Thursday, February 08, 2007

Coming Soon: The Tanzanian Circus

Andrew describes next week's Traveling Anglican Circus and Medicine Show. Here's part of it:

...Akinola of Nigeria will no doubt have something up his sleeve, ready to spring it on us. We can only imagine. I hear they are changing their constitution again and it will be historic. Maybe they will annex the rest of Virginia or perhaps they will finally send an Anglican bishop to England at long last.

I wonder how many people will be vacationing in Tanzania next week? I wonder how they will get all those pruning shears through airport security?

Bishop Wright of Durham has decided to let the world know that he and Rowan are such good buddies that he can tell the rest of us what he ought to think. In Wright's view, the Episcopal Church is schismatic for adhering to its polity and doing it's theology out in public for all to see. Meanwhile, he says that Duncan is not schismatic because holding the exit door open and shaking hands with those walking out is not the same as leaving...
Andrew also reminds us that we need to keep the Primates, and especially our Presiding Bishop, in our prayers:

...Just think. Our Primate and Presiding Bishop will have face all this, as if the pressure of being the first woman primate weren't enough. She has been called everything from a heretic to an apostate to a blasphemer. So if they don't talk to her, it certainly won't be because she's a woman, which is such a relief.

Katharine is asking us to pray for everyone who gathers next week. And she is right. We need to surround everyone there with the power of prayer. Her graciousness and prayerfulness is a sign and signal to the rest of us as to why this circus is worth all the agony.
The only objection I have to Andrew's comments is my need to assert that I run the medicine shows in these parts, and I have yet to receive my invitation from Canterbury. Any other reptilian ointments being hocked at this shindig must be considered inferior and potentially dangerous, regardless of the opinion of the majority of the Primates present.

J.

No comments:

Post a Comment