The text does not mention same-sex partnerships. It is worded to apply more generally to any future controversy. Whenever an innovation by one province is opposed by another, the standing committee’s judgment will become the Anglican teaching. Step by step Anglicanism will accumulate teachings to which all are expected to assent. We shall be turned from an inclusive church into a confessional one.

Defenders of classic Anglicanism prefer the opposite. We should allow differences of opinion as signs of growth; it is the intolerant who are being un-Anglican. Our Christian duty is not just to accept inherited dogmas but to acknowledge our errors and welcome new insights, using the full range of God-given faculties ”“ so that our faith will continually be made new, creative and exciting.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Instead of debating the covenant, then, I believe we would better spend our time rebuilding the foundation — laying aside our rigid positions and stereotypes of the “other side” in favor of authentic dialogue. Then, when we have made significant progress in that direction, we can reconsider the covenant, this time as an affirmation of our restored bonds of affection.

Could not yet have any traction? I hear a lot of impatience in the communion these days: a desire to “get over it and move on.” Yet short of outright division, how exactly do we “move on” without rebuilding the foundation of trust?

Rebuilding, in turn, calls for another word that generates impatience: listening. The whole idea of a listening process — particularly its failure to take place on a wide scale — has generated cynicism, and justifiably so. But there’s no other way to build trust. As we listen, we discover that our adversaries are not precisely who we thought. Subtle variations of belief and character come to the fore. Common ground emerges. We start to revise, and often discard, our preconceptions. In the process, we wonder what else we’ve misperceived, what else we have in common, and that drives up deeper into dialogue.

Read it all.

The Anglican Church of Mexico, which was part of the Episcopal Church until 1995, has become the first province to adopt the Anglican Covenant.

The province adopted the Covenant during its sixth General Synod, which met June 11-12 in Mexico City.

“We are delighted to hear that Mexico has agreed to adopt the Covenant,” said the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, Secretary General of the Anglican Communion. “Provinces were asked to take their time to seriously consider this document, and we are glad to hear from recent synods that they are doing just that.”

Read it all.

Received via email–KSH

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Much has happened these last two weeks in and around the Diocese. The 142nd Diocesan Convention (June 11-13th) went very well. Approximately 900 clergy, lay deputies, visitors and youth attended the Convention. We began Friday evening with Evensong, led by Dean Vang, followed by the Bishop’s Address and the Opening Business Session. A copy of the Bishop’s Address will be posted on the Diocesan Website. Very appreciative of all that so many people have done throughout the Diocese, I spent a great deal of time (as those who attended can attest) recognizing people and offering special thanks for their efforts and many contributions. While I firmly believe it is important to recognize and thank people for a job well done, it is hard to identify everyone in a timely manner in the context of the Bishop’s Address. As recommended by many of you in your evaluations, at next year’s Diocesan Convention the much deserved recognition and thank you’s will be offered in various ways other than during the Bishop’s Address.

Each of the five resolutions presented were approved overwhelmingly:

R1 – Trinity Church, Rensselaerville was assigned to the Metropolitan Deanery;

R2 – Endorsement of the Anglican Communion Covenant;

R3 – The diocesan recommended standard clergy stipend schedule was increased by 2.5% along with a $5 recommended increase to the standard supply clergy compensation amount;

R4 – Approval of the 2011 Diocesan Budget of $1,657,546;

R5 – Approval of the Reduced Standard Assessment Formula for Parish Assessments for 2011

The resolution most heavily debated was Resolution #2 which stated: “RESOLVED, that the Episcopal Diocese of Albany endorses the Anglican Communion Covenant (final text, approved for distribution December 18, 2009) and recommends its adoption by all the Provinces of the Anglican Communion.”

