The last Lambeth Conference proceeded without resolutions, and the result was far deeper and richer because of the focus on conversation, dialogue and building relationships. This ACC meeting conducted some of its business in that way, but a great deal of time and energy was devoted to hearing reports and dealing with resolutions.

The members of the ACC arrive and are inundated with long and complex papers on a great variety of subjects ”“ resolutions from the different networks, the recent draft of an Anglican covenant, the Windsor Continuation Group report, a 256-page book on ecumenical relations and many others ”“ and are expected to make decisions after brief opportunities for small-group discussion.

The details of decision-making would surprise most Episcopalians. A small group develops material ahead of time and then offers it to the group with relatively little opportunity for deliberation or alteration. The resolutions presented for deliberation are vetted and edited by a resolutions committee.

The pace of work is leisurely, with 40 hours of formal work spread over 11 working days. The chair exercises a great deal of discretion in referring or declining to entertain resolutions; elections are not straightforward ballots for a single individual; discussion of any proposed amendment requires the support of 10 members; the president (the Archbishop of Canterbury) steps in fairly frequently to “steer”; and the rules are quite evidently not Robert’s!

The contrasts with General Convention are significant….

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What was going on? The church is an institution. Institutions are determined by power. Power was often exercised arbitrarily in the debates and decisions in Jamaica. The debates on the covenant were confusing and breached many rules of normal procedure. The press were told that a great deal of weight falls on the chairman to direct the meeting.

On the central issue the chair ruled the motion to delay the covenant out of order because it was bringing back a previously defeated motion. But Archbishop Williams trumped him and interpreted the mind of the meeting as having rejected the first motion because they wanted it again in another form. The Archbishop later suggested that, in future, procedures be outlined at the beginning of the meeting.

Those disadvantaged when all power is in the hands of the chair and the president are the ordinary members of the Council. Many said they were confused. A Ugandan member spoke of a spirit of confusion.

Secondly, the real issue was the property of the North American Churches. Had the motion on moratorium passed, TEC would have been in breach of the will of the Communion in pursueing faithful Anglicans through the courts. Had the motion on the covenant passed, orthodox churches would have the high moral ground in property matters in claiming their status as Anglicans faithful to a covenant to which TEC would not agree.

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The Primate, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, who attended the meeting as a member of the joint standing committee, said while there were reports of much confusion about the process by which the Covenant decision was delayed, “the people he spoke to were aware of what was proposed and what was voted on”.

The ACC is a significant body within the Anglican Communion, composed of representative bishops, clergy and laity from each of the 38 member churches. Australia ’s representatives are Bishop Andrew Curnow ( Bendigo ), Archdeacon Dr Sarah Macneil (Canberra & Goulburn) and Robert Fordham (Melbourne & Gippsland). It is one of the four Anglican “instruments of unity”, the other three being the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference and the Primates’ Meeting.

Dr Aspinall has commented that “if all goes smoothly”, the Anglican Church of Australia should have the final form of the Covenant in readiness for debate at the next meeting of General Synod, to be held in Melbourne in September next year.

“I hope that the Anglican Church of Australia will decide to adopt the Covenant, and that all or nearly all of our Anglican Communion sister and brother churches will do so also,” he said.

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Unfortunately, the Episcopal Church in America (TEC) and a few other churches were strongly opposing the idea of the Covenant especially section 4[2]. Their excuse was that this section is new and has not been studied enough by the Provinces as the other sections have been. They have forgotten that this particular section of the Covenant is in fact the outcome of many deliberations and responses that came from dioceses as well as bishops who attended the Lambeth Conference in 2008. In addition to this, section 4 was already present in the commentary of the St. Andrews draft of the Covenant that was sent to the provinces after the Lambeth Conference. I personal believe that we will never have a perfect Covenant that could be accepted by all, even if we spend another 10 years working in it. TEC also described section 4 as “punitive.” In response to this, it was clarified that the Covenant gives guidance to the Provinces which are responsible for making their own decisions. The Covenant also does not require any changes in the constitutions of the Provinces. In addition to this, section 4 allows Provinces to make amendments to the Covenant after it is accepted. In fact, it is because that section 4 is not strong enough many conservatives described the Covenant as very weak and useless.

My own impression is that the fear behind accepting the text of the Covenant, especially section 4, originates from the desire to avoid anything binding which would affirm the interdependence of the Anglican churches. Denying the interdependence of churches is contrary to the very meaning of the word “Communion.” For this reason without this section, the “Covenant” would not be a Covenant and the word “Communion” would lose its meaning.

