"Let us flee," said the fly (ing Bishop)!

I was engaged in a rather tense and potentially difficult conversation regarding two flying bishops, one retiring bishop and a further two retired bishops who together will be hereafter be known as (no, not 'Wild Stallion') but the fleeing five (FF) as perhaps opposed to the 'Fab Four!

I was told that the damage inflicted upon the C of E by their departure to the Ordinariate was a stand for the followers of the 'True Church' within the Anglican structure. This was a 'death punch' which sounded the 'death knell' for the Anglicans who would be sorry when the 'True Church' had left for Rome. For all that would be left was people with 'no liturgical expression and no ecclesiastical structures or history!' Once settled in Rome the faithful could work for a proper 'Catholic' Church of England (in England).

Blimey, all this talk of death this and that and no liturgy makes it sound a bit like a tub-thumping American Pentecostalist meeting doesnt it?

I looked for solace towards another member of my group, but they told me that soon and very soon the 'orthodox' would be leaving to be part of the 'Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans', who once away from the errors of being Anglican could find the freedom to be Anglican!

My Evo, charismatic colleague just sat there content that son and very soon the whole thing would collapse and the happier (and clappier) evangelical type could all just change the signs outside their buildings to 'Vineyard' or 'New Wine' and rejoice at being away from gays, liberals and those 'Mariolatry' types.

Blinking Heck people - here's a few truths from the place where I am now hiding:

1. Like the Lotto, 'You have to be in it to win it' (or perhaps that should be, 'to influence it!). Living in Roma and being RC gives you no right to comment and no right of influence in the Anglican offshoot that is the C of E. You've gone and you've left us to stew and head towards the very situation you predicted (and have assisted perhaps by your departure?).

2. If you leave something, then you are ex-somethings! Therefore, leaving the C of E, or the Anglican Communion, surely leaves us with the Fellowship of Confessing Ex-Anglicans. You, like those eating Spaggy Bog and sipping Chianti, might be happy where you have absented yourself to, but again - you have no right to expect to be able to influence the C of E or others within the Anglican branding.

3. If you move to a position where 'believers baptism' and being distinctly 'not Anglican' are not on the menu, you are not Anglican either and even though you're happy and perhaps even (clappily) growing, you've left Anglicanism for new and distinctly different shores.

For those of us called to be Anglican and who have chosen to be so because of theological realities and understanding, it seems that there are many 'faithful Christians' who seek their own satisfaction at the cost of unity and voracity within the Anglican Communion.

And then there's the liberals (whom we will most assuredly get round to) - time to go, more discussion time beckons!!!