The resolution passed by a 4 to 1 margin: 314 (yes) to 76 (no). Each canonically resident clergy present and lay deputy was allowed to vote. As I have stated on earlier occasions, by endorsing the Anglican Communion Covenant, The Diocese of Albany is sending a strong message and signal to the rest of The Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion that we greatly value our Anglican heritage and relationships throughout the world, and that we intend by the grace of God to honor that which is asked of us in the Anglican Communion Covenant, worshipping and serving our Lord Jesus Christ, sharing the Gospel in cooperation and close relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion Covenant does not ask us (the Diocese of Albany) to do anything that we are not already doing, nor does it ask the Diocese of Albany to be anything other than who we are.

In other Convention related news, the following individuals were elected to their respective offices:

Deputies to General Convention (4 Priests / 4 Laity): The Very Rev. David Collum, The Rev. Scott Garno, The Rev. Canon Robert Haskell, The Very Rev. John Scott III, Richard Carroll, Deborah Fish, Sue Ellen Ruetsch, Elizabeth Strickland

Ecclesiastical Trial Court: The Rev. Laurie Garramone-Rohr, Sue Armstrong and Lawrence Norville. The Rev. Mark Michael is the clergy Alternate.

The Standing Committee: The Rev. Lynne Curtis, The Rev. Derik Roy, Jennifer Dean and Ray Rockwell.

I am very appreciative to everyone who allowed their names to be nominated and congratulate those who were elected. May the Lord bless you and the Diocese in your ministry.

In addition to the above elections, the Convention approved my nomination of The Very Rev. David Collum and the Very Rev. Christopher Brown as Archdeacons, assisting me in better ministering to the people of the Diocese of Albany and the wider community, particularly in the metropolitan area and the North Country.

The rest of the Convention Weekend was filled with a variety of wonderful workshops (approx. 67), Spirit-filled worship, fellowship, food, entertainment, Vacation Bible School and the Youth Rally. I am very appreciative to every one who attended and helped make this year’s Diocesan Convention such a success. I am also very appreciative to our guest speakers: Archbishop Drexel Gomez (Retired Archbishop and Primate of the West Indies), and the Rev. Michael Chapman (Bishop Suffragan-Elect of Peru). We were very blessed by their presence and the message the Lord gave them to share.

No sooner had the 142nd Diocesan Convention come to an end, then we began planning for next year’s 143rd Diocesan Convention. I want to thank those of you who filled out the evaluation forms from Convention. Your thoughts and recommendations are greatly appreciated and help us as we continue to try to make the Diocesan Convention the best that it can be.

On Saturday, June 19th, The Venerable David Collum was installed as the 20th Dean of the Cathedral of All Saints. The Service was well attended with members from the Cathedral and the wider diocese. Incorporating much of the installation service designed by Bishop Doane (1st Bishop of Albany), the service was very moving and quite beautiful, (despite a few occasions when I could not get my eyes and mouth to cooperate with the page in front of me). I am very excited for Dean Collum and the Cathedral of All Saints as they begin their new ministry together worshipping and serving God, sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and ministering to the people in the metropolitan area as well as throughout the Diocese.

This past Monday, June 21st, I traveled to Philadelphia to ordain the Rev. Kyle Tomlin to the priesthood. Fr. Tomlin was sponsored by the Diocese of Albany for ordination and has been called as rector of St. Alban’s, Philadelphia. May the Lord bless him in his new ministry.

In between everything else going on, we have had a number of confirmation services and parish visitations the past two weeks to include: St. Stephen’s, Delmar; Christ Church, Duanesburg; St. Hubert’s, Lake Pleasant, each of which was very enjoyable and a blessing to be a part of.

Today, I am off to Troy to attend the final team meeting and planning session for the upcoming mission trip to Peru (July 19-31). Later this evening I will be heading up to the North Country in preparation for parish visitations and confirmations tomorrow at Grace Church, Canton and St. Philip’s, Norwood.

I pray that the Lord blesses each of you richly this week in your worship together and as you go forth boldly into the world in His name.

Faithfully Yours in Christ,

–(The Rt. Rev.) Bill Love is Bishop of Albany

You may find them here beginning on page 15.

Canadian Anglicans took a step forward in considering the Anglican Covenant with the passing of resolution A137: Anglican Communion Covenant at General Synod 2010 on Thursday, June 10.