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THE ANGLICAN Consultative Council (ACC) will not endorse the Anglican Covenant and has voted to send it back to committee for further review. The vote comes as a major defeat for the Archbishop of Canterbury who had championed the Covenant as the one way to keep the Anglican Communion from splitting.

However the defeat appears self-inflicted, as Dr Rowan Williams’ ambiguous intervention in the closing moments of the Covenant debate confused some delegates, and resulted in the adoption of a compromise resolution that holds off acceptance of the Covenant until a new committee reviews and revises the disciplinary provisions in section 4 of the agreement ””- a process ACC secretary general Canon Kenneth Kearon said could take up to a year.

Questions of perfidy and incompetence were lodged against Dr Williams by conservative members of the ACC in inter views with The Church of England Newspaper immediately following the vote. But the anger with Dr Williams’ performance softened to exasperation by the following day for some conservative delegates to the May 2-12 meeting.
Delegates from the Church of Nigeria stated they were perplexed by Dr Williams having endorsed the Covenant at the start of the debate, and then apparently reversing himself and backing the call for delay by the end of the session.

“All of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s contributions were positive” up until the last moment of the meeting Bishop Ikechi Nwosu of the Diocese of Umuahia, Nigeria, said. Nigerian delegate Archdeacon Abraham Okorie said there was a “satanic” spirit of confusion in the air. He noted it was hypocritical of the ACC to make a great noise of using African ways of decision-making in addressing the Covenant, but then resorting to slippery parliamentary tricks to thwart the will of the meeting.

Dr Williams had been a “very weak leader,” Bishop Nwosu observed. “Of course we pray for him, but couldn’t he be courageous for once?” Over three years in the making, the work of the Anglican Covenant Design Group (CDG) was presented by its chairman Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies on May 4 to the representatives of the 38 provinces of the Communion gathered at the Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica for the 14th triennial meeting of the ACC. It was imperative the delegates endorse the Covenant as the Anglican Communion “is close to the point of breaking up,”

Archbishop Gomez said. After the discussion plenary, the delegates broke apart into “discernment groups” modelled upon the indaba process of “respectful listening” first employed at the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

The decision plenary for the Covenant began midmorning on May 8. The chairman of the meeting’s resolution committee, Dr Anthony Fitchett of New Zealand, told delegates there had been “mixed views on section 4” from the discernment groups, and the committee had decided to frame the debate on the Covenant around objections to its disciplinary provisions.

Two resolutions, A and B, were offered to the delegates. A called for section 4 to be detached from the covenant and sent to a committee for further study and revision, while B adopted the Ridley draft as presented by the CDG. Debate began with supporters of resolution A asking for further time to study section 4.

The Rev Ian Douglas of the Episcopal Church said the Ridley draft was “immature” and had “too many ambiguities.” He added that it opened the door to churches not part of the ACC to endorse the document. He speculated that if the breakaway Anglican churches in North America signed the Covenant, while the Episcopal Church’s legislative process made it unlikely a final decision could be made in less than six years, this could lead to the “question at ACC-15 about who is the Anglican body” in America?

Delegates from Brazil, Ireland, South Africa and Scotland urged adoption of resolution A, but other delegates were not persuaded by the call for delay. The President Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East, Bishop Mouneer Anis stated that without section 4 the “Covenant was no covenant.” The Ridley draft was the “most perfect Covenant we can get,” he argued, while Southeast Asia delegate Stanley Isaacs said the vote on the Covenant was the “defining” moment for the communion, and it would be “disastrous” to remove section 4. Delegates from the Sudan, Tanzania, Iran, Peru, Australia Nigeria, and Central Africa endorsed the “no” vote on resolution A, as did the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Dr Williams told the delegates that he did not see how adopting A “gets us much further along.” He also noted its language was ambiguous. “What would be the remit for redrafting?” he asked, urging the defeat of the resolution. After a break in the proceedings for lunch, the Primate of Australia offered a new resolution, named C, to the meeting that sought to combine portions of A and B. Objections to C were raised, and it was set to one side. Following further debate on A, Dr Williams spoke against A, and a vote was taken by secret ballot which defeated the resolution 17- 47, with one abstention. Debate followed on B, with the chairman of the meeting, Bishop John Paterson of New Zealand stating each clause of the resolution would be put to the vote. After the first two clauses of B passed by near unanimous margins, South African delegate Janet Trisk offered an amendment that sought to incorporate portions of Archbishop Aspinall’s resolution C. The new amendment sought to add the language from the defeated resolution A that would send section 4 to committee for review.

