In spite of all that I have written, it seems to me that schism in the Anglican Communion is not a fact. I would argue that it has not actually taken place. The Anglican Communion is still ”˜teetering on the brink’, still ”˜looking over the precipice’, but it hasn’t jumped. I base this conclusion – journalists are trained from the cradle to start not end stories with their conclusions – on all there is to base it on, the ”˜instruments’ of the Communion.

We are used to hearing about the ”˜music of the spheres’ but now there is a stranger song, the ”˜music of the schism’.

In spite of the boycott of one instrument of communion, the Lambeth Conference, by some provinces in 2008, the last two Primates’ meetings have been fully attended apart from absentees explicable for reasons other than those at the root of the present debate. The next meeting will be in 2011, so perhaps we won’t have formal schism until then. But even that might not count. The ultimate arbiter might have to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, himself one of the four instruments of unity.

Read it all.

On December 18, 2009, the long-awaited Anglican Covenant was sent to the Anglican Communion’s 38 provinces for formal consideration. The Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council””now self-denominated as the “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion” has now approved a revised Section Four.

The question on many people’s minds is, “Do we need a covenant?

Some have said that we do not. They complain, “It’s not Anglican!” What they mean, I believe, is that the whole notion of a covenant uniting and binding the whole Communion is contrary to classical Anglican ecclesiology. The argument goes something like this: the provinces of the Anglican Communion have always been independent and self-governing. Any attempt to impose a covenant that would aim to limit that independence and autonomy is simply contrary to the expansiveness and freedom of self-governance that has traditionally been characteristic of Anglicanism.

Ah, but is that a fair reading of our history? I believe not.

In this paper I will summarize the arguments in favor of calling the churches of the Anglican Communion to adopt a Covenant. Then I will address the argument that requiring the churches in the Communion to sign on to the Covenant is not in keeping with our tradition of how we order our common life as Anglicans. A fair reading of the history of the Anglican Communion will show that the aims of the proposed Covenant are in keeping with how the Communion has historically dealt with major disagreements.

Read it all.

(Please note that this response refers to the thread below on the blog on which there are currently over 50 comments. If you have not read that thread I would encourage you to do so–KSH)

This thread must be one of the best T19 has witnessed, IMHO. Thank you to the many participants: I have benefited greatly from the discussion – not least the rigour and candour of much of it. Even if I disagree with those who do not favour the Covenant Process …!

In my present little part of the Lord’s vineyard, we have a really intriguing situation developing. For New Zealand is not generally known for its conservative style Anglican ethos (ven if it does have a strong CMS history)!. Yet, as we face the run up to its General Synod in May this year, some lines are starting to be drawn which will determine our long term future, for better or ill.

The Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia runs a quarterly national magazine called [i]Taonga[/i]. The name is Maori for “prized treasure”, a reference to the Gospel of the Kingdom of God in Christ Jesus. The latest Advent edition ran two articles on the Anglican Communion Covenant, one pro and one against. As with this Church’s official response to the RCD, it mostly wants a ‘bob-each-way’ – even as it tries to be fair in its debates! See http://www.anglicantaonga.org.nz/ and the third set of links beginning with “Dr Williams hails latest Covenant”.

I refer the T19 readership to these links especially since the article in favour reaffirms some of the stronger points made in this thread, while the one against – by a retired bishop please note – shows very starkly why the AC seriously needs such a mechanism as the Covenant, to arrest the dribbling into the sands of endless ideological pluralism. And it is clear to me at least the GS leadership has grasped this western ideological nettle very firmly, to refute it, as it seeks to bolster the Covenant Process to achieve an AC that still might be a vessel of worth in the Lord’s hands for the global mission of the Church in the 21st C. Enjoy!

From here:

I have had my own disappointments and outright disagreements with Canterbury’s chosen course of action at various points over the last few years, and I have shared this with him personally. Where some have urged a “bolder” response to TEC, within the limits of his ecclesial and moral authority, I have urged the same thing. But I categorically reject the charges made here that he has set about to undermine agreements made among the Primates, as at Dar es Salaam, or to manipulate and ignore legal processes such as those in place at the ACC last May.

In the first instance, RW was personally a key player (not the only one) at getting the Dar agreement nominally accepted, through face to face persuasion on the floor, as it were. That has been stated by several GS primates present at the time. But the agreement was also made possible by the compromise work of primates who were not personally disposed to aspects of its content, e.g. Australia. The Dar agreement, in other words, was intrinsically fragile, based as it was on temporary dynamics and uncertain internal commitments. The sense of Lambeth, it soon became apparent, was that its prosecution was thereby vulnerable from the start, and at the first sign of withdrawal of strong support outside of the meeting, Lambeth decided that pressing the agreement concretely would be counterproductive to the agreements actual aims. These “signs” included TEC and AMiA both immediately rejecting key provisions, and their allies quickly standing behind them.

I believe that RW gave up too quickly, choosing instead (as he has consistently done) to rebuild alternative consensus for change through other groups (e.g. the Windsor Continuation Group). This is fair game to debate and criticize, it seems to me. But the notion that RW was the skunk in the patch here is, to put it bluntly, a matter of sinners throwing stones. The Primates Meeting had already proved to be, in certain respects, a place where bishops behaved badly, and the fact that it was judged to be a weak reed should surprise no one. I don’t believe it needed to be left at this place, but again, that is matter for debate.

