In the past, the Anglican Communion “has been held together by a common history, similar ”¦ ways of worship and the so-called ‘bonds of affection,'” he said. “In a rapidly globalizing world and a fast-developing communion, these are no longer enough.”
Nazir-Ali was introducing a motion that synod “do take note” of a Church of England report that responds to the latest draft (St. Andrew’s Draft) of the Anglican covenant.
“The main purpose of the covenant is inclusion rather than exclusion,” Nazir-Ali said. “We cannot forget, nevertheless, that these questions have arisen for us because of the need for adequate discipline in the communion on matters which affect everyone.”
During a one-hour synod debate, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams disagreed with Nazir-Ali’s position on the covenant. “We mustn’t have excessive expectations of the covenant,” Williams said, cautioning against it being a legal instrument. “It’s part of an ongoing inquiry of what a global communion might look like. At every stage it is something which churches voluntarily are invited to enter into.”
However, the Rev. Canon Chris Sugden of the Diocese of Oxford said he believes that the covenant should be “far more than an expression of fellowship,” and instead be “a matter of legislation and a basis for governance.”
It would seem that any chance of a meaningful covenant is dead in the water.
“Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams disagreed with Nazir-Ali’s position on the covenant. “We mustn’t have excessive expectations of the covenant,” Williams said, cautioning against it being a legal instrument.”
Then why do it at all? If this is an endless journey with no identifiable end or goal, then it is only a meander to no purpose; sound and fury signifying nothing
Fine with me, Lumen Christie. Lambeth Palace can go on with its little “mediations,” next year or the year after when the Archbishop gets around to appointing staff, and the ACO can carry on with its “covenant” which is not going to be a legal instrument, according to the Archbishop. Meanwhile, the ACNA and the believing movement in the UK will grow, and the Global South will keep growing, and in the end the ACO won’t mean anything. GAFCON Primates’ meetings will assume the importance that ACO-organized Primates’ meetings used to.
1&2;#
It is indefensible to permit ambiguity in a Church dividing issue without declaring unambiguously that the ambiguity itself is theologically justified.
You must do one or the other — define the matter or say why the definition itself is not possible.
The Communion is going to split, #3. The choices seem to be between ripping apart in a confrontational crash or sliding apart due to lack of interest. The conservative Primates have tried confrontation and have failed to move the liberals from their errors. It now appears to me that, having called their brothers to repentance and received a negative response, they’re just moving on with their own jobs in the sure knowledge that the Lord will handle the punishment issue.
One can listen to the audio record of the debate in full on the CofE website here [top audio link]
The debate was: ANGLICAN COVENANT (GS 1716)
The Bishop of Rochester to move: ‘That the Synod do take note of this Report.’ here
The report the debate was about GS 1716 is ‘A draft covenant for the Anglican Communion: Note from the House of Bishops’ here
It should be noted that although there were different speeches including dissenting ones that the motion was passed with only 30 or so objecting according to reports.
In case it helps I recommend listening to the full audio and have transcribed a few of the speeches, although the point has to be made that they are not official transcriptions and I apologise for any mistakes made. I will post these [particularly those not mentioned in the ENS report] below.
Transcript of the speech of the Bishop of Durham – on audio: 9mins:37secs in to 14 mins:37secs
[blockquote]I am very grateful for this report and I hope Synod will not only take note of it but give it a fair and strong wind. We are all grateful to hear that the recent Primates Meeting went as well as it did, and we encourage the Archbishop of Canterbury to keep up his remarkable work of reconciliation and hope. There are many things to be said about this strong and clear albeit brief report and I want to write to the Archbishops with more detail because there are many points to tease out. But time is short and I cut straight to what I think is the heart of the material on Section 3, that is ‘Unity and Common Life’, paragraphs 36 to 46. In the middle of that in paragraph 40 on page 9 we find a rather dense reference to material in the Kuala Lumpur report ‘Communion, Conflict and Hope’. It would be nice to think that you had all seen this – I suspect many of you haven’t. It was produced after six years of hard and expensive work for last years Lambeth Conference and then for inexplicable reasons not sent to the bishops, so maybe you haven’t seen it.
