THE GANG’S ALL HERE: The New York Daily News reported in June that members of gangs such as the Bloods and the Latin Kings, who become parents, are routinely having their babies “blessed” into their gangs in religious ceremonies, and that an Episcopal priest has been officiating at the rituals.

The priest said he had “blessed in” about 300 kids to two gangs, according to an account of the Daily News story in the Tacoma News Tribune. During the ceremonies, the babies are swaddled in clothes bearing the gang’s colors. The parents reportedly teach “chubby little fingers to (make) gang signs” even before the toddlers learn to talk.

A VirtueOnline account of the same story identified the blessing cleric as Fr. Luis Barrios, a priest associate at St. Mary’s Church in Harlem. Barrios’ actions were too much even for the cleric’s liberal superior, New York Episcopal Bishop Mark Sisk, who was said to be investigating the case.

FREUDIAN SLIP? Colorado Episcopal Bishop Robert O’Neill, readers may recall, has distinguished himself recently by seeking to depose 18 clergy whom – eight years earlier - his predecessor had officially transferred to the authority of a foreign Anglican province. O’Neill decided that that action was not “effective,” and demanded that the clergy - all of whom are now serving in the Rwandan-backed Anglican Mission in the Americas - either renounce their orders voluntarily or be kicked out. Earlier, he and his diocese filed charges against and ultimately deposed the outspokenly conservative rector of his largest parish, Grace Church and St. Stephen’s in Colorado Springs. Unsurprisingly, the congregation seceded from the diocese when the charges were filed, so O’Neill and his diocese are now suing the parish for its property.

So it was with interest that we read the claim from a self-identified priest’s wife on the popular weblog Titus One Nine that Bishop O’Neill showed up for a visitation at her and her husband’s parish late last year carrying, as a symbol of his office, not a “shepherd’s staff” (crozier), but a “cattleman’s staff,” used to help move and direct cattle. In other words, a cattle prod. As we got no response to our query to the diocese about this, we can only assume that O’Neill’s wielding of this object was meant as a bow toward the western state flock that he leads, and not to evoke ribald laughter among conservatives who see it as a comment on his style of episcopal leadership. But, well, too late now.

NOT TRENDIER THAN THOU? Is living in Montana, a less populous state, almost like living on another planet? We had to wonder, after reading a Living Church account of the apparently seriously-intended, but puzzling, message that Montana Bishop Franklin Brookhart had for his flock earlier this year. He wrote of The Episcopal Church that “our approach has always been to embrace the slow steady, solid way represented in diocesan and congregational life. We have avoided, in the main, jumping aboard the latest trend.”

HAVING A WONDERFUL TIME; TOO BAD YOU’RE NOT HERE: Okay, you’re certain that these are the End Times, and that you are among the saved and will soon be airlifted to Heaven in the Rapture. What do you do, though, about those near and dear to you whom you believe will not be among the Raptured, who are lost?

An enterprising group of American believers in the imminent Rapture of the faithful have a technical fix for this worry. You’ve Been Left Behind LLC (www.youvebeenleftbehind.com) offers a last-ditch way for Rapture-confident Christians to preach to their recalcitrant loved ones one last time after the Rapture - by e-mail.

For a $40 annual subscription fee, believers can buy “one last opportunity to reach your lost family and friends for Christ at a time when they might just be willing to hear it for the first and last time.” The website adds that the unsaved “will know it (the Rapture) was true and that they have blown it. There will be a small window of time where they might be reached for the Kingdom of God. We have made it possible for you to send them a letter of love and a plea to receive Christ one last time. You can also send information based on scripture as to what will happen next. Each fulfilled prophecy will cause your letter and plea to be remembered and a decision to be made,” the site says. This will be “one last chance to bring them to Christ and snatch them from the flames!”

You’ve Been Left Behind, which describes itself as “programmed and run by Christians, for Christians,” promises to send out e-mails six days after the Rapture to the people on the subscribers’ lists. Subscribers can store up to 250 megabytes of documents online, and can send these pre-prepared messages to as many as 62 people per subscriber.

