A Response from the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church to the Saint Andrew’s Draft

Read it carefully and read it all.

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Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, Anglican Covenant, Episcopal Church (TEC)

7 comments on “A Response from the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church to the Saint Andrew’s Draft

  1. Phil says:

    Numbered lines, just like a legal brief. How appropriate.

    More generally, reading the ticky-tac objections, most intended to nudge Christianity to the side in favor of personal gratification, the futility of the whole Covenant effort becomes obvious. It’s the ultimate in wordsmithing by committee, and, therefore, the process is guaranteed to take probably a decade past the time the patience of mainstream Anglicans runs out – and, ultimately, deliver only meaningless palaver besides. Add to this the fact that ECUSA doesn’t want to be bound by something like this, and would ignore it even if it had teeth.

    Pointless.

  2. Jim of Lapeer says:

    Phil: The numbered lines caught me first thing. Is it just me, or is TEC being run by attorneys and not pastors?

  3. montanan says:

    [blockquote]57 (b) The Windsor Report of 2004 was written in response to the reality that some
    58 Provinces had taken offense to the actions of others, primarily those of The
    59 Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.[/blockquote]

    This is one way of presenting what happened, though it puts responsibility for the row on those who were offended. A different (and more accurate from the reasserter perspective way of saying it would be):

    [blockquote]57 (b) The Windsor Report of 2004 was written in response to the reality that some
    58 Provinces, primarily The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, proceeded with innovations, despite the pleas of the primates and other provinces.[/blockquote]

  4. montanan says:

    #’s 1 & 2: I’m not a lawyer, but I think such numbering helps when a large number of people or groups are going to comment on a document. It certainly is used frequently in the legal world, but I’ve found it helpful in such situations.

  5. Albany+ says:

    One deputation noted, “It places enormous emphasis on the ‘communion’ or ‘unity’ of the church but this goal is attained at the expense of justice and righteousness. This goal is laudable but it cannot become a false unity that comes at the expense of essential biblical justice and love.” The vast majority of diocesan deputations had significant concern about Section and following. The concern focused on what was perceived as an embrace of binding arbitration, mediation and evaluation, as well as “moral authority.” This section was perceived as being overly juridical in its process…” 148-54

    This section pretty much says it all.

    It might be put in this way, “We are committed in principle to anything that does not commit us in fact.”

  6. pendennis88 says:

    Any word on what is going on in Alexandria? It seems that things are awfully quiet over there.

  7. Paul Nelson, Fort Worth says:

    The mention of hierarchy is interesting:
    [blockquote]
    90 … Care needs to be taken that our conversations around an Anglican covenant do not draw us
    91 necessarily toward a hierarchical model of a church union or even the perception
    92 of Anglicanism as a singular global church.
    [/blockquote]
    Heirarchy is good when TEC is in court, but bad when it might require TEC to conform to an authority greater than itself (like God’s word.)