Unfortunately this report is uneven and patchy [the Kuala Lumpur report] perhaps because nearly half the members of the International Doctrine Commission, including the Chairman, the Secretary and the three Africans weren’t able to attend the final session. But at its heart the Kuala Lumpur report in drawing together the results of the Commission’s careful and important Communion-wide survey states briefly and densely principles which as this report says – today’s report says – are vital and must be worked into the Covenant, and I would urge they be worked in much more explicitly. These principles have to do with the key issue which I have stressed before and stress again: ‘how do we tell which differences make a difference and which differences don’t make a difference?’ The ARCIC report we debated on Monday talked about distinguishing between tolerable and intolerable diversity – precisely. We all know there are some differences which make a difference and some which don’t. We all know that we must embrace one another across traditional differences in the latter case, but not in the former where we must stand firm – but how do you tell which is which? Who says, and what do we do about it?
The point is that anyone who wants to introduce a radical innovation, whether it is lay presidency in Sydney or gay presidency in New Hampshire cannot simply assume that their innovation is one of the differences that doesn’t make a difference. It might be or it might not be – that’s a separate question, but if we are to live together as Communion, that question cannot and must not be begged, as it was begged alas a thousand times at Lambeth last Summer, and I fear in some more recent statements and actions. And what then happens alas, is that the appeal to ‘live with difference’ when you are pushing forward your innovation, suddenly miraculously turns into the appeal to be united i.e. to fall into line – once your innovation has been rammed into place. That is no way to express or achieve Communion. And here the Kuala Lumpur report puts its finger briefly and densely on the key point. Kuala Lumpur paragraph 104 “many matters can and should be decided locally†it says but quote: “clarify when some Communion-wide decision is to be made we have introduced the criteria of ‘Intensity’, ‘Substance’ and ‘Extent’. The more these characteristics feature in a controversy, the wider the scope for a ministry of mutual admonition.
Those three abstract nouns need spelling out: which this report sadly doesn’t do, except in website material referred to in a footnote, but it’s hugely important. ‘Intensity’ refers to ‘the strength of opinion around an issue’. ‘Substance’ refers to ‘the prima facae case that can be made from scripture or tradition or wherever in relation to the issue’. ‘Extent’ refers to ‘the question of ‘how widespread across different parts of the Communion is the concern the issue raises?’
Where a matter presses these three buttons a strong initial case is made that the issue cannot be decided locally with everybody else simply told to accept difference. That might be the eventual decision, but if the matter possesses Intensity, Substance and Extent you can’t and shouldn’t assume it. To do so would be a cavalier flouting of the very nature of Communion.
The Covenant is not about pronouncing for all time on every contentious issue. It is about establishing a wise and Christian framework for addressing such issues. We urgently need it. This report helpfully points the way towards it. I commend it as it is and as I hope it will be.
Thank you very much.[/blockquote]
Transcript of the Speech of Sarah Finch, London 352 – on audio: 17mins:20secs to 21mins:50secs
[blockquote]We know that a covenant is a solemn agreement between two parties, but what is implied? We would expect that the two parties would like each other and respect each other – that they would share an agenda – that they would want to walk together in the same direction using just one map. But when we consider the reason why the Anglican Covenant was first invented, the actions in the Episcopal Church in the United States which tore the fabric of the Anglican Communion, we have to recognise that there is not one map now but two. And it seems a very healthy thing the other day that this fact was recognised at the recent Primates Meeting in Alexandria. There are now two versions of Christianity within the Anglican Communion.