Bishop George Bruce, chair of the Anglican Committee Working Group provided an introduction to the work of the committee, which has participated in the process of reviewing and providing feedback to the draft. A General Synod 2007 decision affirms the Anglican Church’s involvement in the process of drafting “A Covenant for the Anglican Communion”.

“There have been lots of changes since the Nassau document,” said Bishop Bruce, referring to a previous version of the covenant that was met with concern. “The text is a significant approval over that drafts. Virtually all Canadian concerns have been addressed.”

Read it all.

Another major topic before the Synod is the Anglican Communion Covenant. We are one of the first provinces to consider the final text. We are blessed to have had an Anglican Communion Working Group guiding our study of the drafts of the Covenant and inviting our input by way of critique and revision. And I know that those comments from our Church have been viewed by many within the Communion as constructive and helpful.

Section IV, Our Covenanted Life Together, continues to be challenging for many in the Communion. On the one hand it speaks of respect for the autonomy and integrity of each province in making decisions according to the polity reflected in its Constitution and Canons. On the other, it speaks of relational consequences for a Church should it make decisions deemed incompatible with the Covenant. These consequences could range from limited participation to suspension from dialogues, commissions and councils within the Communion. In my opinion, they reflect principles of exclusion with which many in the Communion are very uneasy. For if one is excluded from a table, how can one be part of a conversation? How can our voice be heard, how can we hear the voices of others, how can we struggle together to hear the voice of the Spirit? How can we hope to restore communion in our relationships if any one of us cannot or will not be heard?
In his 2010 Pentecost letter, the Archbishop of Canterbury speaks of “particular provinces being contacted about the outworking of these relational consequences.” To date we cannot be identified as “a Province that has formally through their Synod or House of Bishops adopted policies that breach any of the moratoria requested by the Instruments of Communion and recently affirmed by the Standing Committee and the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith, and Order”. However the Archbishop’s letter also refers to “some provinces that have within them dioceses that are committed to policies that neither the province as a whole nor The Communion has sanctioned”. One is left wondering if provinces whose Primates continue to interfere in the internal life of other provinces and extend their pastoral jurisdiction through cross-border interventions will be contacted. To date I have seen no real measure to address that concern within The Communion. I maintain and have publicly declared my belief that those interventions have created more havoc in the Church, resulting in schism, than any honest and transparent theological dialogue on issues of sexuality through due synodical process in dioceses and in the General Synod. I also wonder when I see the word “formally” italicized in the Archbishop’s letter. It leaves me wondering about places where the moratoria on the blessing of same sex unions is in fact ignored. The blessings happen but not “formally”. As you will have detected I have some significant concerns about imposing discipline consistent with provisions in the Covenant before it is even adopted; and about consistency in the exercise of discipline throughout one Communion. There are also lingering concerns in Section IV on monitoring discipline and procedures for restoring membership in our covenanted life together.

All that being said, I have every hope that our Church will embrace the request to consider the Covenant. Our Anglican Communion Working Group is committed to providing educational resources to aid our study. Bishop George Bruce will give us a brief overview of those materials in the course of Synod. I have every confidence we will use them faithfully and that we will offer valuable comments in response to the request for a Communion-wide Progress Report on the Covenant at the next meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in 2012.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Why mince words here? For some years now ”“ since even before the Virginia Report of the late 1990’s ”” it has been stated formally over and over again that the structures of the Anglican Communion needed redefinition and rebuilding, so as to be able to function fruitfully. Key efforts were made to give direction to such reconstruction. A decade of failure, however, has simply borne out an already established and publicly stated fear.