As for the ACC, we all know that the running of this meeting was a procedural disaster that has set back the ACC’s credibility enormously, fanning the flames of suspicion by all and sundry. No one can mitigate that loss of trust or the justifications in general for that loss. But there is a long way between such generally well-founded worries about the ACC’s ability to do its job fairly and well, and condemning this or that individual with deliberate and malicious intent. “Manipulation” there was, I would think, although any precise assessment of blame is not possible to come by. And Canterbury’s role in this demonstrates confusion””albeit deeply regrettable confusion””rather than strategic subversion. Furthermore, the outcome with respect to the Covenant strikes me as a sign of recognition of this fact: amazingly expeditious revision, and starkly restrained in its focus. People don’t seem to admit mistakes much anymore in public; but the manner of this outcome adds up to an admission of sorts. That is my read of the matter, and I don’t think it is particularly pollyannish. Not, that is, in the face of the anti-Stalinists and anti-Czarists faced off against each other.

I remain convinced that those leaders””bishops, clergy, and laity””who can order their service to the church for the long haul, steadily and solidly faithful, ordered, engaged in commonly established processes of ecclesial life, honest and charitable, and perseverant in their commitments within and for the sake of the people shared (not just locally), will prevail. That is a promise of the Lord, it seems, to “those who endure to the end”. People like Abps. Chew and Mouneer Anis presently, or Gomez recently; and others. And, for all my concerns about this and that, Rowan Williams too has demonstrated a perserverence that is bound to his faith in Christ Jesus as Lord, and not to self-interest. From that certainly I can be strengthened. So should others be, whether or not they can affirm his decisions in this or that particular matter.

The views of the Primates were sought at the Primates’ Meeting in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, in 2007.

The change (in effect a change to the Constitution) required approval in principle from a majority of the provinces, and the Standing Committee just before ACC 14 in Jamaica in 2009 noted that the requisite number of approvals had been received. The change to the status of the Primates’ Standing Committee with respect to the ACC and its Standing Committee came into effect when approvals had been received. The company itself is now in the process of registration with the Charity Commissioners.

Read it all. Please note that it is unclear when Nick Kniseley quotes “the Secretary General’s response,” what, exactly, Nick is quoting from (that is, is it a personal letter or email to Nick, someone else, a group of people, or what exactly–KSH?.

Speaking today in an exclusive interview with The Christian Post, the retired archbishop said the covenant will not solve the essential problem of the Anglican Communion, which he identified as a crisis of biblical orthodoxy where the historic Anglican counterpart in America has embraced immorality and refuses to repent of it

The Anglican Covenant, which calls upon archbishops and presiding bishops leading the 38 Anglican provinces worldwide to promote unity within the denomination, “will not help convert the sinful,” he said.

Ultimately, it is the Anglican leaders themselves, not a committee, who have to be responsible for the spiritual life of their churches.

“It’s (the success of the Anglican Covenant) dependent on their willingness to repent, but they (the leaders of the American Anglican Church) have no fear of God,” he said, comparing them to Eli, a priest in the Bible whose sons died because he failed to discipline them.

“None of the resolutions have worked. None of the committees have worked,” said archbishop Tay. He described the Anglican Consultative Council, a ”˜major decider’ in the Anglican Communion, as ”˜U.S.-controlled.’

Read it all.

The final text of the Anglican Communion Covenant pleased the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, who has served on the document’s design group since its inception in 2006. Dr. Radner, an Episcopal priest, is professor of historical theology at Wycliffe College in Toronto, Ontario.

“My sense about it is that they didn’t really change anything substantial,” he told The Living Church, referring to the working group charged with revising the document from its previous iteration as the Ridley Cambridge draft.

“They salvaged what could have been a bad mess from May [2009],” when the Anglican Consultative Council met and, after a chaotic legislative session, ultimately asked for revisions to the document’s fourth section, which proposes how provinces will be accountable to the Anglican Communion as a whole.

Because changes to the fourth section did not reflect what Episcopal Church leaders were seeking, Dr. Radner said, the document helps change that province’s standing. He described it as being part of a pattern, along with the ecumenical dialogues of the Anglican”“Roman Catholic International Commission and the recent meeting of the Archbishop of Canterbury with Pope Benedict XVI.

Read it all.

The Anglican constitutional and canon law tradition is a minimalist tradition. I remember studying at Boston College, a Jesuit university, during my doctoral work and always being able to find a chair and table in the library’s canon law room which had shelves and shelves of books on Roman Catholic canon law. There was one whole wall devoted to canon law for the various religious societies. In contrast the canon law of The Episcopal Church or any of its dioceses is one smallish book. Our tradition is the minimum of ecclesiastical jurisprudence that is needed to maintain the order of the church. This covenant is in that tradition. I wish that it were more robust in places but I think it adequate to be the basis of an ongoing life of mutual submission and growth in unity and mission for the Anglican Communion but much will depend on the integrity of the individuals who will be because of their office the stewards of this covenant.

When I was a young man and entering into a business contract for the first time, I asked my father for some advice about the enforceability of a particular contract. He told me that if a man’s word wasn’t any good, his paper wasn’t any good either. In many cases the current chaos that we are experiencing in the Churches of the Anglican Communion is not a result of a lack of articulated rules and procedures of church discipline, but is the result of an unwillingness by those charged with the stewardship of the order of the church to enforce such discipline as has already been established. This version of the Anglican Covenant is a minimalist document. It does clarify issues of communion life and order and provide an agreed-upon process for handling disputes. It can be a real instrument for growth in truth, unity and mission, but only if those to whom the responsibility has been given to be stewards of the church’s order have the necessary moral courage to fulfill their office.

Read it all.

Archbishops representing Anglican churches in the southern hemisphere will formally accept a covenant aimed at promoting unity within the worldwide denomination when they meet in Singapore 2010.

The Global South Anglican, which brings together 20 of the 38 provinces (churches led by archbishops or their counterparts) in the Anglican Communion and in which the Bishop of Singapore and Archbishop of the Church of the Province of Southeast Asia The Most Revd Dr John Chew serves as incumbent general secretary, will be holding its fourth meeting or ”˜encounter’ from 19 to 23 April.

