“Quick! Let’s get the rules changed fast before we look like boorish idiots!”

The Anglican Church of Nigeria and the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA) have both made, nearly in sync, the same proposal:

1. “Postpone” the Lambeth Council for some indefinite time, because, well, there are just too many non-primate bishops there for us to cow, and besides it’s the Archbishop of Canterbury’s show, and so we can’t control it. 
2. Call a “special” meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion.  Because, of course, this is an actual emergency that will spell the end of the world if we know it if not settled right now (and the way we want it).  If people don’t treat it as an emergency, then they won’t pay attention to our demands.  Besides which, it would add to the reputation we’ve established of Primates meetings somehow being the Official Governing Curia of the Communion.
3. Decide at such a meeting on whether or not the Episcopal Church has truckled sufficiently to satisfy us.  I mean, obviously the answer is no, but let’s force through something to officially decide that, or at least give us enough words that we can use them as brickbats against those pagan heathen heretics.
4. Settle on how we’ll settle on an Anglican Oath of Orthodoxy and Fealty Covenant so that those darned Episcopalians will know for absolutely certain that we don’t want to associate with gay-lovers.  Decide on the test (Right! Now!), and then set a deadline (love those deadlines) to vote on it.
5. Let Lambeth then continue with whomever is left, where all will bask in a self-righteous glow of orthodoxy and have no real reason to actually meet because everyone believes exactly the same thing and bounces their balls in sync.

Or something like that. I don’t think they used those exact words.

They use some other justifications, of course.  Lambeth should be postponed because “a divided conference” (which would seem the perfect time to come together to talk) “with several provinces unable to participate” (unwilling to show up where TEC or Bp. Gene Robinson might be) “and hundreds of bishops absent” (because a handful of irregularly consecrated bishops aren’t invited, as is the ABC’s prerogative) “would … bring an end to the Communion, as we know it.” 

Huh?  Bring an end to the Communion?  Only if people decide not to be there — and it’s the folks proposing this that are exactly the folks already saying they’ll boycott.  The message seems to be, “Here’s our demands for attending, but we don’t want it to sound like blackmail, so we’ll try to couch it as the Right Thing to Do.”  Or, perhaps, “Awfully nice Communion you got here — be a shame if something were to happen to it …”

There are other rationales offered.  Lambeth should be postponed so that the “current tensions” can “subside” (without either our having to boycott it or be forced to sit at table with Those People).  This would “leave room for the hard work of reconciliation that must be done” (i.e., for us to have our way first).  Most importantly, it would “ensure that those invited to the Lambeth Conference have already endorsed the Covenant and so can come together as witness to our common faith” (i.e., only the folks we decide on as True Believers will be invited, not all those … well, you know).

The conservative hard-liners are pressing for nothing to be done until an up-or-down vote is taken on the creed they choose to write and will use to decide who is In and who is Out.  The ABC is inviting folks to come to table to be talk and reflect and reconciled.  Which strikes you as being the sort of Christian you’d care to associate with?

(via Mark Harris)