But what about the operators of the service - how will they send e-mails if they’ve been swept up to Heaven? The site owners say their computer will know that the believers have been Raptured “when three of our five team members scattered around the U.S. fail to log in over a three-day period. Another three days are given to fail safe any false triggering of the system.” If none of the team members logs in for six days, the computer is programmed to send out the “you blew it” letters.

If this “fail safe” arrangement seems reminiscent of the (unsuccessful) nuclear safety measures in Cold War movies such as Fail-Safe, and Dr. Strangelove, that merely proves that you are not a true believer.

Skeptics might also wonder why, if the founders of this company think the Rapture is imminent and they’ve got a ticket for it, they believe it necessary to collect money from credulous customers; as the saying goes, you can’t take it with you. Then again, one does have to eat between now and the Rapture, doesn’t one?

A HUFF OVER PUFFS: Readers will likely recall our report over the summer about the “wedding” of two male Anglican clergy in a Church of England parish in London; the service used a mild variation of the traditional prayer book marriage rite. Though the C of E bishops’ controversial policy allowing clergy to enter into same-sex civil unions probably paved the way for such a breach of church teaching, a furor nevertheless erupted over the ceremony, conducted at St. Bartholomew the Great, by its rector, the Rev. Martin Dudley, who claimed it was not really a wedding. The homosexual couple left town, and Dudley appeared likely to be disciplined. Such high drama prompted one C of E priest, Peter Mullen of St. Michael’s Cornhill, London, to put poetic pen to paper, and this was the result:

The Bishop of London is in a high huff

Because Dr. Dudley has married a puff;

And not just one puff; he’s married another:

Two priests, two puffs and either to other.

“It isn’t a wedding, for that’s not allowed;

They’ve just come together and promised and vowed

To shack up and snug up, to have and to hold:

Ooh aren’t we radical! Ooh aren’t we bold!”

Now here’s a most queer and most wonderful thing:

He’s given his hand, he’s offered his ring;

And each to the other forever will bend,

After their troll in the coach to West End.

Not a flash wedding, no pics in Hello!

Just a honeymoon cottage, convenient so.

Of such Dr. Dudley a goldmine has found,

From shaven-head puftas the nuptial pink pound.

The new Church of England embraces diversity,

A new modulation on ancient perversity:

“I’m C of E and PC so don’t think it odd of me

To offer a license and blessing for sodomy.”

REALLY NEW LITURGY: As the fretful, fumbling 2008 Lambeth Conference was drawing to a close (see our special report for more on that), the Confessing Evangelical weblog (http://www.confessingevangelical.com) mercifully came to the rescue with a “Service for the Fudging of the Schism.”

Purportedly, the rite was drawn from the Alternative Rocky Horror Service Book, published by Nothing in Common Worship. We can do no better than to simply quote the service here (which appears to feature the alter-egos of three well known prelates from England, Africa and Canada):

President: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in a very real sense to say as little as possible about sincerely held differences of opinion that exist between members of our Anglican community over a matter that we do not wish to talk about.

(Here he may call upon representatives of the two parties to come forward.)

President: Do you, Bishop Onanugu, from the Church of the Holy Exorcist in Lagos, agree to be quiet for the next three years in the hope that the whole thing will blow over?

Bishop Onanugu: I don’t.

President: And do you, Bishop Marvyn de Lumberjack from the Church of the Village People in Moosejam, also agree to be quiet for the next three years?

Bishop de Lumberjack: I don’t.

President: And will you further agree to love, honor and respect one another and your differing traditions for as long as you both shall live?

Both: No, we won’t.

President: We will now give each other a sign of peace.

(The Bishops then exchange solemn blows in the sight of the congregation.)

President: We will now sing the Hymn of Thanksgiving for our deliverance from schism.

All sing Hymn No.94, “Fight the good fight, We both think we’re right.”

Dismissal

The Archbishop of Canterbury (for it is he): I think that all went rather well.

Bishops: Get lost, beardie!