The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has asked Abp Akinola at the eleventh hour to cancel his trip to the US, or at least not to install a new Church of Nigeria bishop in Virginia today. Akinola is already here; let’s see if he decides to thumb his nose at the rest of Canterbury’s request, or if he just claims he never got the letter.
Meanwhile, the gathering in Virginia is interesting in terms of who is and who isn’t there. Some other “we don’t want to be Episcopalians any more” groups aren’t terribly enthused by Nigeria’s moves, including some earlier break-away groups.
Down in the Springs, the Episcopal Vestry for Grace & St Stephens is telling its followers not to participate in the vote for the parish to break way from the Episcopal Church to join CANA. It claims the 20 May vote is (a) rigged, and (b) not legitimate anyway (holding to the official line that parishioners can leave the church, but the parish per se cannot). It’s a legal and practically correct argument — but I’ve never been fond of the “stay home the vote” types of tactics.
The CANA Vestry, meanwhile, says that Bp O’Neill is a medieval tyrant and a doo-doo head and against democracy and American values and all that. Ah, good ol’ ad hominem attacks — the very model of Christianity.
Abp Akinola claims he never got the letter from the ABC until, whoops, too late. But, then, he publicly blows off the request (whatever it was — the actual letter from Canterbury hasn’t been published, just described by them) and says, “It’s all those unbiblical Episcopalians pushing us to this, it’s costing us lots of money to do it and we’re not getting any money back no sir, not even from all those wealthy conservatives we keep courting, and souls are at stakes, and so I think this is the right thing to do, thank you very much.”