The Anglican Communion Covenant as it is called was developed over the past number of years to salvage unity within the communion after the ordination of an openly homosexual bishop by The Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of Anglicanism, threatened to split it.

Read it all.

The proposed Anglican Covenant will not solve all the Communion’s problems, the Archbishop of Canterbury warned, as the final draft went out to all the provinces for approval last week.

It was not going to be a constitution, “and it’s certainly not going to be a penal code for punishing people who don’t comply,” Dr Williams said in a short video address, posted on YouTube, after the Communion’s Standing Committee had met from 15 to 18 December.

Read it all.

The Diocese of Central Florida’s annual convention will have an opportunity in late January to affirm the now-completed Anglican Communion Covenant.

In a letter to members of the diocese, the Rt. Rev. John W. Howe urged delegates to support the Covenant by voting for a resolution by the Rev. Eric Turner.

A list distributed by the Episcopal Church Center mentions eight dioceses that have scheduled conventions in January: Central Florida, Florida, Newark, North Carolina, Southwestern Virginia, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington. To date, only Central Florida has posted any resolution that addresses the Covenant in any form.

In his letter, Bishop Howe acknowledged that drafting the Covenant has taken a few years and provincial approval of it will take more time still. “It has been a lengthy process, and it will not be concluded soon,” he wrote.

Read it all.

Each Anglican province is autonomous, limiting the power of Williams and other Anglican leaders to police the communion. In fact, earlier this month, Episcopalians in Los Angeles openly defied Williams by electing an open lesbian, the Rev. Mary Glasspool, as an assistant bishop.

Since then, Williams and an international panel of Anglican leaders have asked the Episcopal Church to “exercise restraint” by not confirming Glasspool’s election. In addition, the Anglican Communion’s Standing Committee on Friday asked Episcopalians to exercise “gracious restraint” with respect to “actions that endanger the unity of the Anglican Communion.”

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who generally supports gay rights in the church, sits on the 15-member Standing Committee, but it is not known whether she supports the statement. A spokeswoman for Jefferts Schori said on Tuesday that “as agreed upon by the Standing Committee, the details of the conversations of the meeting are considered private.”

Read it all.

As the Anglican Communion has developed in recent years there has not been a parallel development of a framework to address together a response to problems which arise in relationships between the member Churches. The Covenant puts forward such a framework, faithful to Anglican ecclesiology, within which a response to tensions can be discerned and articulated. At present, as no such mechanism exists, it has led to serious threats to the unity and integrity of the Communion.

The draft gives considerable prominence to the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion which can make recommendations concerning the relational consequences resulting from actions by individual member Churches. It can make requests to Churches to defer certain actions, for instance. However, it will still be up to each member Church to decide how to be guided by any specific recommendations which may come from the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, thereby respecting the treasured autonomy of the Provinces.

Read it all.

…there apparently is a new ACC constitution (now referred to as Articles of Association) that changes the membership procedures for the ACC. This new constitution (which has not been made public) also applies in some way to the adoption of the Covenant by other churches.
11. On the second question, “who can invite,” the Covenant is explicit in saying that this may be done by the “Instruments.” On its face, this means that any of the Instruments, e.g., the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Primates’ Meeting, could issue such an invitation, which would then invoke the procedures indicated: approval by the Standing Committee and consents from the Primates.

12. None of this is meant to suggest that such an invitation is necessarily imminent, but the procedures are far more flexible and responsive to developing circumstances than many have been led to believe.

13. With these principles in mind, we urge all churches and dioceses interested in committing to the life of mutual accountability and interdependence required by the Covenant to adopt and affirm the Covenant as soon as practicable and communicate their decisions to the Communion and its churches. We note that paragraph 4.1.6 provides that “This Covenant becomes active for a Church when that Church adopts the Covenant through the procedures of its own Constitution and Canons.” Thus, the Covenant will become active as soon as member churches begin to adopt it, and the Global South churches have indicated their intention to begin doing so as early as April 2010. By committing to the Covenant, a church or diocese will immediately begin to share in the Communion life represented by the Covenant even as the formalities of the Communion Instruments necessarily will take longer to implement.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Anglican Covenant is now in its “final” form, and it has been distributed to the Provinces of the Communion for their consideration. It is not greatly different from the third draft that we saw several months ago. I believe that the first three sections are an excellent – truly excellent – summary of what Anglicans believe and have in common. The full text is available at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/commission/covenant/final/text.cfm

Section four is in a sense what the whole exercise has been about. The drafting of this Covenant was first proposed in the 2004 Windsor Report which was produced in response to the Primates’ concerns over the election and consecration of an openly non-celibate gay man as Bishop of New Hampshire.

It has been a lengthy process, and it will not be concluded soon. But section four of the Covenant outlines a process by which the majority of the Communion might be able to declare that a given action on the part of one of its member Churches (such as the consecration of an openly non-celibate homosexual bishop) is or would be “incompatible with the Covenant” and there might then be “relational consequences.”

From the beginning of the Covenant drafting process the Archbishop of Canterbury has been clear that he hoped we would create a Covenant that each member Province could voluntarily decide to “opt into” or not. He has envisioned a “two tier” or “two track” Communion in which those Provinces that choose to “opt into” the Covenant remain in “constituent membership” in the Communion, and those Provinces that “opt out” of the Covenant move into “associate membership” – something which he has compared to the status of the Methodist Church: it has an Anglican heritage, but it is really a separate denomination.

The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council has said that the earliest time in which TEC as a whole can officially consider the Covenant is the General Convention of 2012. But, in his response to my inquiry on behalf of our Diocesan Board, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said that dioceses are certainly free to “affirm” the Covenant if and when they choose to do so.

