We Have Come Too FAR!

This is Dust to Dust updated from the newest releases from Peter Akinola.

" Sometimes we think that we can replace the need for repentance with activities, programmes, endless meetings, conventions and communiqués --- we are wrong!"

"In preparation for the meeting I asked The American Anglican Council to prepare the  attached report on the continuing situation of The Episcopal Church to enable people in the wider Communion to have a fuller perspective of the circumstances in North America. I shared it with my colleagues in the Global South but did not release it more widely in the hope that we would receive assurances from the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada that they were willing to exercise genuine restraint towards those Anglicans in North America unwilling to embrace their several innovations."

These are two quotes from letters from Archbishop Akinola.  This second quote/letter is supported by tired old saws from the American Anglican Council about how heresies have been "foisted" on the likes of John David Schofield, John Guernsey, Robert Duncan,  Jack Leo Iker and the rest of those tired old men who just want a little piece of the action.  About how the Episcopal Church continues to insist that he property taken by the scalawags be returned now!  That lawsuits continue when the Episcopal Church should just allow millions and millions of dollars be taken from it with no retort and in the name of gracious restraint.   

The first quote is from ++Akinola's address to the Church of Nigeria after the meeting in Alexandria.  I think it is time to once again ask what is going on?  Well, it could be that there are far too many bishops and "diocese" hanging out in "Limbo" (the place not the game) and they cannot come back since most were deposed and in on case renounced his vows.  It could be that the ACNA desperately needs to find existence and ++Akinola means to give it to them (strangely enough Greg Venables has been very quite of late).  But I prefer to think that ++Akinola has decided he no longer wants to be "under the thumb" of the Archbishop of Canterbury.  He figures he can be Anglican and in fact be the new Archbishop of the revised Anglican Communion.  In essence, the end game envisioned by the Chapman Memorandum and extrapolated by the Jerusalem Declaration.   

But what if reconciliation were to occur? Well let's take a look.  If reconciliation were to occur the likes of Duncan and Iker and MInns and Guernsey and Schofield would be history.  The laity that followed these folks would be OUT.  Physically and literally out of the communion.  They have come to far and have stepped beyond the point of no return.  They cannot go back.  Those that supported this coup de'tat, Akinola, Venables, Orombi, Jensen and the rest stand to lose not only prestige but ALL THAT MONEY.  Not just cash, but buildings, grounds and real and personal property.  It would all be gone and they would all be out.  Real and very large egos are at stake here.  

In essence, what he is saying is I want what I want and you cannot stop me.  Sure, there are all types of rationale that are thrown at this.  There is an abundance of mostly old testament stuff.  Very little new testament is ever quoted by the Global South.  Very little of "the words of Jesus" are quoted.  

These folks, AAC, CANA, ACNA, AMiA, etc. claim that the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are playing a "zero-sum game".   Of the two sides, who stands to lose more upon reconciliation? I suggest that ECUSA and Anglican Church of Canada have far less to lose. We get back what we have always held.  We speak of inclusivity and we mean what we say.  No one returning has to necessarily change his or her mind and everybody worships in the same building they always have.  Ah, but what about the orthodites?  Well for starters, Schofield, Iker, Duncan, Wantland, Guernsey, Minns, at the rest are out - if not physically then certainly clerically.  The millions of dollars in property never get to Venables, Akinola, Orambi and the likes.  In addition, and IMHO, the worst of it, they each and everyone lose face in their own provinces and with their own people.  

There is no question that the fix is in.  Not because of anything that the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Church of Canada have done, but rather because the many "old men's group" want it that way and by God we are going to have it!