Bishop Paterson stated he would not accept the amendment as its substance had already been rejected by the meeting. Dr Williams then rose on a point of order stating “it did seem to me that the voting on A may very well have been properly influenced by the fact that an alternative form of A is known to be about to be tabled. That I suggested the material of C should be moved as par t B, I suspect that people may have voted with that in view.”

Bishop Paterson reversed himself and set the amendment before the meeting. Prompting Dr Anis to object saying “We have already voted against A, that is deciding to bring in A again, but in a different form.” After one delegate spoke in support of the amendment, it was put to the test and was accepted 34 to 31. Two more votes were held on the remaining clauses of B, but no vote was taken on the amended additions to the resolution.

A tea break was called, but as the delegates streamed out of the room, Bishop Paterson said there was some confusion as to the outcome and proceedings and the subject would be revisited at the 5pm session.

While the delegates gathered in the tea room, a visibly angry Dr Williams met with his advisers for over a half hour on the floor of the deserted conference room. Dr Anis subsequently approached Dr Williams stating his objections to the breach of parliamentary procedure of resubmitting a defeated resolution for consideration. Dr Anis declined to comment on the substance of his conversation with Dr Williams, but confirmed Dr Williams was not pleased with the outcome.

Delegates questioned by the CEN appeared confused by the proceedings. One francophone delegate stated he had voted against A, but as Dr Williams had commended the Trisk amendment, he had switched his vote. A second delegate from Africa told CEN he had understood Dr Williams as not having commended the Trisk amendment but was offering housekeeping advice to the meeting to straighten out a confused situation, while a third delegate whose native tongue is English said he understood the Archbishop to have switched horses, and was now calling for section 4 to be stripped out of the Covenant.

Upon resumption of business at 5pm, Bishop Paterson announced there would be no further vote on the Covenant, as the “legal advice” he had been given stated the matter had been settled. Dr Anis rose to object, saying “Resolution A was defeated, then brought back as a resolution. It is illegal. How can we bring back a defeated clause?” Bishop Paterson responded that the vote on A was “in anticipation that other material will be taken” into consideration, closing debate.

Members of the Episcopal Church’s delegation told the Episcopal News Service they were pleased by the outcome. “We came up with what was clearly a compromise,” Josephine Hicks said. “Not everyone is entirely happy with what we came up with, I feel certain, but that’s what compromise is all about.”

Dr Anis told CEN he was “very disappointed” by the “manipulation” of the proceedings. “It was not right. It was absolutely wrong,” he said. The registrar of the Church of Nigeria, Abraham Yisa, said he was amazed by the proceedings, which were “contrary to all known rules” of parliamentary procedure.

However, Bishop William Godfrey of Peru stated that while Friday’s session had been “a difficult time, a painful time,” and it was sad that we “will have to wait longer” for a covenant, it “could have been worse” as section 4 could have been thrown out entirely rather than sent back for further review. “Everything is in God’s hand,” Bishop Godfrey said “He is in control” and we just have to be patient.

–This article appears in the Church of England Newspaper, May 15, 2009, edition on page 1

The Anglican Covenant will not be sent out to the provinces of the Communion for adoption until there has been consultation on the controversial section 4, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) voted by the narrowest of majorities at its meeting in Jamaica this week. Sec­tion 4 deals with the enforcement of the terms of the Covenant.

The chairman of the Covenant Design Group, the Most Revd Drexel Gomez, the recently-retired Arch­bishop of the West Indies, had urged delegates not to lose the opportunity to take decisive action on the Cov­enant in what was considered to be its final form, the Ridley Draft (News, 8 May). He had predicted breaks in the Communion if it did not vote to send it out.

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A number of viewers wanted to know how results from the recently concluded meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council might affect convention. Bishop Jefferts Schori said the need to debate the proposed Anglican Covenant obviously was a moot point since it failed to pass during the ACC meeting in Jamaica last week.

In response to a question regarding the repeal of B033, the resolution approved at General Convention in 2006 that recommends caution in consecrating bishops whose manner of life might cause distress to other members of the Anglican Communion, Bishop Jefferts Schori said B033 would be debated, but that she opposes its repeal.

