Say no to the chest pounding bully boys

Early reports from the primates meeting in Tanzania are running par for the course.

As expected the bully boys--Akinola, Duncan, Minns, et al-- are again pounding their chests and yet again demanding their pipe dream: a new Anglican province in America, to be run by a bishop of their choice, to replace the Episcopal Church, which they want excommunicated.

This has been their game plan for years and they are again playing the same tune. They keep playing the same tune because so many have rolled out the red carpet for them to do it.

The time has come for Archbishop Rowan Williams and the rest of the primates to say no to these bully boys. The bully boys want two things. First, is to be in control. Second, is to be in control.

Anyone at this primates meeting who values what Anglicanism in general and the Episcopal Church in particular have offered the world in Christian witness must make up their mind during this week. Either they will cave to the bully boys, or they will tell them no thanks.

They should tell them no thank you in no uncertain terms. This is how they should say it: no thank you.

They shouldn't be coerced by threats of what the bully boys may do if they don't get what they want because it will only satisfy them (if that) until the next round of chest pounding. Nor should the primates be coerced to "expel" the most senior church in the Communion when time and again the Episcopal Church has come to the table, and with only one condition: come to the table.

If this condition of fellowship, which is in fact a prerequisite for any kind of community at all, is too much for the Anglican Communion primates to stomach, then the Anglican Communion is finished.