Predictions

Father Jake’s blog links to, and quotes from, two predictions about how all the fuss in the Episcopal Church will play out:

• From Bishop William Swing of California, The Mutiny Will Fail; the Church Will Abide; and
• From Thomas Bushnell, BSG, What would +Rowan do?, via Simeon.

Here’s an excerpt from the Bushnell piece:

...So my prognostication: The General Convention will say [in 2006] that Duncan and Iker can stay if they want, or leave if they want. The General Convention will reiterate and firm up the rule that if you leave you don’t get to ransack the store on the way out and steal the toys. …

After General Convention 2006, Akinola and his crowd will throw a holy fit. And the upshot will be two separate Anglican communions.

• One will include the Churches of England, Ireland, and Wales, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Churches of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Japan), the Episcopal Churches of Scotland, Mexico, and Brazil, the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (or whatever its new name is, they are apparently changing it).
• The other pseudo-Anglican communion will include the Anglican Church of Nigeria, the Church of the Southern Cone, and whatever other churches join them.
• There are some provinces that it’s tricky to predict where they will swing in the end.

In the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, a small minority will leave, take as many toys as they can get their hands on, form jurisdictions, and join up with the new “continuing Anglican communion,” in opposition to the actual See of Canterbury. They will claim, as continuing Anglicans always have, to be "continuing Anglicans" in some curious sense in which "continuing" means "in schism" and "Anglican" means "not connected to the Archbishop of Canterbury."

(Bullets and extra paragraphing added.)