Thank you for your full reporting of the visit of the international speaker Mr Ben Alexander from the USA to Borehamwood Baptist Church on page 5 of your August 6 issue.

We are however very disappointed that your headlines and lead paragraphs gave such a distorted impression of the evening's events.

Mr Alexander spoke for 80 minutes warning of the dangers of spiritualism and occult.

In the course of this vital message he made one brief digression based on a misunderstanding of the position Archbishop George Carey has taken with regard to gay rights.

Mr Alexander apologises that his remarks on the Archbishop were misinformed and after thorough investigation he wishes it to be known that he fully supports the Archbishop's stand on this matter. Mr Alexander has also since apologised to Rev Richard Leslie personally for his mistake and for any embarrassment caused.

It would be totally incorrect to infer from the prominence your article gave to this brief aside that there was a disagreement either among ministers within the town or with Ben Alexander over the issue of gay rights.

The churches of the town are equally in agreement with Mr Alexander's central message that spiritualism, ouija boards, tarot cards, magic and other forms of occult and the psychic can be highly dangerous and deeply damaging.

Your readers may be interested to know that during his two week visit to the UK, Ben Alexander appeared as a scheduled guest on six radio and television programmes, and even spoke for half an hour as a caller on the James Whale show on Talk Radio. Ben may be heard speaking regularly on Premier Radio and hopes to return to the UK next year.

The Rev Peter Thomas,

Borehamwood Baptist Church,

Furzehill Road, Borehamwood.

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