“I would far more prefer that we say here is where we are today,” she said, adding that it was a more positive way to express the mind of the church.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury has conceded that ACC-14 in Kingston, Jamaica was a “failure” that disappointed many Anglicans across the Communion. However, the meeting of the Anglican Communion’s fourth ”˜instrument of unity’ had been a “glorious failure” that saw the Anglican Communion rise from its “deathbed” to address its own shortcomings, Dr Rowan Williams said in his closing presidential address on May 11.

It was unhelpful to establish criteria for success or failure for Anglican meetings, Dr Williams told delegates to the May 2-12 meeting in Kingston, Jamaica said, as there was “no absolute measure for achievement. In critical times ”“ small things might be large achievements. Our willingness in certain areas to act as one and to discover more deeply how we pray as one is, by God’s grace and gift, for no other reason, an achievement,” he said.

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On a matter over which several years were spent in deep discussion, study, and work, around the world, and I know serious engagement at the ACC itself, decisions were apparently made within a confused and chaotic few minutes visible to the world at large that have serious consequences for the Communion, and whose propriety is now debated (and I and the ACI are hardly the initiators of or even strident voice in this debate), and the actual significance of which remains unstated and unknown. The initial work of providing resolutions for the Council regarding the Covenant was put into the hands of a small group that from the start simply did not appear representative of the views of the whole, and the sequence of events in the debate and resolution-voting, amending, and re-voting maintained a skewed dynamic of direction.

I am not persuaded by the explanations given by the ACO representatives at their press conference that somehow the process and the final outcome represents some otherwise undefined “sense” of the meeting, ascertained in the heat of debate by the Chair and President, especially when members of that meeting, including bishops from Nigeria and Egypt, are on record as strongly disagreeing with that “sense” and indicating that at least in some significant ways it did not jibe with the “mood” of many delegates. The point here, however, is not to accuse individuals of malicious intent, nor even to argue that these perceptions of mine and others are in fact accurate. There may indeed be good explanations for why things happened the way they did. But the concrete explanations have not been forthcoming, and on a matter of such importance, fraught with enormous tensions from the start, this lack of clear illumination cannot but be perceived as substantively obfuscating. The Communion deserved better, and at the least some admission of this fact would go some way to mitigating a lingering sense on the part of many ”“ I personally have no opinion on this matter ”” that this particular outcome was more important to some than the integrity of the means by which it was reached. It has left a bitter taste.

As to the outcome itself, I am deeply disappointed. My hope had been that the hard work of the Covenant Design Group, a work that even the Covenant’s detractors admitted had carefully assessed and appropriated the suggestions and critiques from around the Communion, would be allowed by the ACC to move forward to the Provinces for their decision-making.

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The Covenant
We had come to Jamaica ready to move forward on the Covenant. The deliberations and decisions of the Council make clear that the ACC wants a covenant. Our disappointment was that we could not get it now. The decision to modify the timetable was by a very slender margin of only three votes. And many people took the middle road position in order to give time to improve the Covenant.

Interventions
Cross-provincial interventions are a serious matter. The Archbishop of Canterbury has given his assurance that the role of the Pastoral Visitors would take care of the need for a listening process for faithful Anglicans alienated from their churches and in a significant number of cases deposed from their orders in North America. Some of us who had previously had significant doubts about the wisdom of these interventions have become aware from those whose provinces have taken this bold step that these interventions were both necessary and justified, and others that they were understandable, as an answer to a distress call. We therefore urge the Archbishop to dispatch Pastoral Visitors immediately who will incorporate into their work a listening process because of the urgency of the situation.

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While it “hasn’t necessarily dealt with the problems of the Anglican Communion once and for all,” the 14th Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting has enabled members to “build solid relationships with the local church and with one another,” Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said on May 12, the final day of the 12-day council meeting.

“It has deepened our sense of obligation to, and involvement with, each other,” he said. His assessment of a meeting where delegates emerged “more hopeful” about prospects for the Anglican Communion was echoed by ACC delegates in a plenary, where they discussed key messages that they would bring back to their churches.
In a press conference on the last day of the ACC meeting, Archbishop Williams cautioned The Episcopal Church (TEC), whose General Convention is scheduled to be held this summer, against possible action ignoring the call for “gracious restraint” on the ordination of persons living in same-gender unions to the episcopate and on same-sex blessings. Those moratoria, including cross-provincial interventions, were recommended by the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) and endorsed by this ACC meeting.