But trying to set up alternative structures has not fared much better. If the recent Singapore meeting exposed a ten-year lapse in credibility for existing Communion structures, it also put the lie to any attractive claim for alternative structures that, in the past 10 years, some portions of the Communion have so assiduously been at work to erect: new provinces in North America; special “primatial councils” for common confessors; extra-jurisdictional missionary fiefdoms; episcopal netwoks of alternative oversight. Instead, the gathering proved to be what every other Anglican gathering has been in the past decade: in addition to faithful witness and counsel, also a time for political maneuver, secretive changing of agendas at the last moment, North Americans coming in and grabbing the microphones and running meetings, disagreements over this and that strategy and doctrine. That a common communiqué emerged at all was cause for surprise by the end; that it expressed little tangible except a shared dislike for Communion structures and for TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada was probably the most one could have predicted, which isn’t very much, let alone particularly edifying.

There are some obvious conclusions to draw from these ten years.

First, that Anglican Communion “structuralism” ”“ building offices and commissions and adjudicating bodies, in the wake of the 1963 Toronto Congress ”“ is at an end, at least in its presently imagined forms. This is true for the official structures; it is also true for the alternative structures. The drift now between national churches and confessional bodies is too great to ensure their continued functioning and support in any energetic fashion. Not that any of these structures, official or otherwise, are simply about to disappear; they won’t and they shouldn’t, given that they continue to provide important links to the wider Church and mission, and can, in any case, be renewed. But fewer and fewer really care for them, no one really trusts them, no one really wants to let them have power over their lives. If I were an employee of the Anglican Communion Office or of its shadow embodiments, I would look for a new job, if only for economic motives: the money is drying up.

Second, the Anglican Covenant is both a product of this descending drift, as well as a response to it….

Read it all.

In the past the Archbishop of Canterbury has acknowledged indirectly that he has this authority. When he wrote the Primates in December 2006 concerning the upcoming meeting in Dar es Salaam, Archbishop Williams advised them that: “I have decided not to withhold an invitation to Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as the elected Primate of the Episcopal Church to attend the forthcoming meeting. I believe it is important that she be given a chance both to hear and to speak and to discuss face to face the problems we are confronting together.” He indicated in this letter that this was his decision based on open questions about TEC’s response to the Windsor Report. Those questions have now been conclusively answered by TEC, and a different decision is now required if the Communion is to survive.

Separately, when Ian Douglas was consecrated bishop he was disqualified from membership in the ACC (and its standing committee) since that would give TEC two bishops among its three members, which is not permitted under the ACC constitution. As The Church of England Newspaper reports, both TEC and Douglas take the position that he can be elected in June to the episcopal seat of the retiring Catharine Roskam (who continues to serve under ACC rules until just before the next meeting) and thereby remain on the ACC standing committee. But this result would violate ACC rules, and this position entails in any event the recognition that his current clerical seat has been relinquished by his consecration to the episcopacy. In other words, his seat on the ACC standing committee is already vacant, and he cannot resume that seat if he is elected to Roskam’s seat, which would not take effect until the next ACC meeting in any event under ACC rules (Resolution 4:28). Under the ACC bylaws (Article 7) the standing committee is now required to appoint a clerical member to fill the seat on the standing committee formerly held by Douglas.

Indeed, there is a precisely analogous situation in Canada to that of Douglas and TEC. Stephen Andrews, like Douglas, went to ACC-14 in Jamaica as a clergy member for his first meeting. After ACC-14, Andrews was consecrated bishop by the Anglican Church of Canada. Canada understands that Andrews ceased to be a member of the ACC upon his consecration and therefore that he has now been replaced by his clerical alternate. Indeed, Andrews was elected bishop before ACC-14, but his consecration delayed until after the meeting in Jamaica (we are told) precisely because Canada understood the ACC implications of his consecration. If TEC is permitted to circumvent the ACC rules to keep Douglas on the ACC and its standing committee, especially after the decision to disqualify Uganda’s chosen ACC representative at Jamaica, any remaining trust in the ACC will be lost forever.

Read it all.

So we are now in a situation where (1) the proposed Covenant establishes a process for suspending Churches from full communion, and (2) Archbishop Rowan has stated that adherence to the traditional position on same-sex unions will be the basis for avoiding such suspension. The Archbishop foreshadows the potential for a “twofold ecclesial reality” (#22). Each Anglican province faces four options:

1. Not to sign the Covenant because it opposes a procedure that will judge and divide, and/or opposes having to affirm only one of two conscientiously held positions. Failure to sign will see a Church suspended from full communion.