How has this come about? For more than 30 years a gradual drift away from the authority of Scripture has meant a gradual change in Anglican faith and practice in North America. So gradual, so slow, that unless you had your wits about you, you would not realise the enormous distance that has been covered in those years – and the result? A very different version of Christianity in which the uniqueness of Christ we were talking about yesterday is doubted, if not actually contradicted, and Scriptural teaching in matters of human sexuality is set aside.
But some North Americans have had their wits about them and have protested. Under the new regime, however, such protest is a dreadful affront to the powers that be. A local congregation is expected to live out the new theology, just as in the commercial world, a franchise or a branch or something, is expected to follow the dictates of head office. If however a local congregation is unwilling to go along with the new theology and they reckon that the original map is far safer – and if they then take refuge in another province, they will just have to get out of their present circumstances. They will have to leave their church buildings which they have probably paid for, leave the family graves and the memorial windows, leave the rectory, the bank accounts, the pension, the lot. Persecution is the price they are paying for being faithful to God’s will.
In this country I guess few of us understand the full extent of what is going on. The rules and regulations are being manipulated so that in recent years in the United States, twelve Bishops and one hundred and four Anglican priests have been deposed. Just imagine! Just imagine you are a local incumbent, faithfully serving your parish and teaching your congregation, but suddenly you and your wife and your four young children have to get out immediately. At the moment the Episcopal Church is engaged in fifty-six law suits against parishes and individuals, and the rate is accelerating, and yet in Alexandria the Primates were calling for gracious restraint. What is to be done? We cannot just stand by and observe.
Back to the Anglican Covenant, what hope may we have for it? As yet I think it is generally agreed it has no strength; it cannot enforce anything. But on pages 10 and 11 of the note from the House of Bishops that we have, the need to gain that strength is mentioned. The enforcement powers have yet to be worked out. As a prerequisite for sorting out a breach of the Covenant is the setting up of a standard against which any such breach may be measured. The Covenant has to be strong enough to deal with the level of determination to go a separate way that we see in North America. [Applause][/blockquote]
Transcript of the Speech of the Archbishop of Canterbury – on audio 37mins:20 to 46mins:32secs
[blockquote]Thank you Madam Chair: Archbishop of Canterbury 001
Perhaps I could just begin with an apology for the fact that I shall have to leave the chamber around 11 for a couple of hours as I am helping to introduce the ‘Good Childhood Report’ in the House of Lords this morning. I hope you will regard that as an adequate alibi for absence [laughter] – and the Bishop of Leicester will also be taking part in that debate.
I wish to share with Synod a few observations on not only the Covenant as a principle but on the debate as it is evolving in the Communion. The first thing I want to say is that the central question around the Covenant has to do with what a global Communion might look like. We heard – and we heard this morning – we heard a good deal about our responsibilities as a national church and I think that that represents a set of very significant concerns. But as I think the Bishop of Durham was suggesting in his speech earlier on, we have never yet perhaps thought through fully what it is for us to be part of more than just a national church. As it happens we have become a global communion. We engage in international ecumenical discussions, to underline a very significant aspect of this, we engage in international ecumenical discussions as if we were an international body with a degree of coherence. That coherence is not of the same kind as the Roman Catholic Church let’s say, and yet it is not simply that of the World Lutheran Federation.
So what kind of global communion do we want to be? I’d want to resist the idea that this is somehow a kind of innovation in our understanding of Anglican identity. There are already provinces of the Anglican Communion which are not simply national, we are often reminded that the Episcopal Church covers several sovereign nations; likewise the province of Central America, of Jerusalem and the Middle East and of South East Asia. But that is just at surface level.
More importantly Anglican beginnings illustrate an awareness of being responsible to more than just what happens to be suitable or opportune in England at any given moment. In a talk a few weeks ago, I underlined the significance in early Anglican history of the fact that many people in the Church of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries clearly thought that they were part of what might be called a Protestant International. They took part in international reformed conferences, but also that they were responsible to the catholic heritage of patristic teaching: not simply what Henry VIII or Elizabeth I or even Richard Hooker, and I say that with some difficulty, EVEN Richard Hooker decided [laughter] – responsible to a bit more than that.