The Covenant has created a procedure by which those Provinces that “opt into” it can take action on behalf of the Communion as a whole to declare that certain actions are outside the bounds of our corporate life, and while the “relational consequences” are not spelled out in the Covenant itself, they clearly are foreshadowed by those Provinces which have declared “impaired” or “broken” communion with The Episcopal Church over the consecration of the Bishop of New Hampshire.

Both our Diocesan Board and our Standing Committee have already affirmed the first three sections of the Covenant, and there is a Resolution to be considered by our 41st Convention next month to do likewise. Now that the fourth section has been finalized Fr. Eric Turner (who proposed the original Resolution) will offer a substitute Resolution that the Convention affirm the Covenant as a whole.

I have repeatedly said that I believe the only hope for the Anglican Communion is in following the Archbishop’s lead in drafting and adopting this Covenant. I now urge the delegates to Convention to study it and affirm it on January 30.

It remains my personal commitment to uphold the Covenant, and I give you my assurance, again, that I will never consent to the election of a bishop (or for that matter a priest or deacon) living in a relationship of sexual intimacy other than marriage as the Book of Common Prayer defines and understands it (one man and one woman, in Christ).

Warmest regards in our Lord,

–(The Rt. Rev.) John W. Howe is Bishop of Central Florida

Read the whole thing.

Dr Williams also admitted that parts of the long-awaited Anglican Covenant which deal with sanctions against churches that break traditions or established boundaries are “controversial”.

But he insisted it would not be used to punish either conservatives or liberals in the bitter dispute over sexuality within the 80 million-strong worldwide church.

If the provinces sign up to the document, whose final draft has been published online, they agree not to carry out any contentious actions such as putting their clergy in another country without its agreement, electing openly homosexual priests or blessing same-sex unions in church.

The Covenant allows a body called the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion to resolve disputes and to suspend the membership of provinces that break the rules from gatherings of worldwide leaders such as the Lambeth Conference.

Read it all.

Check it out.

Take a careful look and there are lots of documents here.

The Rev. Ephraim Radner, professor of historical theology at the University of Toronto’s Wycliffe College, told ENS he wasn’t surprised by Glasspool’s election and that he wouldn’t be if she receives the required consents for her planned May 15, 2010 consecration.

What will surprise the former Colorado conservative is if the Episcopal Church will sign the latest version of the Anglican covenant.

Glasspool’s election and consecration will convey the impression that not just the Los Angeles diocese but “the Episcopal Church as a whole is not interested in participating in the processes that have been so painfully put together over the last six years” to consult and to exercise restraint and be accountable to one another as outlined in the proposed Anglican covenant, he said.

He added that, if the Episcopal Church signs the yet-to-be completed covenant, it will be seen as “utter disingenuousness.” The election of an openly gay partnered bishop “establishes in a formal way the Episcopal Church’s decision not to be a part of this process,” he added.

Read it all.

The covenant by itself cannot save Anglicanism ”” I’m not sure it’s structured in a way that would allow it to do that ”” but the process of studying the covenant, responding to it, receiving it, and recommitting ourselves to one another may do so, and it will leave the Anglican Communion stronger. A strengthened Anglican Communion will be confident in itself while actively working for Christian unity through joining with our brothers and sisters in mission and by standing ready to share the understandings born from our comprehensiveness.

Two points in the Ridley Cambridge draft seem especially important in such a task and in light of a call to be reconcilers and interpreters. The first is in §2.1.5, which affirms that “our common mission is a mission shared with other Churches and traditions” and recognizes that “the ecumenical vocation of Anglicanism to the full visible unity of the Church in accordance with Christ’s prayer that ”˜all may be one.’ ”

The other is §4.1.5, which states:

It shall be open to other Churches to adopt the Covenant. Adoption of this Covenant does not bring any right of recognition by, or membership of, the Instruments of Communion. Such recognition and membership are dependent on the satisfaction of those conditions set out by each of the Instruments.

Leaving open the possibility that other churches might adopt the covenant is, in my mind, a wonderful gesture that seems born from reflection on the ecumenical vocation of Anglicanism mentioned in section two. This provision has inspired resistance in some quarters of the Episcopal Church, for fear that it might play into the perceived schemes of some of our departed brothers and sisters to replace the Episcopal Church as the officially recognized Anglican body in the United States. While I understand the origins of such concerns, I wonder if they are the fruit of a conflict mentality that is unhelpful and could lead to an even longer period of being internally focused. The key portion of the provision for those who have these concerns would seem to be that any body’s acceptance as part of the Communion would come only with the approval of all the Instruments of Communion, not simply one or two.

In the end, the inclusion of this provision within the covenant prevents it from being a document purely internal to the Communion as it is, and instead turns a portion of it outward in a gesture of invitation and welcome.

Read it all.

The Dioceses of Western Louisiana and South Carolina have endorsed the Ridley-Cambridge draft of the Anglican Covenant, joining Central Florida as the third American diocese to formally back the Archbishop of Canterbury’s plan for creating a structure to manage the divisions over doctrine and discipline dividing the Anglican Communion.

On Oct 24, a special convention of the Diocese of South Carolina approved a resolution by a margin of 88 to 12 per cent that “endorses” the Anglican Covenant “as it presently stands, in all four sections, as an expression of our full commitment to mutual submission and accountability in communion, grounded in a common faith.”

Delegates to the Oct 9-10 annual convention of the Diocese of Western Louisiana also affirmed their support for the Covenant and backed Bishop Bruce MacPherson’s endorsement of the Anaheim Statement, which reaffirmed his commitment to remain part of the Anglican Communion and the Anglican Covenant process.

Read the whole article.

