A Saturday morning stroll around the blog block

First of all, thanks to Jeff for updating the Voices of Witness site with information about the "in production" "Voices of Witness: Africa" project.

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Walking With Integrity has some fun-facts-to-know-and-tell about post-GAFCON Anglicanism in Kenya: NO GAYS ALLOWED. (From the Nairobi Star article: The Anglican Church of Kenya now wants to stop gays attending church.Gays and lesbians will not join the Anglican congregations anymore...unless they renounce their sexuality.)

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Over at Titusonenine, Kendall is having some fun with headlines. The Dar Es Salaam Citizen ran a piece on the Tanzanian church entitled "Church rejects ordination of homosexuals as bishops." Kendall added his own editorial comment to the headline as posted this morning on T-19 "Anglican Church in Tanzania rejects ordination of active homosexuals as bishops." Interesting (to me) that the first sentence of the article reads, "The Anglican Church of Tanzania has reiterated its opposition to the consecration of homosexuals and women as bishops." I'm guessing [a] women bishops are no longer "headline news" and I'm wondering [b] if the rejected women are of the active or the inactive sort.

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Mark Harris offers some typically excellent reflections on Anglican Life After Gafcon.in his piece "Now that the dance is over ..." over at PREDLUDIUM.

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And finally, Episcopal Cafe notes some accolades for inclusion at -- of all places -- the Huffington Post, where blogger Verena von Pfetten had this to say about Holy Trinity NYC ... a parish that drew her attention because of its explicit welcome to canine congregants:

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In checking out the Church of the Holy Trinity's website, I found one little gem that seemed far more worthy of our attention.

Whoever you are, parishioner, friend, neighbor, or seeker, we are honored that you are visiting this website. We invite you to become part of the ministry and spiritual growth happening at Holy Trinity, a community embracing all people, across the spectrum of cultural, ethnic, racial, gender, sexual orientation, and class diversity, as full members of the household of God.

Now, I don't know if this is common, or if this is an episcopalian thing (because, to be honest, I'm not even sure what sort of Christianity episcopalian is), but I'm a lot more excited about this than I am about the chapel being Cheeseburger-friendly. Dogs don't care if they can go to church -- dogs are just as happy sneakily curled up on the sofa chewing a Nylabone while their owners are off saving their souls. And I'm also pretty sure it's not possible to make any sort of cogent argument about the history of discrimination against dogs. Humans, on the other hand, have a sordid and sickening history with prejudice in many and most churches.

So, let's turn our attention and our applause not to the inclusion of our canine companions who, let's be honest, could not care a less, but to the understanding and compassion this church has shown towards its human companions.

It's long overdue.

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It IS long overdue ... and just because it's a long way from coming in -- oh, say Kenya or Tanzania ... doesn't mean we should rejoice and be glad any less in the fact that there are places where God's love is being proclaimed and God's justice is being not just talked about but done!

So here endeth the stroll around the blog block and I'm off to do the ONLY thing on my "to do" list today: PACK FOR LAMBETH. (Oye vey!)

Later, alligators!