We are concerned about the omission of the laity from Section 3. As St. Paul teaches, we are all of us the Body of Christ and individually members thereof (I Corinthians 12). There are four orders of ministry in the Church ”“ bishops, priests, deacons and lay people, who also minister as members of the baptized people of God. Such an ecclesiology should both undergird the theology expressed in the Covenant and the church structures developed as means of connecting and serving the churches of the Communion. A Covenant to which we could subscribe would need to re-imagine the Instruments of Communion to provide a stronger representation from all the orders of ministry.
Section 4 is of greatest concern. It creates a punitive, bureaucratic, juridical process within the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, elevating its authority over the member churches despite previous affirmations of member church autonomy (see, e.g., Section 4.1.3). It contains no clear process for dispute resolution, no checks and balances, no right of appeal….
Cool. The Covenant could use the endorsement from such a diocese, for sure.
Imagine that.
Sarah,
Given your view of the efficacy of the Covenant, wouldn’t you want Los Angeles to endorse it, thereby demonstrating its toothlessness?
Hi Jeremy Bonner — I thought people would recognize by my comment that this was good for folks who thought the Covenant has much point or that it might be vaguely effective in its purposes.
Surely a believer — like yourself — in the Covenant’s eventual effectiveness wouldn’t say “The Covenant could use the endorsement . . . ” ; > )
For those of us who recognize that the Covenant is merely another in a long series of delaying actions for the COE and its current leader, it doesn’t matter who or what does not endorse the Covenant. Indeed — rather like the political liberals over here — one can expect even the most hopeless of offers or ideas to be soundly and shrilly rejected by revisionist activists, while they tear the hair and rend the garments and proclaim how the [insert current minority choice here] will be left to starve in rags in the gutter. It’s who they are and it’s — politically and strategically — precisely how they work to advance their own cause. Howl down *all* ideas as immoderate, now matter how milktoasty or what weak and paltry fig-leafs they are, while advancing one’s own radical agenda, at the same time calling for dialogue and kindness to their own martyred selves [even as they torch whatever resisters to the agenda they can find].
Such an amagalm works every time, for the activist left.
And once one recognizes such strategy, one quickly learns not to base one’s analysis of the actual ideas offered by whomever on “what the left shrieks about” because they shriek — [i]as a matter of course[/i] — [b]at everything that’s not their own agenda[/b].
Shrieking is a reflexive involuntary impulse at this point for the activist left.
The covenant process was intended to create just this kind of decision-making. Let those who wish to be accountable in a genuine communion do so. It has struck me as the usual double-talk for ‘progressives’ to decry the covenant and pretend as though a communion will exist all the same. All they have to do is opt out. LA does not want to be a part of a communion with a meaningful claim to be called that. Fine. That is letting their Nay be Nay.
What is less clear is how this diocese by diocese assessment–as requested/invited–by ‘national church’ forces is intended to be used. If it could be used to determine which parts of the present TEC want to be in a communion and which don’t, with dioceses who wish to able to do so, fine (SC, CFL, W-LA, Dallas, etc). But Title IV and other such schemes for limiting the Diocesan integrity belie that notion of ‘liberality.’
No surprise here.
Sarah,
I suspected that was what you meant; I just wanted to be sure. 🙂
Of course, rejecting the Covenant outright would seem to be more intellectually honest than signing it while telling those who object to its provisions [i]that it really doesn’t mean anything[/i]. At least the Diocese of Los Angeles and Stand Firm both agree that there is something substantive over which to disagree.
As far as the Covenant goes, while I confess that the Jamaica imbroglio certainly damped down my enthusiasm, I would be less inclined to term myself a “believer” than one taking the long view. As Philip Jenkins pointed out not so long ago, while we take the orthodoxies proclaimed at Chalcedon (and the other ecumenical councils of the Church) as inevitable, such was not necessarily the view at the time. ‘Heretical’ teaching persisted for decades after it was declared heresy.
The forty years or so that the present theological crisis has raged is but the blink of an eye. What today’s drafters intend the Covenant to be is not necesarily what it will become (but then again it may be just that :)).
It’s not long ago when we were told from on high that dioceses could not endorse/not endorse the Covenant. Now we seem to be in the middle of a referendum.
I had always feared that groups like the LA Diocese would “assent” to it then turn around and do what they were going to do anyway (ie. Griswold, Schorri) thus nullifying the covenant because so many would be assenters in the same non-assenting way.
This is a positive step for the covenant.
Can someone list which dioceses HAVE endorsed the Covenant to date? And maybe keep a running tally…
It doesn’t matter whether anybody endorses or does not endorse the Covenant, because Williams has one by one, demolished all the Instruments which would have played a part in it, and now undercut even his own office.
WVParsons wrote:
[blockquote] “It’s not long ago when we were told from on high that dioceses could not endorse/not endorse the Covenant. Now we seem to be in the middle of a referendum.” [/blockquote]
Good point. Mind you, the covenant in its present form is essentially that approved by Rowan Williams and Ken Kearon. Lets face it – neither have really impressed anyone with their competence lately, have they?
If real leaders were putting this covenant forward, there would be a rush of provinces to sign it, and things would be no different at diocesan level either. But as things stand, it has been put forward by the “B minus team” and no-one is much interested.
If and when the Church of England and the ACO can come up with competent, credible and knowledgeable leadership, Anglicans might start to listen to them.
#11 — which is why the covenant should be taken by those interested in its spirit and letter and used accordingly. It appears Canterbury and the ACO have both forfeited credibility.
#12 — at least in the US, there would never have been any ‘rush’ to covenant (apart from the conservative Bishops and dioceses) no matter what the leadership from Canterbury. Indeed, trying to make the covenant go in a different direction was apparently an effort to get TEC interested. LA has indicated what its response is.
Dr Seitz,
I agree, but the US is a pretty small part of the Communion.
If the Covenant had been put forward by ++Ian Ernest or ++Chew, for example, I expect that the majority of the Communion would indeed have rushed to sign, along with two (and perhaps more) of the larger dioceses in TEC. That is indeed a “rush”, unless one looks at the Anglican Communion as primarily TEC, and everyone else as minor figures in the background!