex unions - react first with disbelief, than with horror. I speak as one with some knowledge of Anglicanism in the developing world. Our third world brothers and sisters, I know from personal experience, view developments in the American Church with increasing gravity.

All of this is to say that Mr. Kalvelage needs to re-think his dismissal of the Kuala Lumpur Statement. In many ways, the spiritual center of the Anglican Communion has shifted from the West to the developing world. We must listen with great care to what our friends are saying to us.

(The Very Rev.) Edward S. Little II All Saints' Church, Bakersfield, Calif. The comment cited in Fr. Little's first paragraph was not a dismissal of the statement, but rather a personal observation that many Episcopalians won't be concerned if communion is broken (see editorial, TLC, June 1). Ed.