In the briefing, Williams was asked how an Anglican covenant would be imposed upon the community when no one entity in the communion has the authority to enforce such a document. “I’m looking for consent, not coercion,” Williams responded, referring the journalist to his July 20 presidential address.
“Unless we do have something about which we consent, [something] we trust to resolve [the issues] we shall be flying farther apart,” he said. “It’s not as if we can just co-exist without any impact on one another as local churches. There have to be protocols and conventions by which we recognize one another as churches and by which we understand and manage the exchange between ourselves.”
Williams acknowledged that “no one had the authority to impose things, we have to do it by consent, but ultimately some may consent and some won’t, and that in itself is an issue.”
The continuation group’s paper also goes into detail about what it calls the “lack of clarity” about the role of each of the communion’s Instruments of Communion and their relation to each other. The paper suggests the need ask whether the instruments “are fit to respond effectively to the demands of global leadership” and suggests that there must be a “communion-wide reflection which leaders towards a common understanding.”
For instance, it notes “questions concerning the authority of a Lambeth Conference and the nature and authority of its Resolutions” and likens Lambeth resolutions to those issued by “the councils of bishops in primitive Christianity” in that “they are of sufficient weight that the consciences of many bishops require them to follow or at least try to follow” them.