2. To sign the Covenant but to face suspension from the Communion if it permits any steps on same-sex unions contrary to the traditional position.

3. To sign the Covenant and adhere exclusively to the traditional position on same-sex unions. This will disenfranchise all who conscientiously hold the other viewpoint, and separate a Church from full communion with any Church that does not sign the Covenant, or transgresses it.

4. To engage with other provinces to collectively abstain from a process which could split the Communion, and to reinvigorate the Anglican way of dialogue in diversity.

Read it all.

…our own Church’s Constitution in its Preamble (18) already speaks of our being “part of and belong[ing] to the Anglican Communion, which is a fellowship … in communion with the See of Canterbury, sharing with one another … life and mission in a spirit of mutual responsibility and interdependence.”

Indeed, we in Aotearoa New Zealand have already “covenanted with each other … to implement and enrich the principles of partnership” (Preamble 13) among us, given the unique history of our Islands.

The Anglican Communion Covenant has become the necessary tool for establishing an authoritative identity among Anglicans. It grants us the means to continue as a global Church, as a catholic community of churches. Without it, we shall simply fragment into groups of associated bodies, held together by allegiances derived from things less than and even other than the Gospel of Jesus Christ himself.

The question is ours: to sign, or not to sign … May we say clearly, “Sign!” – and that “right soon”.

Read it all.

We are now less than six days from ECUSA’s “consecration” of a partnered lesbian to the (ECUSAn, at any rate) episcopacy. As I wrote in this earlier post, in so consecrating Canon Mary Glasspool, ECUSA will shoot itself in the foot. Even so, the silence from Lambeth Palace over the past weeks has been deafening.

Contrast to the present scenario the weeks following the confirmation of the election of V. Gene Robinson as bishop by both Houses at General Convention 2003….

Read it all.

“Punitive, controlling and completely un-Anglican” ”“ that’s how Dr Tony Fitchett sees Section 4 of the proposed Covenant.

But even if General Synod were of a mind to toss that section out, holus bolus, now is not the time to do that, he suggested.

While there’s a feeling that the Covenant has been “done to death” and General Synod had the power, making that decision was important enough to warrant using the same mechanisms used for changing the constitution, for example.

He said there’d long been pressure for an instant decision.

Read it all.

The General Synod will also debate issues including urging the government to place a ban on alcohol advertising. The proposed Anglican Covenant addressing the issue of the ordination of bishops in same sex relationships will also be a discussion for the General Synod but no final decision is expected until the next Synod in 2012.

Read it all.

General Synod 2010 will consider the Covenant. The question is whether or not the Anglican Church of Canada should approve or adopt the Covenant. We suggest that the church, given its present practice with regard to same-sex blessings, cannot in good faith adopt or approve the Covenant.

Indeed, the Covenant offers the Anglican Church of Canada an opportunity to be honest before the world about its commitment to same-sex blessings and its willingness, in the name of its own standards of justice, to walk apart from the universal church.ӬWhy can the church not adopt the Covenant? It cannot because the Covenant insists on a primary commitment to the universal and apostolic church, a commitment that the movement for same-sex blessings rejects as opposing its standards of justice.

To approve the Covenant is to approve its insistence on the wider voice of the church in our own deliberations about same-sex blessings in Canada. It is to take seriously the inherited teaching of the church on scripture, in this case with regard to marriage. To approve the Covenant is therefore to refuse to proceed unilaterally with same-sex blessings.

Read it all.

One reason why it fails to create a strong reaction is that it simply confirms the obvious. The crisis moment has now passed. Many of the Global South provinces have given up on the official North American Anglicans (TEC and the Canadian Church) and regard themselves as being out of communion with them. They renew the call for repentance but can see that, failing something like the Great Awakening, it will not occur. The positive side to this is that they are committed to achieving self-sufficiency so that they will cease to rely on the Western churches for aid. That is something the Global South has been working on for some time, with success.