CROSSROADS ARE FOR MEETING (AGAIN)

AN ADDRESS TO THE CONVENTION OF THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF DALLAS ON THE PROPOSED ANGLICAN COVENANT

**
THE REV. DR. PHILIP TURNER

I

As you know, my subject is the Anglican Covenant. Is it really Anglican? Is it really necessary? Is it theologically defensible? Is it an effective way to address our present difficulties? I will get to these questions and others in due course, but first, to make sure we know what it is that we are talking about, I must take you on a little trip down memory lane. The first book I published was a collection of essays entitled “Crossroads Are For Meeting.” The date was 1986, and the particular cross in the road faced at that time by the Anglican Communion was the nature of its mission, and in particular its mission as a world-wide communion of autonomous churches. Previously, in 1963, The Anglican Congress had defined the inter-relation of these churches as being one of “mutual responsibility and interdependence in the body of Christ.” At this gathering, the assembled delegates took a dramatic step in defining the nature of Anglicanism as a communion rather than, say, a federation; but there were divisions over the Communion’s calling. If Anglicans are to understand themselves as bound by mutual responsibility and interdependence in the body of Christ, just what is the purpose of this communion under God?

The collection of essays I helped assemble revealed a profound division over this matter, one that is with us to this day. Is the mission of the Anglican Communion to join other Christian bodies in spreading the Gospel of reconciliation and redemption through Christ’s victory on the cross, or is it, with other churches, to join Christ in a sacrificial struggle to include the oppressed and marginalized and so to establish justice on the earth? Despite very articulate pleas that these two views need not be in conflict, they were in conflict then and remain so to this day. This conflict over the mission of the church has returned in our own time with such ferocity that it threatens any possibility of meaningful communion.

I hope I do not have to defend the statement that divisions over the mission of the church are lodged just below the surface of our current argument about sex. The crisis we now face has been building for quite some time, and it involves matters far more central and complex than disputes over sexual identity and conduct. To my mind, the big issue is how autonomous churches called to carry out God’s mission at a particular time and place can remain at the same time in a communion that is catholic in both belief and practice.

In its modern form this question was posed at the Lambeth Conference of 1948””the first to be held after the Second World War and the first to take place during the dismantling of the British Empire. At this meeting a committee of bishops asked, “Is Anglicanism based on a sufficiently coherent form of authority to form the nucleus of a world-wide fellowship of churches, or does its comprehensiveness conceal internal divisions which may cause its disruption?” This question defines the struggles of Anglicans in the post-modern period, but its roots go down into the soil of Anglican beginnings. The Church of England established itself as the church of a nation, but it sought to do so as an expression of catholic Christianity. The Episcopal Church sought to establish itself as a church independent of the Church of England, but nonetheless bound by its doctrine and discipline (and so also by its combination of both national and catholic identity).

Similar tensed goals are to be found in the numerous provinces that had their beginning the middle of the 19th Century and came to full flower after The Second World War. Just how are these churches to remain both local and catholic? That is the question. In response, Anglicans have at best stumbled toward an answer. In 1867 the first Lambeth Conference of Bishops was called to address governance issues brought into focus by growing independence within the colonial churches, the publication of Essays and Reviews, and by the Bishop of Natal’s view of Holy Scripture. The birth of many new and autonomous provinces after The Second World War issued in the Pan Anglican Congress, The Anglican Consultative Council, and The Meeting of Primates. The crisis brought about by the consecration of a woman to the Episcopate produced The Virginia Report along with linkage of a congeries of consultative bodies that were labeled “The Instruments of Unity” (now “The Instruments of Communion”). Finally, the actions of the Dioceses of New Westminster and New Hampshire in the matters of gay blessings and ordinations issued in the Windsor Report and the proposal for an Anglican Covenant.

All these institutional developments have been directed to the same end””both to guard the autonomy of the various provinces of the Anglican Communion and insure that each “recognizes” in the others fellow members of a communion of churches. This goal is easy to state, but extraordinarily difficult to achieve. To this point, the Instruments of Communion have not been able to provide the several provinces of the Communion with confidence that they, the instruments, can achieve this goal. Failure to address adequately the actions of the Diocese of New Westminster and those of The General Convention of The Episcopal Church (TEC) has strained the credibility of each and every one of them. The proposed Anglican Covenant is, in my view, the last best hope for achieving the goal of a communion of autonomous churches bound by common belief, practice, mutual responsibility, and interdependence. As I hope to demonstrate, it does so by placing responsibility for communion firmly in the hands of the autonomous provinces themselves. The proposed Covenant asks that the provinces and local churches of the Communion covenant one with another (rather than with a legislative or juridical body) and within this covenanted relationship exercise their autonomy within the limits imposed by membership in a communion of churches.

II
Now, is this proposed Covenant really Anglican? Is it necessary? Is it theologically sound? Will it succeed in achieving the goal its supporters have in mind? The best way to respond is to work through the main points of the proposed covenant with these questions in mind. You will remember that the latest version of the Covenant has four parts””the first three of which, along with an “Introduction,” “Preamble” and “Declaration” have been approved for circulation to the provinces for ratification. The fourth section, largely procedural in nature, is now being reviewed. Since they have already been approved for circulation, I will focus on “The Introduction to the Covenant Text,” the “Preamble”, and sections one through three. Though it is of central importance, my remarks on Section Four will be brief because we do not know what its final form will be.

