Your friend and mine, Clarknt67, wrote This diary the other day about a right-wing Christian leader who accused the Episcopal Church of "not believing in anything".
Now I love Clark's diaries, but I especially loved this one. Episcopalian/Anglican Kossacks came out of the woodwork in droves to discuss all sorts of things, share stories, beliefs, quibble about doctrinal issues and most of all, share our common love for a Church which practices radical inclusion in the spirit of the Gospels in a way which clearly infuriates the religious right. I dare say we "occupied" the diary. Clark let us.
But it gets better, so follow me over the fold:
If you read that diary, and read the hundreds of comments, one of the things that will be clear is that lots of people who are NOT Episcopalians/Anglicans came out of the woodwork to talk about how they enjoyed visiting our services. Or praying in our churches. Or praising our National Cathedral. Or asserting the very real fact that there are Universalist Anglicans. We talked about a lot of things, Anglican things, Episcopalian things.
What was beautiful to me about that diary and the comments which followed, was the tremendous outpouring of love and respect--from Anglicans, atheists, Roman Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Jews and many many others--for our fellow persons, the respect for their inherent dignity, and of course--because there were so many Anglicans around--fun Church humor.
The Episcopal Church and many of the Churches in the worldwide Anglican Communion are committed to the very things many Kossacks are committed to, and it showed.
In a way, I apologize to Clarknt67 for how we sort of hijacked that diary. But write a diary about Episcopalians/Anglicans, and on the Daily Kos, we're going to come out like it's Sherry Hour--sorry, Coffee Hour--after a holiday Mass. I am so grateful, though, that Clark wrote it. It showed that even non-Anglicans found that horrible Blackholm fellow offensive and uninformed. In the comments, for the most part, we approached that with radical Love, radical Inclusion, and the love our Savior showed to the Woman at the Well and beyond.
Thanks, Clarknt67. You're a great example, a great activist, a great writer, and terribly brave to write that diary and then let the Anglicans have a good romp in defense of our Faith and our love of you, of one another, and of those with whom we disagree.
--Brother Commonmass.