In my judgment, the assembly was unresponsive to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s video greetings. I don’t think that what he said was obscure. It just seemed to be from another age, another world. His plea for patience misjudged the situation by several years and his talk of the Anglican covenant was not where the actual conference was at. He seemed to suggest that the consecration of a partnered lesbian Bishop will create a crisis. In fact the crisis itself has passed. We are now on the further side of the critical moment; the decisions have all been made; we are already living with the consequences. And it was in working out the consequences that the communiqué may eventually be seen to be historic.

The Global South Encounter could not in itself recognize the authenticity of churches. But the communiqué goes as far as is possible to recognizing the authenticity of the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) and declaring this body to be the true heirs of the Anglican tradition on that continent. This is precisely what the GAFCON/FCA Primates Council did in 2009, and it really means that the leadership of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion regards itself as being in communion with ACNA and out of fellowship with the other North Americans. This was symbolized by the part played by Archbishop Bob Duncan at the conference, especially when he presided at Holy Communion. Furthermore the welcome accorded to the two bishops from the Communion Partners demonstrated the Global South commitment to Biblical standards as a test of fellowship.

In the meantime, of course, there are those, notably in the West, who want to play by the old institutional rules. They would argue that ACNA cannot be part of the Anglican Communion because it has not passed the tests of admission via the Anglican Consultative Council. This is so artificial as to be risible….

Read it all.

… this leads to our final point. It is the preservation of this catholicity, the relationship of bishop to the college of bishops, and these finally understood to include some kind of universal college, that is most important. In the past, TEC has exercised its autonomy with accountability in communion with the other Anglican churches. Anyone familiar with the formation of TEC will know that this accountability, although voluntary, was expressed in very concrete ways, including in the formulation of our Book of Common Prayer and the consecration of our first bishops. And within TEC, its autonomous dioceses were able to exercise their autonomy with accountability both to the other dioceses of TEC and to the Anglican college of bishops. But TEC has now repudiated any accountability to the larger communion. This presents TEC’s dioceses with an awful choice. How will they exercise their autonomy? To whom will they be accountable? To no one but themselves? To an isolated and declining body that itself rejects accountability to the church catholic? Or, through the Anglican Covenant, to the wider Communion?

Autonomy without accountability leads to denominationalism and isolation. Accountability without autonomy leads to authoritarian structures. Communion with both autonomy and accountability is the Anglican hope manifested in the Covenant. For us the choice is obvious, but we recognize that it is not without cost.

Read it all.

From the Diocese of Dallas website:

Download the full, final text of both resolutions as adopted by Special Convention delegates.

The Rt. Rev. Gary R. Lillibridge, Bishop of West Texas, concentrated on the Anglican Covenant during his address to the diocese’s annual council. The council met Feb. 18-21 in Corpus Christi.

The bishop cited the 76th General Convention’s Resolution D020, which encouraged dioceses to the consider the Covenant “as a document to inform their understanding of and commitment to our common life in the Anglican Communion.”

“The Covenant will not, and indeed cannot, solve all of our problems. Nor was it designed to do so. We should not look at the Covenant in terms of a political victory or a political defeat,” the bishop said. “Many times in the world, particularly in political systems, if you can win the debate and get the votes, you claim victory. Of course in politics this may be true, but it’s usually only true until the next election. But this approach certainly does not serve the church well. Just think for a moment where all the lobbying, posturing, scheming, planning, debating and voting in the church has taken us up to now. I said a few years ago in my address that I’m not interested in winning. I’m interested in healing. I think this is what Jesus is interested in, and it continues to be my focus.”

Read it all.

