Asked if he thought the covenant would become a reality, the former bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, recently said: “I think so, because I don’t think really there’s any alternative.” Without it, he argued, “the loudest voices tend to win, or at least drown out the other ones, and I have seen that happen and it’s not a pretty sight”.
But responding to the loudest voices was exactly what the Windsor report did ”“ capitulating to Nigeria, Uganda, Sydney and the others ”“ to propose a covenant that establishes a formal procedure to block other Anglicans doing what they judge necessary for the Gospel.
Simple Simon says….
do that!
I guess we can add Simon’s name to the long list of Anglicans who have apparently never read Acts 15.
“From the start, the objective was to oblige local churches to defer to “worldwide Anglican consensus” rather than responding to local circumstances in accordance with local needs.”
This is so far afield, yet also asserted by others, that it needs to be knocked down. First, a bishop is, one more time, a bishop for the whole church, not just for those who elect him. Second, the election in NH was, from the start, about making a statement to the worldwide church, –and so was VGR’s passionate pursuit of the episcopate, winning on the third time against, if I recall, a couple of candidates who were still relatively young in their ordained experience. Was Gene, is Gene, really interested in the fundamental vocation of a bishop? I wonder. While likeable one on one when he is not talking about himself or the hot buttion issues, I never got the sense that (apart from the questions around his suitability because of his partnered status) he really was called on the basis of what he was about.FWIW
Simon said:
Um, the loudest voice was ECUSA, which is why the Windsor Report was written in the first place.