So this is not somehow a sea change in the character of Anglicanism that we are looking at. However, to balance that it does need to be said I think that we mustn’t have excessive expectations of the Covenant.
It’s very tempting to think that a robustly phrased Covenant would solve our problems, would give an instrument for, and the words have been used this morning “enforcing complianceâ€. Unless we had an international system of canon law, that would not be possible – and we’re not there yet and I don’t see us getting there very quickly. There is at the moment a canon law project within the Anglican Communion which is looking at appropriate forms of convergence for canon law within the provinces of the Communion and the possibility of the canon law of different provinces embodying as it were Communion related elements; so that each local church would have in its constitution some expressed responsibility to the wider church.
So I would caution against assuming that this is in itself a legal instrument or could be in the way it is phrased. It is part of this ongoing enquiry as to what a global communion might mean, might look like, and at every stage, as the Bishop of Rochester rightly said in his introductory speech, at every stage it is something which churches are invited voluntarily to enter into.
As to the instruments of discernment and decision, the most difficult area certainly of Covenant, remarks have been made already this morning about the Primates Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council; the relative appropriateness of them as arbiters of this, but I think it to be fair to say that at the moment in the Communion there is generally an unease about how the Instruments of Communion are working, myself included and a willingness to look again at how these might operate in better concert with one another. So I would want to put all those remarks about the Primates and the ACC and their role within the context of a more general review of how they are working and how they are working together – so please bear that in mind as you assess this.
An earlier speaker used the phrase “handing over to the Communion rights of decisionâ€. I don’t believe that a process of shared discernment is a handing over of something that belongs to me to someone to whom it doesn’t belong, because I have a rather more [excuse the word] robust doctrine of our participation in the body of Christ than that. I don’t believe that when I invite someone else to share my own process of prayer and decision-making, I’m resigning something which I ought to be clinging to. I believe rather that I’m trying to discover more fully who I am in Christ by inviting others who share my life in Christ into the process of making the decision.
And that I think takes me finally to two observations about again the overall context in which this Covenant proposal is working. I was grateful to Chris Sugden for putting the question as he did about accountability to whom or to what. And I found that a rather challenging question. The answer I wanted to formulate was something like this: Accountability to Jesus Christ in His body but also Jesus Christ beyond and calling his body. In other words the inseparability of trying to discover Jesus Christ in our fellowship with one another, but also that understood as part of learning together how to listen to the Jesus Christ who is not imprisoned in or exhausted by His body. So that is the accountability that I believe matters in this context – and I don’t think I want to drive a wedge down the middle of that and say all that matters is accountability to one another, God forbid. But equally I wouldn’t be happy in saying that our accountability is to Almighty God and nothing else matters, because the way Almighty God chooses to deal with us is through the life, death and resurrection of His son and the body of His glorified son which now incorporates us by the grace of the Holy Spirit. So accountability yes, lateral accountability yes and somehow all bound up with our learning together how to listen to and to obey Jesus Christ.
Which means, to make my last point, that the word relational, is not a weak word for a Christian. Relationship involves sacrifice, involves thought, involves at times suffering, patience, learning, endurance and all those things. I don’t think that’s somehow less than a constitutional framework. And so when the language is used of the Covenant as essentially relational, I would certainly say that’s not some kind of second-best. I’d rather see it as a summons to, to pick up the language I used the other day, that deepening and intensifying of the Communion we have already been given on the journey towards the deepest communion that we can possibly have. I hope that if this Synod and the Church of England puts its support behind the Covenant proposal again and is able to endorse a final form when it comes. I hope that it will see it in the light of that pilgrimage of relationship with all its costs and all its promises. [Applause][/blockquote]
Transcript of the Speech of the Bishop of Winchester, Michael Scott-Joynt No 5 – on audio 01hour:02mins:20secs – 01hour:06mins:04secs
[blockquote]Madam Chairman
I want to draw the Synod’s attention to para 53 and 54 on page 11 of the paper, section 8 ‘The signatories of the Covenant’, and to both paragraphs in relation both to the Church of England and to the Anglican Communion and to what is to be written in in whatever few lines relate to this paragraph in the Church of England’s response at this stage.
