The Anglican Scotist analyzes the Campaign to Frighten Rowan (CaFRow) currently being conducted by the Anglican right. Bishop Michael Nazir Ali is the latest campaigner to issue a most likely empty threat to “boycott” the Lambeth Conference. The campaign is foundering, however. Primates of the Council of Anglican Provinces in African rebuffed Archbishop Peter Akinola’s attempt to organize a continent-wide boycott at their recent meeting, and some bishops from Akinola’s own province, the Church of Nigeria, have already accepted their invitations.
The Scotist’s prediction:
[W]hether they leave soon for a new communion of their own devising, or waffle and wrangle some more–and it seems to me this type of pressure will continue as long as it can be ginned up by the usual suspects–this is the high-water mark. The big bombs yet to fall–Fort Worth and others trying to leave–will not yield the hoped for results, separation and replacement, because there isn’t sufficient support in the [Church of England], as that would require being willing to split the CoE: the quitters becoming disestablished. The big bombs will fall in all likelihood, and there will be a big crash, but that will not qualitatively shift the situation.