The Rev. Dr. Ian Douglas, a member of the subcommittee, added that only a small minority of responses were completely for the covenant as proposed or against any form of covenant. Most responses were nuanced””stating conditions under which a covenant might be acceptable or unacceptable.
The Rev. Dr. Lee Alison Crawford, another member of the subcommittee, said that many respondents offered thanks for the opportunity to comment on the covenant.
The Rev. Canon Mark Harris concluded that the subcommittee had reached consensus on three recommendations to the entire Executive Council”¦
1. That a hard copy of all responses be forwarded to the Anglican Communion Office and the Covenant Design Group.
2. That Executive Council appoint a writing group to draft a collective response to the proposed covenant for approval by Executive Council during its October 2007 meeting.
3. That the writing group communicate with the House of Bishop Theology Committee.
The TEC will fight the covenant with every means possible. Just wait for the Via Media gang to start their campaign against it.
Given the ongoing news of late, it seems to me that the Executive Council is going to be left out in the dark within a matter of months and wondering whatever it was that hit them on the backside. TEC hasn’t a clue about its real future – which is zilch.
Looks like they are saying “NO” to the pastoral scheme, but then also do the expected “only the General Convention can respond to this”. Of course, this would be in 2009, and do we really think that GC2009 would even bother to respond (except of saying “No”)?
Full article found at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_86872_ENG_HTM.htm
The Covenant may be the way forward for the wider Communion, but its effectiveness for TEC is nil. By the time we are even able to vote on whatever waterd down version exists it will be 2012 and by then the ship will be on the bottom. Last one out, turn out the lights.
I think that David gets it right. pecusa is going to do what pecusa is going to do and why should anyone else care? The realignment is gathering steam and pecusa will soon be irrelevant to worldwide Anglicanism.
Don’t worry about the lights, Wallace, the water will short out the electricity as the pecusa ship goes under.
I needed a good laugh.
Those three “recommendations” are a hoot. I wonder why they didn’t propose to have another committee formed to edit and proof the draft collective response from the draft committee. Surely that would make more sense, right?
Oh the silliness of it all.
Let’s see now —
Dr Douglas says that a small minority of responses were either FOR or AGAINST. The rest were “nuanced” responses, that is, to paraphrase, including comments on how to make it acceptable, or what would make it unacceptable.
Mrs. Ballentine on the other hand (as Robroy notes) makes her pronouncement that it was 4 to 1 against.
Here we want to know how the responses came out, and we are left sorting out the statistical analysis incongruencies. How helpful.
At this point I wonder how close the ENS report will mirror this Integrity reporting.
Here’s the thing that gripes my but* – as my dad used to say – (and I’m relying on Mr. Bradley’s hopefully trustworthy reporting here) from a body of over 120 active bishops and 1000 deputies from the last General Convention, or to be much more dramatic, out of the bishops, clergy and lay members of over 100 dioceses and 7000 congregations, there were only 411 received-on-time responses?! Yes, there were a couple of “group” responses from deputations. But what is 16 deputies rolled into 2 response out of 1000?!!
The entire TECusa membership should be absolutely ashamed that E.C. wasn’t simply overwhelmed with responses to the Draft Covenant. This is like a Jr Hi student saying, “Whatever.” There would have been more responses if the subject matter were a draft
design for a new Episcopal shield.
Recommendation #4. The sad number of responses shows this appeal did not work. Forget E.C. trying to come up with a representative statement from the rank and file. Just let the House of Bishops do whatever they’re going to do before Sept 30 (as per the original demand from the Communique).
RGEaton
#8 Rob,
Regarding your “whatever” comment, I think that there is more to it. Many ECUSA parishes are still being kept in the dark by their clergy who never utter a word about the situation & other parishes – at least in my limited experience – have taken a “as long as they leave us alone” attitude & don’t get involved in any large scale campaign against the oncoming tide – neither of which is helpful to lobbying for a pastoral scheme.
RE: “The entire TECusa membership should be absolutely ashamed that E.C. wasn’t simply overwhelmed with responses to the Draft Covenant. This is like a Jr Hi student saying, “Whatever.†There would have been more responses if the subject matter were a draft design for a new Episcopal shield.”
Are you serious, Rob? I personally lost interest in the “Covenant Process” the moment that the Lambeth invitations came out and I realized what the last four years of “Windsor Process” had been about.
I just couldn’t be bothered to critique something that won’t really matter, ultimately. Rowan has gambled his all on delaying until 2012 and farther, hopefully the 2018 Lambeth.
I hope that he will be pleased with the results of his gamble.
RE: “Forget E.C. trying to come up with a representative statement from the rank and file. Just let the House of Bishops do whatever they’re going to do before Sept 30 (as per the original demand from the Communique).”
And frankly, that’s what they — along with Executive Council — were going to do all along. If they had been overwhelmed with thousands of responses, all but 50 of which said “we love the covenant, only we’d like to make it stricter on ECUSA” it would 1) never have been publicly admitted, and 2) have had zero factor in their final response.
That’s another excellent reason not to participate in the ECUSA process, on a national level. Executive Council and the HOB being made up of mostly raging revisionists, it’s an assumption that they are not going to play fair.
Quite serious, Sarah.
Now I will grant you, Sarah, that the numbers of responses as publicly released can be interpreted as an indication of the overall apathy of the members of TECusa, and especially of the deputies and bishops targeted for this response to the Draft. That would hold meaning in and of itself for the current struggle. And, as I am suggesting, it can be interpreted as dereliction of responsibility by us all. It can also be seen psychologically as the consequence of crisis overload across the Communion as well as in TECusa, and the unwillingness to say anything at all because it is so difficult to “keep up” with all that has taken place just in the last 9 months.
In any case, to use your own metaphor, overseeing the battlefield, there needs to be the ongoing battle – or simply defense, or resistance – not only on the home front, but also at the diocesan bridges, and the national ones. Having a good friend who is attempting to wage resistance and witness at the national level I choose to allocate some of my battle resources there. So I spoke up.
RGEaton
In re #12’s “overall apathy of the members of TECusa”, the end will come not with a bang but a whimper.