The full document is here (51 page pdf)

Noll raises some important questions that must be addressed:

* Why and how has the biblical, apostolic and historic role of the Primates been diminished and marginalized by the Anglican Communion bureaucracy? What role has the Archbishop of Canterbury himself played in marginalizing the Primates, and to what end?
* Why were the recommendations of the Windsor Report ignored-recommendations that the Primates take a leading role in drafting the Anglican Covenant?
* Likewise, why has the role of the Primates in overseeing the Covenant been replaced by that of “The Standing Committee”?
* By what authority did the Archbishop of Canterbury and the ACC Joint Standing Committee establish itself as “The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion (SCAC),” with responsibility to oversee the Covenant? And what is to prevent the new SCAC from becoming a “Fifth Instrument” of disunity?
* What “relational consequences” can the SCAC impose on those who breach the Covenant?
* Why have the Archbishop of Canterbury and the ACC consistently ignored the consequences recommended for those who breach Communion discipline and order-such as reduction to observer status, the establishment of a parallel jurisdiction, and provision for a new jurisdiction and communion suspension of the intransigent body- outlined by retired Archbishops Drexel Gomez and Maurice Sinclair in their essay “To Mend the Net”?

And the most important question of all: Why not do the Anglican Communion Covenant right by replacing the role of the ACC and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s “ersatz Standing Committee” with that of the Covenanting Primates and the Lambeth Conference in overseeing the Covenant? Authority should be placed in the hands of Covenant-affirming churches. TEC and its proxies should be excluded from the governing bodies of the Communion-for the sake of Communion order and our ecumenical relationships.

Read the rest of Philip Ashey’s introduction of Stephen Noll’s analysis here

And in the Communion? There is an undoubted good in the independence of local provinces, and there is an undoubted good in the fact that some provinces are increasingly patient, compassionate and thankful in respect of the experience and ministry of gay and lesbian people ”“ entirely in accord with what the Lambeth Conferences and Primates’ statements have said. But when the affirmation of that good takes the form of pre-empting the discernment of the wider Anglican (and a lot of the non-Anglican) fellowship, and of acting in ways that negate the general understanding of the limits set by Bible and tradition, there is a conflict with another undoubted good, which is the capacity of the Anglican family to affirm and support one another in diverse contexts. The freedom claimed, for example, by the Episcopal Church to ordain a partnered homosexual bishop is, simply as a matter of fact, something that has a devastating impact on the freedom of, say, the Malaysian Christian to proclaim the faith without being cast as an enemy of public morality and risking both credibility and personal safety. It hardly needs to be added that the freedom that might be claimed by an African Anglican to support anti-gay legislation likewise has a serious impact on the credibility of the gospel in our setting.

And in the Communion we have no supreme executive to make the decisions that might settle how the balance of freedom might be worked out. The Anglican Covenant has been attacked in some quarters for trying to create an executive power and for seeking to create means of exclusion. This is wholly mistaken. There is no supreme court envisaged, and the constitutional liberties of each province are explicitly safeguarded. But the difficult issue that we cannot simply ignore is this. Certain decisions made by some provinces impact so heavily on the conscience and mission of others that fellowship is strained or shattered and trust destroyed. The present effect of this is chaos ”“ local schisms, outside interventions, all the unedifying stuff you will be hearing about (from both sides) in the debate on Lorna Ashworth’s motion. So what are the vehicles for sharing perspectives, communicating protest, yes, even, negotiating distance or separation, that might spare us a worsening of the situation and the further reduction of Christian relationship to vicious polemic and stony-faced litigation? As I have said before, it may be that the Covenant creates a situation in which there are different levels of relationship between those claiming the name of Anglican. I don’t at all want or relish this, but suspect that, without a major change of heart all round, it may be an unavoidable aspect of limiting the damage we are already doing to ourselves. I make no apology, though, for pleading that we try, through the Covenant, to discover an ecclesial fellowship in which we trust each other to act for our good ”“ an essential feature of anything that might be called a theology of the Body of Christ.

Read it carefully and read it all.

There is general agreement, I would guess, amongst more traditional Anglicans, that the current set-up for the implementation of the Covenant is flawed….That is what ACI has argued….

