"It is clear to us that the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church (TEC) has not given an unequivocal response to the requests of the Primates at Dar es Salaam. Therefore we affirm the conclusion that the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA) has reached in the communique of their meeting in Mauritius in October 2007 that "a change in direction from our current trajectory is urgently needed" because "we want unity but not unity at any expense".

In view of this, they called for an urgent meeting of the Primates to receive and conclude the draft Anglican Covenant and to determine how the Communion should move forward.

"We reject the religion of accommodation and cultural conformity that offers neither transforming power nor eternal hope," said a statement signed by the nine primates from Africa and Asia who also called for a delay in the Lambeth Conference.

Several senior Church of England bishops, including the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, have also warned that they could boycott the conference, because of the conflict over the consecration of openly non-celibate homosexuals.

The tectonic plates of the Anglican Communion have once again shifted, and not very favorably for the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams who is doing his best to keep the communion from coming apart at the seams.

In September, the Primate of Nigeria, Peter Akinola sent an "open letter" from his House of Bishops to Dr. Williams calling on him to postpone Lambeth to allow space for "the current tensions to subside" and "the hard work of reconciliation," to begin. This has been done before, he said.

He also pegged any coming together on those who have already endorsed the Anglican Covenant "and so are able to come together as witnesses to our common faith."

Akinola wrote: "How can we meet as leaders of the Communion when our relationships are so sorely strained and our life together so broken that we cannot even share together in the Lord's Supper? It would be a mockery and bring dishonour to the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

Akinola also raised the specter of abuse directed towards those who hold to traditional views on matters of Human Sexuality as well as recent attempts to mandate unbiblical views in the UK through force of law and the protests and attacks by activists determined to disrupt and intimidate any group that seeks to uphold biblical teaching.

When VOL asked Dr. Williams at the recent meeting of the House of Bishops in New Orleans if he would postpone Lambeth in the light of Akinola's concerns, the archbishop said he would not.

Primates of CAPA, which has 13 member provinces have also urged that Lambeth '08 be postponed, and a "special session of the Primates' Meeting" be convened instead to review both the words and actions of TEC and to finalize the proposal for an Anglican Covenant.

While postponing Lambeth would be "costly," the primates said "the alternative - a divided conference with several provinces unable to participate and hundreds of bishops absent would be much more costly to our life and witness. It would bring an end to the Communion, as we know it."

In New Orleans, James Rosenthal, Communications director for the ACC confirmed that Lambeth would not be postponed. Dr Williams has previously indicated that he has no intention of acceding to calls to postpone it.

The Archbishop of Canterbury also said there would be no meeting of the Primates before Lambeth 2008.

But now the pressure is on and the nine Primates want an emergency summit to resolve the crisis of unresolved future consecrations of non-celibate homosexuals to the episcopacy.

Ironically, their call came just days after the 490th anniversary of the day Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Cathedral in Wittenberg, prompting the Reformation.

Interestingly enough, it is not just the orthodox who would like to see Lambeth postponed. Ultra-liberal Utah Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish wrote a letter to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori calling on her to urge the Archbishop to cancel the Lambeth Conference for 2008. She wrote: "The Communion is in such disarray over who recognizes who, and the participation of irregularly consecrated bishops, that little good can come from the fragmented gatherings sure to take place at the Conference, and even attendance at common worship is unlikely."

She ripped a draft of a Covenant that she described as "exclusionary, that centralizes authority, or that adds to the core doctrine of our faith." She also said the cost of holding the Lambeth Conference under the present circumstances is disproportionate to its benefits, and to the good that can be done elsewhere in the church.

IN the midst of this crisis over Lambeth, two orthodox archbishops have vowed to go on crossing boundaries and taking orthodox dioceses under their ecclesiastical wings, should they request it. The Most Rev. Peter Akinola (Nigeria) and Southern Cone Primate Gregory Venables both said they will continue to provide a safe spiritual haven for orthodox parishes and dioceses in distress. Venables said in an interview that his province had agreed to provide oversight for U.S. dioceses that leave the Episcopal Church. "Conservatives in America and elsewhere cannot wait in limbo any longer. They need a safe haven now," he told the Daily Telegraph in London. "The new realignment demonstrates the depths of the divisions that already exist." Four dioceses: San Joaquin, Ft. Worth, Pittsburgh and Quincy are in the final stages of moving out of the Episcopal Church despite legal threats of disciplinary action from Mrs. Jefferts Schori. Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, whose diocese voted last week to realign with a foreign primate, responded to the threat of Episcopal Church disciplinary action with Luther's famous quote, "Here I stand, I can do no other."

Four Church of England bishops have come out backing Duncan against the warning letter from Jefferts Schori. The English bishops' statement, which was instigated by the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, read, "We deeply regret the increase in the atmosphere of litigiousness revealed by the Presiding Bishop's letter to Bishop Duncan. At this time, we stand with him and with all who respond positively to the Primates' Dar es Salaam requests. We hope the Archbishop's response to Bishop John Howe of Central Florida will also apply to Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh."

The Bishop of Chester, Dr Peter Forster, said the statement gave personal support to Bishop Duncan. He described the Presiding Bishop's letter as "aggressive, inappropriate, and unfortunate". "They are acting as if it is the OK Corral. This is the North American culture: it is a managerial rather than a pastoral approach.

"What's needed is a pastoral, healing approach, which attempts to find a way forward," he wrote.

With the entry of Church of England bishops into the Episcopal fray, the stakes just keep getting higher and higher. English Evangelicals have publicly stated they want to ordain their own priests and have bishops that reflect their theology.

In December, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a Virginia-based breakaway group linked to Nigeria, will consecrate four new bishops in the U.S. under the watchful gaze of Archbishop Peter Akinola. CANA already has two American bishops and one from Nigeria. This will up the stress factor for Mrs. Jefferts Schori.

At the same time, liberals in the United States and Canada continue to campaign for their churches to allow blessings for same-sex unions, another policy the traditionalists reject.

What is happening now is nothing short of a high stakes poker game.

Even as primates and bishops call for the postponement of Lambeth, some 40 evangelical and Anglo-Catholic members of the Church of England's General Synod pledged their support to the Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, in his dispute with the US Presiding Bishop over the proposed secession of his diocese from The Episcopal Church.

In a letter published in The Church of England Newspaper, the members of General Synod along with a number of leaders of Forward and Faith and the Church Society, stated they were "outraged" by the threats of litigation against Pittsburgh by the "current leadership" of the Episcopal Church, who "appear to be unitarian and universalist in theology, and coercively utopian in social practice."

Last week, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori warned Bishop Duncan that she would file a presentment against him, seeking to summon him for trial before the House of Bishops, if he permitted his diocese to change its bylaws.

How Dr. Williams resolves all this will take more than Solomonic wisdom. If he has an ace up his sleeve, or he happens to hold a winning hand in this ecclesiastical poker game, then he will have to play that hand very soon, because time is running out and the SS Anglican Communion is now on its final voyage and the passengers are terminally restless.

END