Not Standing Quite So Firmly

The battle has not been won, apparently. Somebody named Greg Griffiths at a website called Stand Firm (more temperate than Virtue Online, less temperate than Anglican Mainstream) is predicting that the so called 'global-south' and the American dissenters are going to lose badly at Tanzania. He doesn't use those terms - in fact he tells his opponents (and he names all sorts of his detractors by their Christian names in a rather amusing segment which I'll let you read for yourself at the URL above) that they've all tripped over their dinks (those that got 'em, anyway) - that they've gone too far, that their day is done, their dog is lame and their 'wagon is done fixed'. In the midst of threats and vitriol, however, these are his salient predictions:

1. There will be no crowning of a new American Primate at the meeting in Tanzania. This is certainly not what we heard earlier about how there was going be a chair somewhere and Robert Duncan was going to be sat upon it with a dwarf sitting at his feet, a bucket of mandarin oranges beside him and a girl fanning him with an ostrich feather. This was the only part of the meeting that I was looking forward to hearing about. The whole prospect of having people dash to the available chairs and someone thrust onto a throne was like a little bit of British history come back to life.

2. Rowan Williams will only 'ultimately' side with the global south. I'm assuming this means that he will not side with the global south in Tanzania. He will choose his words carefully at the upcoming meeting and then go home and have a cup of tea and think about who he's getting advice from.

3. Rowan Williams will never preside over the ejection of a Province from the Anglican Communion. There is no mechanism for this and this would not be his preferred course of action.

4. Defections from the defectors will occur after Tanzania fails to produce Elvis. Defectors are warned that Anglicanism will be renewed - again 'ultimately' (try telling Inland Revenue that you will 'ultimately' pay them) and that if these 'twice turned' ever want to come back they will be returning as from 'a rear echelon' - the relationship 'will not be the same'. These I take it are threats - an angry response to something which may or may not be happening among people known to Mr Griffiths. There are obviously some passionately held feelings here. We won't dwell on it.

5. Peter Akinola from Nigeria may not come to Lambeth 2008. I'm not sure how this squares with the ABC 'ultimately' siding with the global south. This may need to occur over a distance.

6. The American Presiding Bishop will have support. These supporters are grudgingly called 'the usual suspects' but the spectre of +KJS being left alone standing under the unanimous glare of the Primates is perhaps going to be too good to be true.

The article doesn't come across as one great concession to a rocky road ahead but the points it contains seem to indicate nothing else.