The Pastoral Forum

The Pastoral Forum is the latest brainchild of the Archbishop of Canterbury to provide alternative oversight for conservatives within pecusa. It came out of the recently concluded Lambeth Conference, but it won't work. Why won't it work? The first reason is that pecusa will run roughshod over conservatives no matter what plan is put into place. We have seen this over the past five years and no new plan will change this. Let's review the plans that have failed thus far.

First there was the Windsor Report in 2004 and the Council of Advice that came from it. pecusa never had any commitment whatsoever to abide by the Windsor guidelines, feigned compliance, and was given a pass. The so-called Windsor process was a bad joke. The Windsor Report gave little to no relief to conservative parishes. For pecusa it was move cautiously ahead with mostly utter contempt for what the rest of the Anglican Communion thinks.

From the Dromantine meeting of the primates in 2005 came the Panel of Reference. The purpose of the PoR was thus identified: "to supervise the adequacy of pastoral provisions made by any churches” for “groups in serious theological dispute with their diocesan bishop, or dioceses in dispute with their Provinces” (Dar es Salaam Primates Meeting Communique). The Panel of Reference was a total failure. Appeals to this body did no one any good, which is part of why we're still searching for an answer.

The Dar es Salaam meeting of primates in February 2007 recommended the creation of a Pastoral Council to "respond pastorally and provide for those groups alienated by recent developments in the Episcopal Church" (ibid.). This plan was rejected by the pecusa House of Bishops at their meeting in New Orleans in September, 2007.

So, why would we believe that a new scheme, the Pastoral Forum, will work any better than the previous schemes? Hopeful thinking, perhaps, but honestly there is no reason at all, really. The truth is the Archbishop of Canterbury and the primates can say anything they want and pecusa will respond by doing anything she wants (she being pecusa, but also, in this case, the Presiding Bishop). There is no person or council in the Anglican Communion that can stop the liberal digression of pecusa. There is also no person or council that can prevent pecusa from abusing conservatives. That has been the tale of the last five years and there's no reason to expect pecusa to deviate from this narrative in the future.