Though it is not part of the Covenant itself, the” Introduction” provides the theological base for all that follows, and it does so by reference to the primary theological theme present in the ecumenical dialogues of the Anglican Communion. The foundational theme is “communion”. The churches, all of them, are called through Christ into communion with the Triune God. In this communion, Christians share one with another in the very life of God. The mission of The Anglican Communion is, therefore, to share with other churches in calling all peoples, through Christ, into the life of God and to manifest that life in the relations of its various provinces one with another. The Covenant, its proposers contend, is not intended to change the nature of Anglicanism. Rather, its purpose is “to reflect, in our relations with one another, God’s own faithfulness and promises towards us in Christ.” To reflect God’s purpose for the creation in this way, it is necessary that God’s mission be “carried out in shared responsibility and stewardship and in interdependence among ourselves and with the wider church.”

It seems to me that nothing could be more Anglican than this theological starting point. It accords with the catholic identity we have claimed since the Reformation, it accords with our self-representations in ecumenical dialogues, and it is faithful to our internal deliberations. Nevertheless, you are surely aware that many object to the Covenant because they believe it compromises the autonomy of the provinces and for this reason is “un-Anglican.” I can only say in response that neither in the foundation of the various Anglican provinces nor in their ecumenical self-representations have Anglicans understood the autonomy of the various provinces to exist as an unfettered right. Neither have Anglicans, despite claims to the contrary, understood mutual responsibility and interdependence to have no relation to common belief and practice. If anything is “un-Anglican” it is an unfettered claim to autonomy in which each province claims to be judge in its own case whenever its “autonomous” decisions are questioned by other provinces. So it seems to me that the covenant drafters are quite Anglican when they say in the “Preamble” that the churches of the Anglican Communion covenant together “in order to proclaim more effectively in our different contexts the grace of God revealed in the Gospel, to offer God’s love in responding to the needs of the world, to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and together with all God’s people to attain the full stature of Christ.”

So far, at least, the Covenant seems to me to thoroughly Anglican and certainly theologically adequate. It surely can’t be a mistake to root one’s ecclesiology in the sacrificial death of Christ and the life of the Triune God. But let us test further to see if we can make similar affirmations in respect to the specifics of the proposed covenant. Section One concerns “Our Inheritance of Faith” and like the other two sections is divided into affirmations and commitments. The affirmations seem to me both thoroughly adequate and thoroughly Anglican.

What is affirmed in respect to our inheritance of faith? Communion in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church that worships one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! The Catholic and Apostolic faith uniquely revealed in Holy Scriptures and set for in the catholic creeds! This faith to which authentic witness is born in the historic formularies of the Church of England and appropriated in various way in the Anglican Communion! To this list of affirmations is attached the four elements of the Chicago/Lambeth Quadrilateral and participation “in the apostolic mission of the whole people of God.”

To what are Anglicans committed in respect to “Our Inheritance of Faith?” The answer is to a number of things but they all stem from a faithful and communal reading of Holy Scripture that is attentive to the councils of the Communion, our ecumenical agreements, the teaching of Bishops and synods, the work of scholars, and prophetic and faithful leadership.

Now, once again, (taking due note of the fact that the Covenant does not require subscription but only affirmation that the formularies of the C of E bear authentic witness to the catholic and apostolic faith) I see nothing “un-Anglican” or theologically inadequate in this. The rub for the Covenant’s opponents comes with the commitment to seek a common understanding of scripture that must be attentive to a host of voices that may well challenge deeply held convictions on the part of an individual province. But, once again, it seems to me less than theologically adequate to place the primary weight of interpretive responsibility on the shoulders of individual readers or even individual churches, as it appears many within our own church would prefer. It also seems to me theologically inadequate to define communion apart from unity of belief and practice””a cry heard with increasing force among the Covenant’s opponents.

Now to Section Two that concerns “Our Anglican Vocation”! This section affirms that the communion of the churches is to be placed within God’s providential ordering. The Anglican Communion is also to be understood as part of that ordering, and within that context the mission heritage of Anglicans is affirmed as offering unique opportunities. These opportunities are given greater specification by five commitments that echo the Baptismal Covenant found in TEC’s Book of Common Prayer.

Though I have quibbles with some of the wording of this section, I doubt that it will be the subject of much controversy, and so I will pass immediately on to Section Three that, if grasped in its plain sense, most certainly will cause great controversy. Here the Covenant addresses “Our Unity and Common Life”, and here we come to the heart of our present conflicts. How shall we understand communion on the one hand and autonomy on the other?

What is it that the covenant asks us to affirm? We affirm that by incorporation into the body of Christ we are called “to pursue all things that make for peace and build up our common life.” For Anglicans this affirmation signals a resolve “to live in a Communion of Churches” in which each “orders and regulates its own affairs”¦through its own system of government and law.” In doing so, however, it understands itself to be living “in communion with autonomy and accountability.” This accountability is not mediated through a “central legislative and executive authority” but by “mutual loyalty sustained through the common counsel of the bishops in conference and the other instruments of Communion.”

From this basic affirmation flow certain commitments. Chief among these is “to respect the constitutional autonomy of all of the churches of the Anglican Communion while upholding our mutual responsibility and interdependence in the Body of Christ, and the responsibility of each to the Communion as a whole.” Concretely this means that each of the Churches of the Communion, before taking a controversial action, will seek a shared mind through the Communion’s councils. Further, it means that when an action “by its intensity, substance or extent” threatens the unity of the Communion or the credibility of its mission, a province will only act (if it does so at all) with “diligence, care and caution.”

Few, I think, realize how strong the words “intensity, substance or extent” and “diligence, care and caution” in fact are. The same lack of recognition applies too much of the vocabulary deployed in earlier sections of the covenant. I speak of terms like “shared discernment, accountability, and autonomy.” In deploying these terms, the Covenant’s drafters refer to a substantial and well-developed body of Anglican thought.
The generally accepted meaning of these terms places a heavy burden of proof on any province that exercises its autonomy in ways that other members of the Communion believe threaten their unity or their credibility.
III

I am forced to say (sadly) that by any reckoning, the recent actions of TEC’s General Convention are of sufficient “intensity, substance, and extent” to threaten the unity of the Communion. Further, given the seriousness of the threat and given the fact that TEC’s actions have been taken both against the counsel of all the Instruments of Communion and a direct plea by the Archbishop of Canterbury, it stretches credulity to say that they are actions that manifest “diligence, care, and caution.”