What we have not argued is that we need to start the whole process of writing a Covenant over again; or that some party must convene its own adjudicating group of its own initiative to work from the ground up, independently of all the existing structures of the Anglican Communion. Such a path, in my own view, would be disastrous. The Covenant has come to its final text through a relatively regularized process, with relatively wide Communion representation behind its formulation, and has been commended and sent out by two recognized Instruments of the Communion (the ACC and Canterbury), and with at least some primatial endorsement (via the Joint Standing Committee of Primates and ACC, with, by the way, Abp Mouneer still present and participant before his resignation from that group). Furthermore, the Covenant itself, in its formal declarations, provides a means forward for dealing with the current confusions, and we have suggested a way this might work that maintains legitimate continuity with the structures that have themselves given birth to the Covenant, ordered it, received it, and commended it.

Let me now speak personally about my own view of the other alternatives here ”“ that is, other than the kind of proposal that ACI has put forward. These alternatives to our proposal are being touted, with varying degrees of hostility, by one group or another on the blogs at the present, and I believe them to be options that must be avoided….

Read it carefully and read it all.

The Most Rev. Dr. Mouneer Anis, who has resigned his position on the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, told The Living Church that discussions at the committee’s meeting in December 2009 are what prompted his resignation from the committee.

“I had been in communication before the meeting that I needed to discuss the participation of the Episcopal Church on the standing committee. I found some resistance to this,” said Bishop Mouneer, who is Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa, and President Bishop of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East.

Read it all.

Read it all.

(ACNS) The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, today expressed his regret at the decision of the Most Revd Dr Mouneer Anis, Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa, and President Bishop of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, to resign from the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion:

“Bishop Mouneer has made an important contribution to the work of the Standing Committee, for which I am deeply grateful. I regret his decision to stand down but will continue to welcome his active engagement with the life of the Communion and the challenges we face together.”

We have learned today from Bishop Mouneer Anis that he has submitted his resignation from the former joint standing committee. Following so closely the release in December of the final text of the Anglican Communion Covenant, this resignation underscores the extent to which the Anglican Communion is at a major crossroads. At this decisive moment, however, substantial doubts have been expressed both publicly by Bishop Mouneer and privately by others as to whether this committee, now the standing committee of the Anglican Consultative Council, is the appropriate body to coordinate the implementation of the Covenant. These concerns point to the steps that we believe are necessary to restore the Communion so badly damaged by actions in North America over the last decade. In what follows, we seek first to outline the current structural challenges to the Covenant’s initial implementation. This will involve some important, if technical, analysis. Only then, however, can we make clear what, in our mind, these necessary steps for implementation are.

In summary, and on the basis of our continued conviction that the Covenant itself as currently formulated is a positive, faithful, and necessary basis for the renewal of the Anglican Communion and its member churches, we argue that:

1. The final Covenant text envisions a Communion of responsibly coordinated Instruments, ordered episcopally, that the current ACC-led standing committee is in fact undermining;
2. The current ACC standing committee is not necessarily the “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion” indicated by the Covenant text, and cannot therefore automatically claim the authority it seems to be assuming;
3. The current ACC standing committee has little credibility in the eyes of a large part of the Communion and ought not to be claiming the authority it seems to be assuming;
4. Those Churches of the Communion who move fully and decisively to adopt the Covenant must work with a provisional and representative standing committee, continuous in membership with the other Instruments, that will direct the implementation of the Covenant in a way that can eventually permit a Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion to be formed as envisioned by the Covenant text.

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…I have come to the sad realization that there is no desire within the ACC and the SCAC to follow through on the recommendations that have been taken by the other Instruments of Communion to sort out the problems which face the Anglican Communion and which are tearing its fabric apart. Moreover, the SCAC, formerly known as the join Standing Committee (JSC), has continually questioned the authority of the other Instruments of Communion, especially the Primates Meeting and the Lambeth Conference.
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Some may say that the provinces within the Anglican Communion are autonomous, and each province is free to make its own resolutions. While I agree and accept the autonomous nature of each province, I believe that the participation in the decision making process that affects the life of the Anglican Communion should be for those who show respect in word and deed to the whole Communion – not those who turn their backs to every appeal and warning.

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