In this context, and looking to the future, it has been proposed and fairly generally accepted throughout the Anglican Communion that there should be a Covenant produced which would express what was essential to being “in communion” with one another in terms of our shared faith and calling, and of our responsibility towards one another. In 2007, a first draft was produced in Nassau which, following miniscule amendment at the Primates’ meeting in Dar es Salaam, was circulated for comment throughout the Communion. The Church of Ireland through the Standing Committee of General Synod established a Covenant Response Group which offered a response and proposed a much shorter redrafting.
Responses were received from many of the Anglican Churches, as well as from individual scholars and conferences and various groupings. These were all carefully examined in January 2008, when the Covenant Design Group, on which I serve, held its second meeting at St Andrew’s House (The Anglican Communion Office) in London. This group is representative of Churches in Africa, Asia, North America and Oceania, and also of the various strands within Anglicanism.
In working with the Covenant Design Group, I learnt a great deal, but I would mention one or two insights that I gained, or gained afresh.
The first was that, in spite of the hyping of differences within our Communion, there is a deep determination to stay together, and that we really experienced a deep unity around prayer, the Bible and sharing in the Eucharist.
The second was that the role of Synods comprising bishops, clergy and laity varies greatly around the Communion. In some parts of the world, what the Primate says on almost any question is regarded as the voice of the Church, even though there has been no work done on the question at synodical level, whereas, in America and Europe, the voice of the Church requires a great deal of consultation before it is articulated.
This is an irenic and lucid summary of the main points and special features of the second draft of the proposed new Anglican Covenant. Clearly, ++John Neil is giving this draft the most positive spin he can, and I suspect that as a member of the elite CDG that produced this St. Andrew’s Draft, he genuinely supports it, despite the serious misgivings earlier expressed by the Irish province in its critical reaction to the first draft.
But it seems to me that he is merely engaging in wishful thinking when he testifies that his experience on the CDG encourages him because it demonstrated a strong determination to stick together on the part of the small international team of designers and their experience of a deep sense of unity as they worked together (including sharing eucharist together, as he notes, despite their divergent viewpoints). But, of course, the CDG was handpicked by the ABoC. No radical New Reformation types were allowed on it (although ++Drexel Gomez and ++John Chew ably represented the orthodox cause, along with Dr. Ephraim Radner+).
Now I’m glad that ++Neill’s experience serving on the CDG was so positive. It’s hardly surprising. Working intensely with a small but elite group on a major project with historic implications is heady stuff, and normally results in a strong sense of sharing common bonds through their cooperation and sense of accomplishment. But to project this experience onto the wider AC and to expect that such a powerful experience is at all representative of what we can reasonably hope for at a global level is just plain wishful thinking. It’s a mirage. The CDG isn’t fully representative of the whole AC, precisely because it lacks the hardcore GS types who adamantly refuse to share communion with pro-gay advocates.
The Covenant, like the Windsor Report before it, is fatally flawed because it’s based on a premise that just won’t fly, namely that we can “maintain the highest level of communion possible” without a clear choosing of sides in this conflict over homosexual behavior. But that is to beg the question and to assume the very matter under debate, i.e., that polity trumps doctrine and that this is a matter of adiaphora (i.e., of indifference or non-essential).
The Windsor Report, and this draft of the Covenant, won’t and CAN’T solve the deep crisis facing the AC because it fails to come to grips with the reality that this crisis does indeed manifest stark and mutually exclusive views on a matter that is ESSENTIAL to Anglicanism, namely the authority of Holy Scripture. The fact of the matter is that homosexual behavior is not only, as Lambeth 1998’s famous Resolution 1:10 says, “incompatible with Holy Scripture,” but it’s also plainly CONTRARY TO THE WILL OF GOD. Therefore, the pro-gay position can not and MUST not be tolerated within Anglicanism. Period. That is the beginning and end of the matter.
The drafters of the Covenant, like the drafters of the Windsor Report before it, were picked because they already agreed that the breakup of the AC over this issue was unthinkable. Well, I’m afraid it’s time to start thinking the unthinkable.
