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\u2019s Plan B, we wondered. Well, it seems that the Pastoral Scheme was Plan B. TEC having decided to follow the \u201cyou\u2019re not the boss of me\u201d\u009d path, those Primates involved in US oversight are reverting to Plan A.<\/p>\n
\u201d\u02dcCourse, this is difficult and uncertain work. Anyone who thinks that it\u2019s just a matter of out with the old, in with the new\u201d\u009d needs to read the chapter \u201cBad Bishops\u201d\u009d in [Ephraim] Radner\u2019s Hope among the Fragments<\/a>. 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\u2019t be doing whatever we want, because we want to. That\u2019s the behavior that got us into this mess. On the other hand, I\u2019m not sure that this situation isn\u2019t wholly unprecedented. We\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n 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….<\/p>\n