[para] 53 raises a very fundamental question to which I guess the Church of England has given very little attention, and to which I suspect we need to give attention, and to which certainly the Communion needs to give attention. It is also of course, in as it were another way up or way around, an extremely live question within the Roman Catholic Church at present. It is a live question for us because I think I heard in His Grace’s speech a few minutes ago the words ‘local church’ of the province, which of course regards a thing as closed where there would be many in this church as well as elsewhere, who notwithstanding the legal position properly expressed in Para 54 think that there is really quite significant tension between whether local church, is diocese gathered round its bishop or province.
Ours is even more complex when we have a General Synod which included two provinces, and yet we are regarded for certain purposes as one. So there is a discussion to be had in principle which is really of some seriousness and as this process goes forward could become here as a matter of the same kind of seriousness, as it is in some other parts of the Communion, those particularly to which Sarah Finch drew attention in an earlier speech in this debate.
The point I want to make in relation to the response of the Church of England into the process at this point is really this: that I believe it really to be of the greatest importance and a contribution of the Church of England to the Communion that however clear at the moment our own legal position is, that the Church of England’s response should recognise that there are parts of the Communion, especially in North America, and especially in the Episcopal Church, where there are dioceses which are extremely anxious about whether, should their province dissociate itself from Covenant and therefore from the Communion, they themselves should have left open to them or made open to them the lifeline of remaining recognisably Anglican in the senses in which most of us use that word at the moment and in which it will continue to be used, and will be used when the Covenant is in place. Remaining recognisably Anglican by being able to assent to the Covenant whatever their province chooses to do. I hope very much that our own response will assist the keeping open or the making open of that loophole or lifeline rather than by simply looking at our own situation closely. [Applause][/blockquote]
That’s me done – for a bit – I would recommend listening to it all – including the speeches of the Bishops of Rochester [opening and closing the debate] and Guildford, Sodor and Man and the others, not all of whom are taking the same line but almost all of whom are in favor of bringing in an effective Covenant as soon as possible.
The official transcript of the ABC’s speech at #8 has gone up here
Thanks so much for those speeches quoted. The bishop of Durham is wonderfully clear and helpful. This should be required reading for all Anglicans:
“The point is that anyone who wants to introduce a radical innovation, whether it is lay presidency in Sydney or gay presidency in New Hampshire, cannot simply assume that their innovation is one of the differences that doesn’t make a difference. It might be or it might not be – that’s a separate question, but if we are to live together as Communion, that question cannot and must not be begged, as it was begged alas a thousand times at Lambeth last Summer, and I fear in some more recent statements and actions. And what then happens, alas, is that the appeal to ‘live with difference’ when you are pushing forward your innovation, suddenly miraculously turns into the appeal to be united i.e. to fall into line – once your innovation has been rammed into place. That is no way to express or achieve Communion.”
The problem that no one ever seems to want to face is simply this:
“To live with difference” is to [i]agree[/i] with [b]Relativism[/b]. That is, you are asking people who really believe in authentic Revelation of Truth from God Himself to say that this Revelation either isn’t real or just doesn’t matter.
The appeal from the TEC PB and Bonnie Anderson, HoD Pres. is constantly that we must all get along and just agree to disagree.
For the thousandth time, this is not a “disagreement.” If I “agree to disagree” I am betraying my deepest held conviction of the Truth of God’s Word Written. Doing such a thing is not ok. It is not a matter of being agreeable or nice, it is deeply wrong, hypocritical and dishonest to pretend otherwise.