“I think actions on that resolution would instantly suggest to many people that The Episcopal Church would prefer not to go down the route of closer (relationships). That’s how it will be perceived,” he said in response to a question as to whether such action could push what he had warned as a possibility of the Anglican Communion splitting into a federation.

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When the members of ACC-10 arrived in Panama in 1996 and checked into the Hotel that was to be our home for the next two weeks, we were confronted by a large sign which said “On checking in to this Hotel, guests are required to leave their guns and weapons at the door”. Our Jamaican hosts have helped us to do just that once again. Our meeting has been characterized by some rigorous debates, but with respect and even affection across the floor of the house. As your outgoing Chair, I have been deeply grateful for that. And that surely is one of the many gifts that we can return home with, knowing that the ACC has met well, and the renewed confidence we can have in the strength and the life of the Anglican Communion. In my own case, ACC experiences over 21 years have provided me with wonderful friendships in many parts of the Anglican world, and those will always be treasured.

As well as being part of the ACC for so long, I have also had experience of two of the other “Instruments of Communion”. Only the Archbishop of Canterbury can have experience of all four Instruments, but some of us are able to claim experience of three of those four bodies. I served a six-year term as Primate, and attended a Primates’ Meeting in each of those six years. I have had the privilege and the pain of attending two Lambeth Conferences. The fact that the ACC is the only truly representative gathering under a Constitution agreed to by all the Member Churches, the only one of those four instruments where laity and clergy other than bishops can have a voice and a vote, is of lasting significance.

Anglican polity has always held that it is bishops in synod, or bishops in council, that are able to make decisions that guide the life of the church locally. For the Communion, the Primates’ Meetings cannot do that, although we should be able to look to our Primates for wise guidance and theological insights, but in my view that is quite different from making binding decisions from which the rest of the Church is excluded.

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On this last day of the Anglican Consultative Meeting (ACC-14) the delegates focused on final resolutions and the messages they will take back to their provinces. After a discussion in their discernment groups a closing plenary session was held with the members presenting positive and challenging insights from the meetings. Many commented on the quality of the worship, bible studies, and the design of the meetings, which encouraged conversation with a freedom to share ideas and thoughts.

People particularly mentioned the network groups and the ability to fully engage them in dialogue. Some concerns were raised about expectations in their provinces that they would come home with solutions to issues, which have plagued the communion for the past few years. Some of the delegates spoke about coming to ACC-14 with anxiety but that they now return home, “ with hope because of the relationships that have been built here, relationships of value that will last”. One Lutheran Bishop remarked at the end that despite everything going on, “ it feels like a communion”.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the president of the Anglican Consultative Council spoke of these things in a press briefing as the meetings was concluding.

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Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in his presidential address to the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) here May 11 compared the Anglican Communion’s long-standing divisions to those in the Holy Land.

“The other day we were giving quite intense attention to the situation in the Holy Land and in that discussion I thought there are echoes of language we hear nearer home,” Williams said. “Well, thank God, our divisions and our fears are not as deep and as poisonous as those between communities in the Holy Land, but I think you may see why some of the same language occasionally awakes echoes.”

It was also through the lens of Holy Land politics that Williams suggested during his address a possible way forward.

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One can only reflect, that when there is no clear procedure, the door is open for the arbitrary use of power. That does not empower people, since they have no access to appeal to what all have agreed on. In this case, when the chairman sought to follow the normal rules of procedure he was trumped by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The question remains: what confidence can the Anglican Communion have in a body where those who come to make decisions have no given ground rules for how those debates and decisions are going to be conducted ahead of time, but rather are dependent entirely on the will of the chairman and above him of the president to interpret their mind?

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“We have not in this meeting given evidence of any belief that we have no future together,” said Archbishop Rowan Williams in his presidential address, delivered on the eve of the last day of the ACC meeting. “The question is, of course, what that future will look like.”

Archbishop Williams said that Anglican provinces are “a bit reluctant” to engage the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant in greater detail because it “does underline for us that the possibility of division is there, the possibility at least of certain kinds of division.” He said people have spoken of the future of the communion as a federation, “an association within which some groups are more strongly bound to one another and some groups less strongly bound.” He added, “I suspect that will be more inevitable if not all provinces do sign on to the covenant. And I hasten to add that’s not what I hope. It is what I think we have to reflect on as a real possibility.”