Indeed, given the fact that the first section of the Covenant clearly understands unity of belief and practice to be, in part, constitutive of communion, and given the fact that the third section makes clear that autonomy must be understood within the context of communion wide accountability, it would appear that TEC’s recent actions amount to a provisional rejection of the covenant. Apart from reversing the decisions recently taken, the only way TEC can with any integrity ratify the first three sections of the Covenant is to deny its plain sense and openly define communion univocally in terms of forms of mutual aid and hospitality that are decoupled from unity of belief and practice.

It is just this sort of talk that appears on the blogs and issues from the mouths of many of our present leaders. They do not like the Covenant because it compromises provincial autonomy and so is “un-Anglican.” By this charge they mean that the Covenant places limits on doctrinal and moral innovation, hinders innovations made necessary by the requirements of the mission of particular provinces, and places a curial hierarchy above the governing structures of individual provinces.

In response, one can only say that living in communion does place limits on doctrinal innovation and it does require that local adaptations for purposes of mission not make innovations other churches of the Communion cannot “recognize” as in accord with Holy Scripture and apostolic teaching. What, however, are we to make of the charge that the Covenant creates a curia that compromises the autonomy of the provinces? Opponents level this charge particularly against Section Four.

Since we do not have a final version of Section Four, I cannot respond in any definitive way to this charge. I will only say that in all the versions submitted so far the drafters have bent over backwards to protect the autonomy of the provinces. Rather than creating a curia that has legislative and juridical authority, they have sought procedures that will allow the provinces to act jointly and in good order when an action by a province, because of its “intensity, substance and extent”, is not “recognized” by the provinces as in accord with the belief and practice of the Communion as a whole.

The final section of the covenant in its penultimate form is procedural only. It does not establish an international hierarchy. It seeks only to present an orderly process for the provinces to preserve their unity and credibility through a process of “recognition” rather than adjudication. It is just such a process that the Anglican Communion has lacked and because of this lack, reactions to TEC’s recent actions have been piecemeal, chaotic, idiosyncratic, and productive of greater division rather than more extensive communion.

The simple fact is that without a strong Section Four that creates credible procedures rather than additional hierarchies, the Anglican Communion will perish as a communion of churches. So is a covenant necessary? I prefer to use the word necessary like St. Luke does only in reference to God’s providential ordering of his world. Whether a covenant or, indeed, whether Anglicanism itself are in this sense necessary I do not know. I can only pray that they are. Whatever the case may prove to be it is still reasonable to ask if a covenant is likely to be an effective means of preserving communion? I cannot answer this question with any degree of certainty. Nevertheless, I believe the Covenant is the only hope we have if we wish on the one hand to preserve a communion that involves more than mutual aid and hospitality; and on the other, in doing so, avoid the creation of an international hierarchy. At this point, I must be utterly clear. From a human point of view our choices are extremely limited. Either we have a covenant with real consequences like the “two track” proposal or the Communion will collapses. Many provinces from the Global South that support a covenant with consequences will simply go their own way, and those who have rejected a covenant with consequences will be left with something that is a Communion in name only. To return to the beginning, I believe the Covenant is our only hope to arrive at our present cross in the roads and meet rather than part forever.

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i The Lambeth Conference 1948 (London: SPCK, 1948), p. 84.
ii For verification of this point see William Curtis, The Lambeth Conferences: The Solution for Pan-Anglican Organization, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942), pp. 17-77.
iii Ibid, passim.
iv See e.g., the various reports of ACRIC and The Church of the Triune God, The Cyprus Statement of the International Commission for Anglican Orthodox theological Dialogue, 2007.
v Ridley Cambridge Draft (hereafter cited as RCD), “Introduction to the Covenant Text” (here after cites as Introduction) #5.
vi RCD, Introduction #7.
vii RCD, Preamble.
viii RCD, 1.1.1-1.1.8.
ix RCD, 2.2.2a-2.2.2e.
x RCD, 3.1.1.
xi RCD, 3.1.2.
xii Ibid. See also “A Letter from Alexandria”, the Primates, March 2009.
xiii Ibid. See also Lambeth Conference 1930.
xii RCD, 3.2.2. See also Toronto Conference 1963, and the Ten Principles of Partnership.
xiv RCD, 3.2.4; 3.2.5.
xv See Anglican Communion Institute, “The Anglican Covenant: Shared Discernment Recognized by All”, Anglicancommunioninstitute.com.

We have heard a great deal about our unique polity in the Episcopal Church over the last several years. Polity is just a fancy word for how we do things ”“ what rules and principles govern our corporate actions, and what structures are involved in governing. Perhaps more pointedly, the Greek word from which we get our English term connotes the rights and obligations inherent in being part of a larger body. St. Paul uses this very term when he describes the Gentile Christians. Once, he said, we were excluded from citizenship (politeia) in Israel, excluded from the covenants of promise which God had made to them. But now, in Christ, we are made fellow citizens (sumpolitai), fellow members of God’s household.

So what characterizes this “unique polity”? Bishop Garrett understood this polity, this citizenship, in a particular way. “Every Diocese is an independent and sovereign state.”

It is evident that Bishop Garrett did not see this striking statement as something new. Indeed, he looked back to the founding of the Church by her Lord and its spread as the basis for the statement. “Responsibility,” he said, “involves power.” It would have been a vain thing if Jesus had commanded his Apostles to go into all the world and to proclaim the Gospel, if at the same time he did not commit to them the necessary authority to do so. He gave them the right and the power “to teach, ordain, confirm, place, support and [discipline]” within their places of responsibility. This was the mode of operations in the earliest Church ”“ a community of men and women carrying out the work of their Lord in each location, but joined in their common sense of mission.

