Just sign here … in blood, preferably

(I apologize for writing so much about this stuff, but it really chaps my hide — or makes me giggle — or both.  Hopefully it’s of some vague interest to at least some of you.)

The Church of Nigeria — whose archbishop Akinola has already said will not attend the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth Conference next year (because his “irregular” bishops in the US were not invited, but all those apostates in the Episcopal Church were) — is now asking the ABC to actually delay Lambeth.

Why delay?  The bishops of Nigeria give several reasons.

1. It’s waaaaaay to dangerous to go to England.  Really!  They have protests there, don’t you know?  People passing out leaflets!  Placards — placards, for the love of Christ — being waved about (you can’t make this stuff up, folks) in an insistent and (dare I say) protestant fashion!  Now, if only they’d hold it in Abuja or Lagos or someplace where the government would break out the troops to keep things under control.
2. Besides which, all those protests will make it seem like all the Anglican Communion is talking about these days is matters of human sexuality (really, I can’t make this stuff up).
3. Besides which, the English government is busy actively promoting debauched, anti-biblical homosexuality.  Who knows what might happen if the bishops were to attend?  (The worry is clear:  the government might throw them in jail!  And who knows what all those rampant (so to speak) homosexuals might do with those poor bishops then?)
4. How can the bishops go to Lambeth to learn to spend time in fellowship and mutual support “when there is such a high level of distrust, dislike and disdain for one another?”  Who knows how such distrust came about, but certainly coming together at a common table is no way to resolve it!
5. How can people focus on Christ in an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty, insecurity, and worry?  (No, really, I can’t make this stuff up.)

What, then, do the Nigerian bishops propose?  I was really expecting them to openly propose moving the Lambeth comference to someplace other than Lambeth — their own home turf, for example, where one would expect there would be no protesters, no pro-gay government, no free press, and no “fear and uncertainty” (unless, of course, one happened to be gay).

Instead, they cleverly suggest that the best thing to do before they all meet to try and resolve their differences together is try and resolve their difference remotely.  Just sign here …

I.e.,

1. Postpone Lambeth (see above) until “tensions subside” (and more proxy bishops can be named for the US and Canada). 
2. Call a special Primates Meeting (which clearly would be somewhere other than that Violent Sodom of Gay Protesters, England) to decide how badly the Episcopal Church has failed to toe the line, define once and for all what that line really is, and get everyone to agree on an Anglican Covenant that will define that line in ecclesiastical stone, with the Good Guys being on the side of the angels (and, of course, the Church of Nigeria).  Never mind that a Primates Meeting cannot officially do such a thing; it is whatever the folks with the most votes and loudest voices want it to be!  Never mind that this eliminates the other “Instruments of Unity” in the Communion (the ABC, and the laity-involved Anglican Consultative Council) as voices of authority — this is how to get the Bishops (and the Right Bishops at that) back in charge of things, by cracky!
3. Wait until all the Good Guys in the Good Guy Provinces have ratified that Covenant.  Then  reconvene Lambeth.  (It’s not clear how this will avoid all those debauched protesters and leaflet-wavers in the UK, unless it’s assumed that “Lambeth” at this point will exclude the Church of England).
4. Only invite the Good Guys (i.e., those who have ratified the Covenant and are actually doing what the Good Guys think they should be doing) to “Lambeth.”
5. Sit back in Lambeth and bask in the warmth of unanimity of opinion as to what being an Anglican means (i.e., being one of the Good Guys).  Dispel all those doubts and uncertainties and disagreements about sex which are so disagreeable to listen to (and which make people think all we Anglicans are concerned about is sex).

I said it before: you can’t make this stuff up.

In other words, exchange …

… an open invitation now to come to table together, to discuss, to listen, to try to reestablish the bonds of fellowship amongst the bishops of the Anglican Communion, under the auspices of the ABC …

… for …

… a closed club as soon as it can be arranged of those who pledge to obey the rules of the folks who already know what the rules should be.  Call it (a la Calvin and Hobbes) the G.R.O.S.S. Club (Get Rid Of Slimy gayS).  All attending can revel in the self-satisfaction of ideological purity and righteousness.

While the proposal is laughable on the face of it, it has one brilliant component — it makes the Nigerian defection and refusal to attend Lambeth not a matter of not having all been invited, or of being in some sort of dispute over Anglican fellowship, but a matter of security against the evil forces of gaydom arrayed against them.  It gives a cover for conservatives in the West, and martyrdom fodder for the folks back home.  It is, if I may say so, fiendishly clever.

Further commentary by Mark Harris (also here) and Fr Jake.