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On the eve of the closing of the Anglican Consultative Council 14 meeting in Kingston, Jamaica the Archbishop Of Canterbury delivered his presidential address. The Council has a chair and the Archbishop functions as the president. The address came after the evening worship and was followed by an opportunity to express thanks to Bishop John Paterson who retires as the chair at the end of this meeting, Mr. George Kosay who retires as the deputy chair and Bishop Gregory Cameron who was recently consecrated as the Bishop of St Asaph in Wales and attended the meeting to complete his work as the deputy Secretary General of the Anglican Communion.

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The Chicago Consultation released this statement today from its co-convener Ruth Meyers in response to the Anglican Consultative Council’s affirmation of the recommendations made by the Windsor Continuation Group and its decision to postpone the release of the Anglican Covenant for consideration by provinces:

The Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), meeting now in Kingston, Jamaica, has committed itself to the hard work of debating recommendations and documents that seek to define the Anglican Communion. We are grateful for the efforts of its representatives, and we especially commend the decision to delay sending a draft of the proposed Anglican Covenant to the provinces until more work has been done that might strengthen, rather than tear down, our common life.

However, we believe that the ACC and the Windsor Continuation Group have made a grievous error by concluding that God is calling us to exclude baptized Christians who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender for the sake of communion. These moratoria, which were requested in the Windsor Report and by the primates, have not been formally agreed to by the democratic structures of the Episcopal Church and are inconsistent with both the Anglican tradition of seeking unity through diversity and with scripture’s mandate to do justice.

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Delegates from the Church of Nigeria stated they were perplexed by Dr Williams’ actions. “All of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s contributions were positive” up until the last moment of the meeting, Bishop Ikechi Nwosu of Nigeria said.

Nigerian Archdeacon Abraham Okorie said there was a “satanic” spirit of confusion in the air. He noted it was hypocritical of the ACC to make a great noise of using African ways of decision making in addressing the covenant, but then resorting to slippery parliamentary tricks to thwart the will of the meeting.

Dr Williams was a “very weak leader,” Bishop Ikechi Nwosu of Nigeria observed. “Of course we pray for him, but couldn’t he be courageous for once?”

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Things went only downhill from there. In the first place, there was no clear plan on how to present and to vote on the differing resolutions dealing with the Covenant that had been prepared by the Resolutions Committee. Three of its members, as I mentioned, favored putting off adoption of the entire Covenant at this meeting. Because of ECUSA’s strong opposition to it, expressed in one of the small indaba groups, they wanted the ACC to send Part IV of the Covenant back for a rewrite before it would be presented to the churches of the Communion. They accordingly drafted a Resolution to accomplish this, and it was presented as “Resolution A”:

The ACC:

a) resolves that section 4 of the Ridley Cambridge Draft be detached from the Ridley Cambridge Draft for further consideration and work;
b) asks the Archbishop of Canterbury, in consultation with the Secretary General, to appoint a small working group to consider and consult with the Provinces on Section 4 and its possible revision, and to report to the next meeting of the Joint Standing Committee;
c) resolves that the reconsidered Section 4 may, at the request of the JSC, be offered for adoption as an addendum to the Covenant text.

Simultaneously, in order to reflect the position favored by the great majority of the discussion groups, they presented a second Resolution, which they called “Resolution B”:

The ACC:

a) thanks the Covenant Design Group for their faithfulness and responsiveness in producing the drafts for an Anglican Communion Covenant and, in particular for the Ridley Cambridge Draft submitted to this meeting;
b) recognises that an Anglican Communion Covenant may provide an effective means to strengthen and promote our common life as a Communion;
c) asks the Secretary General to send the Ridley Cambridge draft, at this time, only to the member Churches of the Anglican Consultative Council for consideration and decision on acceptance or adoption by them;
d) asks those member Churches to report to ACC-15 on the progress made in the processes of response to, and acceptance or adoption of, the Covenant.

It should have been obvious that these resolutions were mutually incompatible, and could not both have passed. Therefore, proper parliamentary awareness should have required the Resolutions Committee to (a) decide upon the order in which the various parts of the Resolutions should have been taken up, and (b) in the process present a coherent choice between possible outcomes. For example, paragraphs (a) and (b) of Resolution B could have stood on their own, and been presented for approval at the very outset. Then the choice would have been between detaching section 4 or not, and a clear vote could have been taken which would decide which approach the group as a whole preferred to follow.

