It is with bated breath that I have awaited some bishop or other senior church official writing to refute the truth of the issues raised in Bruce Chapman's Viewpoint article [TLC, Jan. 30]. He charges that the Episcopal Church is permitting - and in some dioceses actively encouraging - the widespread teaching of de facto Unitarianism in our parishes and even in our cathedrals. My copy of the Oxford Dictionary of World Religions defines Unitarianism as "A type of Christian thought and religious observance which rejects the doctrines of the Trinity and Divinity of Christ in favor of the unipersonality of God." It goes on: " ... They have no formal creed. Hence, reason and conscience have now become the criteria for belief and practice for Unitarians." These positions are eminently acceptable by Unitarians and others. But they are unquestionably the antithesis of the stated tenets of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

Ignoring this inherent comparative conflict or logical heresy, Jesus Seminar leaders like historians Robert Funk and Marcus Borg unabashedly equate a mirror faith image to both the Episcopal Church and Unitarianism. Given the clear dialectic tension that arcs between the two belief systems, what justification exists for the formal propagation of Unitarian tenets within Episcopal churches? If Mr. Chapman's voice is the false voice of a fading orthodoxy, why has the silence been so deafening from those bishops, dioceses and churches who sponsor and presumably support identical faith comparisons? Could it be because Mr. Chapman is exactly right?

Douglas Garrett

Palm Desert, Calif.