Transcript of the Speech of the Bishop of Rochester introducing the debate – Opening to 9mins:20secs
[blockquote]I spent the weekend before last at St Aldate’s Church in Oxford and went from there to a meeting in Pusey House. Those who are familiar with Oxford will know how different these two are from one another, in styles of worship, clergy taste in apparel and church furnishing; and yet I could find the Gospel preached and the faith of the church lived in each of them. Both moreover belong still to the Church of England held together by its formularies, liturgical provision and dare I say it canon law. Let us hope and pray that this unity lasts.
It is this kind of unity that we want also for the Anglican Communion. In the past it has been held together by a common history, similar ‘though not exactly the same ways of worship, and so-called ‘bonds of affection’. In a rapidly globalising world and a fast-developing Communion these are no longer enough. As ARCIC’s ‘Church as Communion’ has put it: “the church’s unity and coherence are maintained by the common confession of the one apostolic faith, a shared sacramental life, a common ministry of oversight and joint ways of reaching decisions and giving authoritative teaching.â€
The Covenant is one way of ensuring that the common life of the Communion is healthy and effective. In both 2005 and 2007 the General Synod has affirmed its desire that there should be unity in the Anglican Communion within the constraints of truth and charity and it has also indicated its willingness to engage positively with the Covenant process as a means of achieving such a unity in truth and love.
This means that the Church of England is able to say ‘yes’ to question one of the three questions being asked of us. It remains to be seen whether every province, and everyone within every province, will also be able to say yes. If however the Covenant correctly identifies the fundamentals of Anglican identity and also provides a basis for deeper and more Godly relationships then we at least should say yes to it.
The second question before us asks what Synodical processes will be necessary for a province to adopt the Covenant. The Annex to GS 1716 sets out the procedure. It is highly likely that this would be article 7 and 8 business. This means, among other things, that the adoption of such a Covenant would be in terms approved by the House of Bishops and not otherwise. It means also that the matter would have to be referred to the diocesan synods and to be approved by a majority of them. It should be said straight away that such a Covenant would be freely entered into and would not supercede the authority of General Synod or of the Crown in Parliament. It would be comparable to agreements about communion with other churches and indeed to some forms of ecumenical commitment into which the Church of England has entered.
In responding to the third question it is very important to say that the biblical and theological introduction to the latest draft of the Covenant, the St Andrews Draft, forms the basis of and the background to the rest of the text and must be regarded as integral to the text as a whole. It is vital for the Covenant to acknowledge the normative authority of Scripture within the apostolic teaching and living of the church and how this relates to old and to new in a plural and a changing world. In no way can the commitment being demanded be less than is asked for in the preface to the declaration of assent. This will also show that what is being required in any Covenant is consistent with what the Church of England requires already for its own ordering. We must take both continuity and development seriously.
As the Communion has emerged it has been necessary from time to time to develop common declarations and structures which would assist in the unity and coherence of the body. Such for instance are the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, the Lambeth Conference itself, the gathering role of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the meeting of Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council.
It is true that the Communion has emphasised the spiritual rather than the juridical nature of the fellowship. Nevertheless this has been, as Lambeth 1930 declared, in the context of confessing the catholic and apostolic faith and basing itself on a common faith and order. It has also seen itself as bound by a mutual loyalty sustained through the common council of bishops in conference.
There is an internal tension in the draft about the role of bishops in the church which needs to be resolved. On the one hand bishops are seen as leaders in mission and as guardians and teachers of the faith. On the other the polity of member churches is described by the somewhat hackneyed phrase: ‘episcopally led and synodically governed’. In his magisterial paper on governance now before Synod, Dr Colin Podmore has shown the inaccuracy of this phrase. Bishops govern in their dioceses in virtue of their office and the house of bishops has certain responsibilities at the national level. In both cases this happens synodically, that is in collaboration with clergy and laity.