Instead, what the ACC representatives got was a parliamentary mishmash, by the end of which no one could follow what was happening.

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I would go further than saying “procedural confusion.” It is, as reports from Professor Stephen Noll and others are calling it: PERFIDY. It is a betrayal of every Anglican who has looked to the Covenant process to bring desperately needed order to our life as a Communion. …

It is painfully obvious to observers in many quarters that the continuation of the Communion depends on your actions in this matter.

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The covenant decision came after a day of polite debate that, at times, included accusation, exasperation, impatience, and intense and confusing parliamentary maneuvering, both on the floor and behind the scenes.

On one end of the debate spectrum, Dato Stanley Isaacs of the Church of South East Asia, voiced the opinion of many when he said that the council faced “a defining moment for the communion, a moment that we either grab it or we don’t.”

He called the covenant “a hope in Christ that this will be a way of finding a just solution to the realization of a communion that is once again united in the bond of Christ ”¦ we long for that unity again.”

Isaacs said it would give “a ray of hope to us finding a resolution to the problem that has not only divided the communion, but has embarrassed the churches in many, many parts of the world outside of the United States.”

On the other hand, Sarah Tomlinson, ACC youth representative from Scotland, urged the council to allow the communion the time it needs to formulate a covenant whose terms are clearly defined.

“Whatever we decide now, my generation is going to have to deal with it. We’re going to have to bear the burden of dealing with this long after — no offense — you guys aren’t running the church,” she said. “So I know we’re all keen to get this finished and get it to come to an end, but let’s take the time to consult just a bit more ”¦ otherwise, I am going to have to be sorting out this mess and the rest of the youth are going to be sorting out this situation a lot longer.”

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An Anglican Communion-wide project that will examine how Anglicans worldwide read and interpret Scripture will soon be launched.

The 14th Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting on May 9 approved The Bible in the Life of the Church project, which was created in response to a proposal from the Windsor Report. Published in 2004 by the Lambeth Commission on Communion, the Windsor Report offered prescriptions on how the Anglican Communion could settle its deep divisions over the thorny issue of human sexuality.

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There are those on the right side of the aisle, however, who believe that …[Archbishop Rowan Williams] simply made a human error of judgement in allowing the delaying amendments to be voted on. The problem with this charitable view is that he himself stated that it was section 4 ”“ the very section with disciplinary implications ”“ that needed to be revised because it was causing dissension in the Communion. As if there had not been dissension heretofore leading up to this meeting!

Fine, I am willing to concede that Rowan Williams may have slipped up, or been snookered, in slowing down the approval of the Covenant. If, however, he himself recognizes this to be the case, then I would expect him to appoint a select review group that will uphold the Ridley Cambridge Draft and report out to the JSC an unaltered text or at least one where the key provisions of section 4 (including section 4.1.5) are still in place. I shall then expect him to face down Katherine Jefferts Schori and other objectors on the JSC and see the Covenant through to approval so that it may go out to the Provinces.

If the above paragraphs sound skeptical, it is because many of us conservatives see so little evidence that we can count on Rowan Williams for anything. For instance, even though he signed the unanimous Dar Communiqué and pleaded with Bishop John Howard to refrain from forcing clergy and congregation out of their church home in Jacksonville (I almost slipped and said St. Augustine (!) because one of my former students, a Jamaican, was forced from his parish in that city by the same Bishop Howard), did he speak up in favor of the fourth moratorium? Did he vote for it? I don’t know, but if he did, it didn’t make the headlines.

So what should orthodox folk do, now that the Covenant hope has been extinguished or at best put on hold? First of all, do what we are called to do: worship God and love your neighbor. Beyond that, I hope that the GAFCON and Global South bishops at the international level and the ACNA and Communion Partners in North America can find ways of working together for the up-building and mission of the Church. With or without the Covenant, we need each other. Each of our movements has its assets and deficits and we can share them as the Apostle commends to his churches (2 Corinthians 8:13-15).

Whither the Covenant? I believe that we should pursue dual tracks. Ok, the Ridley Cambridge Draft is not dead; it is on life support. It is my hope that Rowan Williams will repent of his mistake in Jamaica. I hope that “communion conservatives,” like the Anglican Communion Institute, will make a strong case for keeping the Draft exactly as is. I hope that Henry Orombi will attend the JSC meeting at the end of this year and insist on keeping the Covenant strong.

