The hot rumor before Dar Es Salaam was that North American reasserters would get a new college of bishops. We got the Pastoral Scheme instead, and a lot of us were steamed. It never seemed like something TEC would actually do. What’s Plan B, we wondered. Well, it seems that the Pastoral Scheme was Plan B. TEC having decided to follow the “you’re not the boss of me” path, those Primates involved in US oversight are reverting to Plan A.

‘Course, this is difficult and uncertain work. Anyone who thinks that it’s just a matter of out with the old, in with the new” needs to read the chapter “Bad Bishops” in [Ephraim] Radner’s Hope among the Fragments. Dealing with corrupted parts of the Church has always been extremely difficult, and those of us who call ourselves traditionalists should be at least listening to older voices about this mess. We shouldn’t be doing whatever we want, because we want to. That’s the behavior that got us into this mess. On the other hand, I’m not sure that this situation isn’t wholly unprecedented. We’ve got an independently governed Christian unit that is fully in the hands of heretics who have rejected any outside calls to mend their ways, who are actively engaged in persecuting those who disagree with them, and who reject any interference.

So what will ++Rowan do after he writes his book on Dostoevsky? I dunno. His recent actions, or actions taken on his behalf, have fallen even deeper into a sort of chaotic inscrutability....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Analysis • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Primates • Primates Mtg Dar es Salaam, Feb 2007 • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Kenya • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts

1. edistobeachwalker wrote: Inscrutable is a good word.  Archbishop Rowan Williams completely blew how he handled the invitations to Lambeth 2008, with predictably disastrous results. June 30, 1:17 pm | [comment link]

2. freihofercook wrote: I agree #1.  See the fine Cann commentary here (http://webelf.wordpress.com/2007/06/14/cann-commentary-3/#more-135), including this: When Rowan Williams managed to get wayward ECUSA & Anglican Canada to sign onto the Dar Es Salaam Agreement, it wa s triumph of diplomacy and principle. The universally negative reaction of Schorites and Hutchisonians made that clear. This makes the recent near-blanket invites to Lambeth 2008 all the more stunning and seemingly ham-handed. June 30, 1:24 pm | [comment link]

3. Jennie TCO wrote: It certainly looks as if the land rush, gold rush or whatever rush we might call it is on. June 30, 2:49 pm | [comment link]

4. Newbie Anglican wrote: I don’t find ++Rowan so inscrutable anymore.  As the HOB of Rwanda wrote, he has chosen to take sides. July 1, 7:26 am | [comment link]

5. robroy wrote: Newbie, when the early invitations, I wrote that the ABC was well aware of the position of the global south and that are much more likely to stick to their principals then the slithery revisionists whether or not VGR is invited. Thus, the early invitations were a blatant dis-invitation to the GS without actually suffering the political fallout. July 1, 10:11 am | [comment link]

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