It is crucial for us to know how the Covenant will finally be agreed at Communion level. Both the 1988 and the 1998 Lambeth Conferences asked for an enhanced role for the Primates. This was recognised in the earlier Nassau Draft of the Covenant, but the present one provides for the ACC to be the final approver of any text. How far this will carry the confidence of the Communion as a whole remains to be seen.
The ACC is also the final arbiter in this draft in deciding whether a province or a church has relinquished the force and meaning of the Covenant for itself. Once again we have to ask whether this is where the final decision should be made. Surely it should be a body such as the Primates who in consultation with other instruments of Communion and speaking on behalf of the bishops and their churches are able to make a decision which sticks.
Madam Chair, the main purpose of the Covenant is inclusion rather than exclusion. We cannot forget nevertheless, that these questions have arisen for us, because of the need for adequate discipline in the Communion on matters which affect everyone. Nor can we forget that discipline is for the purpose of reconciliation and restoration. In the meantime such discipline will undoubtedly have what have been called ‘relational consequences’. This is a matter of deep sorrow and repentance for all of us and should lead us to be committed to continue the search for that unity in truth which General Synod has asked for in its previous resolutions on the subject.
Madam Chair in taking note of GS 1716 we are reaffirming the principle of an Anglican Covenant, noting the procedure which the Church of England will need to go through to adopt such a Covenant and noting the ways in which the present draft can be improved. I ask you to take note. [Applause][/blockquote]
Seems like the ENS report is not completely accurate in its portrayal of the ABC’s remarks. The ENS report suggests that the ABC opposed the Covenant having accountability out of a philosophical objection, but it appears that he actually made the very valid point that the Covenant could not really function as a “legal document”. And it seems to me that the ABC sought to support what Al-Nazir said.
What I have seen in the Covenant is an attempt to help the AC understand how it is shaped by it’s history but what I haven’t seen in the Covenant is how the Anglican Communion sees itself fitting in with the one Holy apostolic and catholic Church. Does the way it defines itself for example help it to see how it fits in with other church bodies? Is there within it a hope for reconciliation?
Transcript of the Speech of Canon Chris Sugden – on audio 22mins:05secs – 25mins:01secs
[blockquote]Thank you Madam Chair, members of Synod. Chris Sugden Oxford 183
The Primates Meeting at Alexandria last week and I quote: “welcomes the Covenant Design Group’s intention to produce a covenant text which has a relational basis and tone. It is about invitation and reconciliation in order to lead the deepening of our koinonia in Christ and which entails both freedom and robust accountability – so far so good. Could we also encourage the Covenant Design Group to help the Communion further by spelling out clearly the basis of this koinonia, mutuality and accountability in the apostolic faith and to whom or what is the accountability given? Is it to each other, to maintain unity, or to the apostolic faith, as the basis in which we find our unity?
There is a further area in which more clarity would be helpful. The Communiqué uses both the language of fellowship and the language of robust accountability. Robust accountability is the language of governance arising from legislation, not the language of fellowship alone. If there were no problem with remaining in fellowship, there would be no reason to speak of robust accountability. The problem of remaining in fellowship is precisely because of the accountability, or lack of it currently in some areas to the faith once for all delivered to the saints and therefore a prime role of the covenant should be to clarify and define that faith.
The Church of England has never had to face squarely this problem of accountability. The authority for its legislative role lay in the authority of Parliament which is why we send our legislation to the Queen in Parliament but as the provinces of the Anglican Communion develop there was no comparable civil jurisdiction to provide the authority for the legislative role of the church. It is to fill that gap that the Covenant or Jus Communae is being developed.