At the same time, I hope that the Global South movement ”“ those identified with the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans and those not so identified ”“ will resume its leadership on the Covenant. On the one hand, it can be patient and pressure Lambeth Palace not to change the text. On other hand, it can consider making the text stronger: by adding some elements from the Jerusalem Declaration and making the enforcement clauses even stronger. If the Covenant is not resuscitated by the end of the year, the Global South can ready a new Covenant ”“ a resurrection, as it were ”“ that will serve the mission of the Anglican Communion in the “Global Anglican Future.”

Read it all.

After a break and amid much confusion, the Chairman then announced that the entire resolution had passed even though there is no evidence it had even been voted on, the previous votes having been to amend the resolution, not pass it. If the position is that the individual clauses were enacted separately, is there any evidence that this was understood by the members prior to the vote?

These events unfolded live on Anglican TV to people watching around the world. It is beyond question that these procedures were improper, confusing and manipulative. The credibility of the ACC, already questioned by the Communion’s own advisory groups, has suffered lasting damage.

Two actions are required as a matter of urgency:

1. This issue must be re-visited immediately by the ACC and voted upon in a lawful and proper manner during this meeting. The alternative is moving forward with lasting questions as to the legitimacy of the entire process. Is this in doubt?
2. An explanation must be offered by those in charge of these proceedings, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chairman of the ACC, as to how such manifestly improper procedures were permitted to unfold from the outset of Friday’s session and, indeed, of ACC-14 itself. It appears to us that things descended into chaos and no one stopped and sought to bring things to order.

If lawful and proper action on the covenant is not forthcoming from this meeting of the Council, the only appropriate response is for the Churches of the Communion to begin themselves the process of adopting the Ridley Cambridge Text.

The degree of mismanagement and poor leadership involved in this debacle simply staggers the imagination. Read it all.

So was this a conspiracy or was it a cock-up? Whichever it was it is a case study of how to win if you are a minority in a meeting. If matters are going against you, get a team to work, introduce endless amendments to the resolution you do not like to spin out the debate, introduce a competing proposal, have a chair who is known to be on your side who has a vote and allows discussion of the proposal out of order, a person to present the material as a formal amendment, the president of the meeting to point out to people what is being intended, and also to interpret to the meeting its own decisions in a way that would allow this intention to come to fruition, and a chair who proceeds swiftly to a vote on this amendment having allowed extensive debate on the first resolution that was thought would be cleared out of the way quickly.

And what is the de facto result? Those facing litigation in the courts over property cannot appeal to an Anglican Communion Covenant which would give them the moral high ground in their cases by showing their continuity with historic Anglicanism; and General Convention can proceed with numerous resolutions which overturn the effective teaching of the Anglican Church with no opportunity for people to argue that this would be against the Covenant that ACC has accepted.

On the one hand is the property and keeping TEC, a major funder of the Anglican Communion Office and its projects, onside; on the other is affirming and embracing the historic faith as Anglicans have received and understood it. The ACC is split down the middle on the matter. Yet again an instrument of Communion has proved unable to deal with the crisis in the Communion.

Read it all.

Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt

I share the sadness of my brother Bishop Bill. There was manipulation. We had deliberated long about section 4. They put resolution A to detach section 4 and ask ABC to put a committee. When the resolution was put for voting, we praise the Lord it was rejected.

Then it was like a shock to bring the two main clauses of the resolution we rejected and put it in the resolution we wanted to vote on. It is absolutely wrong. We as members of ACC had decided that we do not want this resolution. We wanted the covenant to go straight to the provinces. This led to what seemed to me to be a lot of confusion on the role of the ACC. The ACC is not a synod to take decisions like this. All we are asking for is that this covenant be sent for a further three years, until 2012, so that every province will have plenty of time. The provinces can make amendments as well after it has passed. There will be time for discussion and reflection. There will be objections and amendments. Yet this body does not want to send it. It was very clear from the rejection of Resolution A they way that the majority in the house wanted to go. This was a shock and confusion and a manipulation.

This was deliberate. Resolution A was rejected and yet was brought back. Even if it is legal I see it as wrong. Also in the last few days, all of us were clear about section 4. Even the Church in Canada had said for the sake of the communion and unity we will receive this covenant. I personally think it is unfair to appoint people from three different provinces who are known to reject the covenant, – New Zealand, the United States and Scotland, – on the resolution committee. Part of this crisis is due to distrust. I must say that all what happened increased the distrust.

Read it all.