Sovereignty, the power or authority to work and order a common life in a territory, was based both upon the mission of the Church and in turn the practical necessities of the Church. The mission was to proclaim Christ and to make his saving work known.

Read it all.

At its last meeting, the Standing Committee of the Church of Ireland General Synod approved the following response to ACC-14’s request for reconsideration of the text of Section 4: “Having considered Section 4 of the Draft Anglican Covenant very carefully, and bearing in mind a full range of points of view, we believe that the text of Section 4 as it stands commends itself in the current circumstances. The term ”˜Joint Standing Committee’ clearly needs to be updated following its restyling at ACC-14. We appreciate the work of the former Covenant Design Group, not least in taking into account the Church of Ireland’s views, and encourage the Archbishop of Canterbury and his new group under the chairmanship of the Archbishop of Dublin as they seek to conclude the work on the text of the Covenant.”

Read it all (go to the bottom of the page).

Turning to the TEC constitution, we find that it has no supremacy clause giving General Convention priority over diocesan conventions. There is no language of supremacy or any of its synonyms, such as “highest” or “hierarchical.” The closest the TEC constitution comes to this concept is in the provision making the Bishop and standing committee “the Ecclesiastical Authority” in the diocese. If the bishop is “the” ecclesiastical authority in the diocese, the Presiding Bishop, the General Convention and the Executive Council are not.

So in TEC we have concurrent jurisdiction without supremacy among the General Convention and the various diocesan conventions, and each can theoretically undo what the other has done. But since the diocesan conventions meet three times for every one time the General Convention meets, this gives a distinct legal advantage to the diocese, and as a practical matter, the diocese gets the last word.

Now: what does this mean for the Anglican covenant? I will conclude with three observations.

First, given this concurrent jurisdiction and lack of a supremacy clause, dioceses have the inherent authority to commit themselves to the covenant as soon as it is available. Moreover, given the principles just discussed, if General Convention were someday to adopt the covenant, dioceses that do not want to assume the obligations of mutual responsibility and interdependence entailed by the covenant””and we know there are many such dioceses in TEC””those dioceses would be able to nullify that adoption and those commitments for their dioceses. So TEC’s polity makes it inevitable that dioceses will have to consider the covenant, and they will be able to do so at any time after it is finalized and sent to the member churches of the Anglican Communion early next year.

Second, what does the Anglican covenant, or the Anglican Communion more broadly, have to say about TEC polity? The short and clear answer to this question is: “Absolutely nothing.” The covenant is explicit in saying that nothing in it alters any provision of the constitution or canons of any church. And that has always been understood as a hallmark of the Anglican Communion. Member churches are autonomous. The covenant and the Communion have no say in how we do what we do””unless, I suppose, we abolished bishops altogether. So the frequent complaint directed by some in the House of Deputies to the wider Communion, “you don’t understand our polity,” is irrelevant. The Communion does not need, or perhaps even care, to understand our polity. They have no interest or say in how we do what we do.

Read it all.

“This will bring further recognition of our diocese as a part of the Episcopal Church, as a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, and in communion with the See of Canterbury. When I shared with the Archbishop of Canterbury last month the plans for a resolution of this nature, he responded favorably,” the bishop said.

The bishop also spoke of why he believes the diocese needs to remain within the Episcopal Church.

“We need to stay where we are because our Lord needs the faithfulness of the ministry this diocese has to offer, and does offer, through the commitment of those who make this their spiritual home, and in turn are striving to build up the kingdom of God in this place and the life of Christ’s Church,” he said. “We stay also because our historic identity with the Anglican Communion demands it of us. Without ordered processes there is no catholicity, no claim to the ancient Christian unity, which we claim is at the very heart of whom we are as members of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.”

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Basing full membership of the Anglican Communion on compliance with the text of a covenant may send unintended messages about exclusion, Dr Peter Selby, the former Bishop of Worcester, said this week.

Speaking at the Inclusive Church conference, Dr Selby offered a detailed critique of Communion, Covenant, and our Anglican Future, the statement issued by Dr Rowan Williams after the recent General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States. (News, 31 July,)

Dr Selby said that both of the main arguments made in the Archbishop’s paper had a two-edged character. The requirement that, in order to be recognisable, Anglicans needed patterns and convictions such as those proposed in the Anglican Covenant, raised the fundamental biblical question “recognisable to whom?” Being recognisable to “the least of the brothers and sisters” (Matthew 25) mattered at least as much as being recognisable to other provinces, Dr Selby contended.

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The Executive Council said that the comments it received on Section Four were “so interwoven” with comments on the covenant as a whole that “separating the two is difficult.”

“The majority of deputations and individual deputies that responded are not convinced that the covenant in its current form will bring about deeper communion,” the council said. “Several stated that the overall idea of a covenant is ‘un-Anglican.’ One went as far as to say that the ‘document incorporates anxiety.'”

On the other hand, the council noted, another deputy called the covenant “a presentation of the Christian community as a dynamic spiritual body in which God-given freedom is inextricably bound up with God-given accountability.”

Read it all.

There are four reasons why this covenant is not a good idea for Anglicans.

1. It is against the grain of Anglican ecclesiology (what we think the church is)

2. It is an inadequate response to the conflict in the Anglican Communion

3. In practical terms it will create immense and complicating confusion about institutional relationships and financial obligations.

4. It does not address the key fundamental issue in this conflict, how to act in a particular context which is relevant to that context and also faithful to the gospel.

Read it all.