But if that is the case then a Covenant is far more than an expression of fellowship. It is a matter or legislation and a basis for governance. The Primates Communiqué suggests that this nettle remains to be grasped and appears to have described a problem and then presented it to us as a solution. Thank you. [Applause][/blockquote]
Well, I’ve run through some of the speeches above. To be fair there are a number of other voices which were heard in the debate: those who object to a Covenant, those who object to a Covenant with discipline or ‘teeth’. However the tone of the above speeches in the debate and the report of the CofE House of Bishops was clearly in favor of a Covenant put in place in short order; a Covenant with teeth.
The view of the House of Bishops in this report endorsed by Synod is set out in paras 47-52.
So where is the Archbishop of Canterbury in all this? Well reading prior pieces he talked about ‘relational consequences’ but in his Synod speech he appears to be backtracking from that. Certainly the St Andrews Draft compared with the Nassau Draft seems to have had its teeth pulled, control moved from the Primates Meeting to the ACC both of oversight of such membership issues as there are as well as the approval process for adoption of a Covenant.
And what is one to make of the Archbishop now talking about:
[blockquote]So accountability yes, lateral accountability yes and somehow all bound up with our learning together how to listen to and to obey Jesus Christ.
Which means, to make my last point, that the word relational, is not a weak word for a Christian. Relationship involves sacrifice, involves thought, involves at times suffering, patience, learning, endurance and all those things. I don’t think that’s somehow less than a constitutional framework. And so when the language is used of the Covenant as essentially relational, I would certainly say that’s not some kind of second-best. I’d rather see it as a summons to, to pick up the language I used the other day, that deepening and intensifying of the Communion we have already been given on the journey towards the deepest communion that we can possibly have.[/blockquote]
I get rather lost as I listen to the Archbishop flip-flopping back and forth in his pronouncements. Are we to end up with something with no teeth but which is somehow and undefinably ‘relational’ whatever that means; and which TEC and others can join with impunity while carrying on in the same old, same old – innovating, deposing bishops and priests, not recognising the orders of other provinces, now deposing and suing CofE bishops?
We have a problem when a wooly desert father is faced with a ruthless and unprincipled version of The Firm.
Is the Archbishop going to continue manipulating the system to produce something which is even less meaningful than the ‘bonds of affection’. It does look as though what he is saying is out of step with the positive and firm recommendations of both the House of Bishops report and the reported speeches of his senior fellow bishops who spoke in debate. It looks as though through with his policy of just blocking things he doesn’t want, that this is the way he is going – as he did after Dar, at Lambeth and at the Primates Meeting. I am beginning to wonder why bishops and primates continue to fall over themselves to give fawning assessments of his lacklustre performance, combined with increasing manipulation and active blocking. To be fair to him a toothless Covenant, like bonds of affection would probably work with a Christian church but is absolutely hopeless when you are dealing with ‘The Firm’.
Is the Covenant really to be based toothlessly on his own personal theology of continuous enquiry in a great cloudy fog of unknowing – a fog as far as I can see it primarily of his own making?
Pageantmaster, many thanks for your efforts in posting these transcripts. You say:[blockquote]Is the Covenant really to be based toothlessly on his own personal theology of continuous enquiry in a great cloudy fog of unknowing – a fog as far as I can see it primarily of his own making? [/blockquote]Yes, probably, if Dr. Williams can manage it.
We can say whatever we wish, but it is crystal clear that the intelligence in which these bishops discuss the matter is not found in any similar quantity here.
As for the state of things here, the barbarians are coming over the wall at us from both sides.
“Here” of course meaning America.
#17 Pageantmaster,
“Is the Covenant really to be based toothlessly on his own personal theology of continuous inquiry in a great cloudy fog of unknowing – a fog as far as I can see it primarily of his own making?” This of course is not to be confused with the “Cloud of Unknowing” written in the 14th century and used by Christian Mystics through the ages.
#21 Thanks Dcn Dale
Outlook: Foggy
#21 Albany+
Generally I am usually impressed by the standard of debate in Synod and the effort at preparation people of all views put in.