David Handy+
“whereas, in America and Europe, the voice of the Church requires a great deal of consultation before it is articulated” does not take into account the ignoring in the American church of the Virginia Report and the Bishops’ Theological Commission report that the ECUSA should not proceed down the path of ordaining practicing homosexuals because “we are not of one mind” on this issue. So much for accountability within the ECUSA. The ABD seems to have a rose-tinted glasses perspective on what passes for consultation…
David Handy+,
Methinks the whole “contrary to the will of God” statement is quite harsh. Those who claim to fully know the mind and will of God and not confess the mystery generally tend to make me scared.
paxetbonum (#3),
Well, whether it’s harsh or not, my emphatic claim that all homosexual behavior is “contrary to the will of God” is certainly very, very dogmatic. And I can readily understand why that would be offputting to many and seem arrogant or even dangerous. There are none so dangerous as those who are totally sure that they are doing the will of God, and are accountable to no one else.
From your brief comment, I can’t be sure just what scares you. Let me take a stab at reassuring you, however, that I don’t claim to “fully know the mind and will of God,” on this matter, much less other ones. There are lots of areas of mystery in life and Christianity. “Now we know in part,” as Paul says in 1 Cor. 13, and often it seems like a very small part indeed. In fact, my experience is that the more we know, the more we realize there is that we don’t know.
But there are some things that Holy Scripture is absolutely clear and consistent on. Homosexual behavior is one of them. It is ruled out, categorically and emphatically. For me, that settles the matter. Now, I grant there are still issues like: are the biblical condemnations universally binding, or might they reflect specific judgments on a particular type of homosexual behavior that doesn’t amount to a blanket condemnation of all forms of same sex activity today? I’m well aware of those issues and have studied them at some length. But contrary to many liberal scholars, including Victor Furnish and others, I find the evidence overwhelming that the biblical teaching on this controversial matter is indeed unqualified and absolute.
Now that, by itself, doesn’t settle how specific pastoral cases are to be dealth with. That is another matter entirely, and calls for other gifts than biblical interpretation.
To put it another way, the post-modern mindset of our time is extremely skeptical that there is any such thing as objective, universal truth, or at least it doubts that we humans have any access to it. Likewise, it is highly skeptical of any claims that divine revelation is vouchsafed to mortals. Obviously, classical Christianity is not inhibited in this way. It is grounded in a robust confidence that God is not silent, but that “He has spoken through the prophets” (Nicene Creed). You may well disagree here (many do), but I think this is one of those areas where God has already revealed his will very clearly. But I’d be the first to confess that there is much about the mystery of sexuality that we don’t know, and probably never will.
But that doesn’t mean that matters of sexual morality are always a matter of shades of gray, i.e., that there are no clear cases of black and white, right and wrong etc. That was a popular viewpoint back in the 1960s and has been more and more widely accepted in our highly permissive culture ever since (whether you call it “situational ethics” or “moral relativism” or whatever). Needless to say, I couldn’t disagree more.
David Handy+
David – Lambeth 1.10, unfortunately, is exactly a matter of polity. Lambeth exists only because it is polity. The justification for lambeth, itself, is simply a political matter. You insinuate that doctrine trumps polity by citing polity. The problem is that Lambeth has no authority.
I would be a bit careful about a few things. First of all, you’d have to be very precise about what being “pro-gay” is. You also do not offer what the most credible liberal position is (although you have read the writings of a few liberals. You might try James Alison, who is the person liberal Episcopalians are reading.)
Postmodernism is a big word. I would not give “postmodernism” much weight unless you want to talk about its real foundation: capitalism. Everything – including ideas – is bought and sold according to its usefulness, rendering all grand narratives useless. I’m not, personally, a post-modernist but I do think its much harder to operate from a pre-modern worldview, when technology has delinked sex with property and death.
Since “homosexual behavior” is, to me, is as confusing as heterosexual behavior, I am often flummoxed by the various arguments against the progressive position which is simply that homosexuality is not naturally disordered. I don’t know how we would evaluate such a claim – do we use scripture or science? And when we say “science” its the battle between round and flat-earthers. And for most of us, science trumps scripture. At least, those of us who think Genesis is metaphorical.
Personally, I think that if we want communion, we can have it. Usually when we say it is contrary to the will of God, we’re saying, its contrary to MY will. We think that God is justifying our own sense of being offended. When we assume God is being offended, its usually just us.
I think one difference between reasserters and reexaminers is the tendency of reexaminers to think that the biblical world and our world are so different that we cannot read our own ethic into the past, or the past’s ethic into ours. Scripture is the gift handed down to us. But it is not for moralizing.
Which seems to be what Paul was saying. “Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.” And this seems to be the truth. Absolute truth.
“The blocks of biblical references are removed . . . in the Covenant itself.”
Oh, that’s helpful!