by: Thomas Bushnell, BSG

Suppose Peter Akinola comes to Rowan Williams tomorrow and says: "Tell the Episcopal Church that they are no longer in communion with you, or else we will say we are no longer in communion with Canterbury." What would +Rowan do? We already know; he'd say, "Good bye, and godspeed; we're sorry to see you go, Peter." Suppose Robert Duncan comes to Rowan Williams tomorrow and says: "Tell the Episcopal Church that they are no longer in communion with you, but that you are in communion with this new organization Jack Iker and I have set up, or else we will say we are no longer in communion with Canterbury." What would +Rowan do? We already know; he'd say, "Good bye, and godspeed; we're sorry to see you go, Bob."

What Peter Akinola wants, and what Duncan and Iker want, is for +Rowan to say "I am no longer in communion with the Episcopal Church, but I am in communion with Duncan and Iker and whatever organization they have formed." It is this goal to which Akinola, Duncan, and Iker are all working towards. But simply making the ultimatum to +Rowan won't get what they want, which is why they are proceeding as they do.

The strategy is to work on a two-pronged front. First, to attempt an international end-run around the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to tell him that his judgment is irrelevant and that it is not up to him to decide who is in communion with the See of Canterbury and who is not. Second, to create as much dissention within the Episcopal Church as possible, to refuse any attempts to settle issues within the Episcopal Church.

The international end-run is not working, because while +Rowan is willing to allow people to get themselves in a snit, there is no indication whatsoever that he countenances what they are doing. He seems manipulable and weak to people, but watching him and seeing how strong he is when he does speak, convinces me that he is simply waiting. So long as this or that international Anglican body, wrenched around by the schism-mongers, pretends to dictate this or that rule or policy or procedure, his silence is not consent, it is not any kind of agreement that the schism-mongers are in the right. Rather, he is simply willing to let them do what they want, without either being upset or angry, without ordering them around in return. I think his is a wonderful model of restraint and gentle firmness. I used to be distressed at what I took to be his weakness; now I see it is the strength of a man who will not fight needlessly, who knows that his ego is not bound up in this, and that he can stolidly and simply do what is right without being swept around by the storms around him. Put differently, he knows that it is not up to him whether there will be a schism. Duncan can make a schism, but Bruno and Shaw and Bennison cannot prevent it. +Rowan knows this, he knows that whether there is a schism is not a decision which is up to him, it is not a question he can control. It is up to Akinola and Duncan and Iker to decide if there will be a schism and when.

Eventually the schism-mongers will realize this, and several other things. They surely must already realize that they simply will never command a majority in the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. It will, someday, be necessary for Duncan to decide whether he wants to stay in the Episcopal Church. It is a certainty that the Episcopal Church isn't going to swing to his way of thinking, so what does he want? I think he wants to leave, but he wants to leave with as many of the toys as he can get. The goal is to set up the leaving in such a way as to be able to take as much property and cash as he can, because if he simply left, and said "I'm joining this-or-that other church, or starting my own," he wouldn't be allowed to take any of the toys.

So my prognostication: The General Convention will say that Duncan and Iker can stay if they want, or leave if they want. The General Convention will reiterate and firm up the rule that if you leave you don't get to ransack the store on the way out and steal the toys. The House of Bishops will make clear that violations of diocesan boundaries will earn trials. No rule will be passed prohibiting the ordination of gay bishops, no liturgy for same-sex blessings will be approved (though it will certainly be reiterated that such blessings are within the bounds of our common life, and it will probably be said further that there is no obstacle to performing them, which may change the policy of bishops like Ihloff).

After General Convention 2006, Akinola and his crowd will throw a holy fit. And the upshot will be two separate Anglican communions. One will include the Churches of England, Ireland, and Wales, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Churches of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Japan), the Episcopal Churches of Scotland, Mexico, and Brazil, the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (or whatever its new name is, they are apparently changing it). The other pseudo-Anglican communion will include the Anglican Church of Nigeria, the Church of the Southern Cone, and whatever other churches join them. There are some provinces that it's tricky to predict where they will swing in the end.

In the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, a small minority will leave, take as many toys as they can get their hands on, form jurisdictions, and join up with the new "continuing Anglican communion," in opposition to the actual See of Canterbury. They will claim, as continuing Anglicans always have, to be "continuing Anglicans" in some curious sense in which "continuing" means "in schism" and "Anglican" means "not connected to the Archbishop of Canterbury."

In other words, we know what +Rowan will do, and there is no reason to think anything other than the following. If there are to be two communions, and each province votes which it will be in, we can already line up pretty much every province (with a few uncertain cases) and see where it will be. And we know, with dead certainty, that the Church of England, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Church of Wales, and the Episcopal Church of Scotland (and plenty others) will all be in the same group when push comes to shove.

Duncan and Iker are smart men, and they know as well as I do that this is the upshot when all the dust finally settles. This means that all their noise is not an attempt to achieve some other (essentially impossible) result, but rather an attempt to simply carry away as many toys as they can in the end. It is up to the rest of us, who don't intend any leaving, to decide how many toys we are willing to let them steal.

[This article has been shared with the permission of Br. Thomas.]

It was originally posted at:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/thomb/59858.html

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