Until the American Anglican Church defied the rest of the Communion and ordained the openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in 2003, the idea of an Anglican rule book would have been unthinkable.
One of the hallmarks of Anglicanism is its lack of rules. In fact there’s barely any definition of what it is to be an authentic Anglican.
But on Sunday evening, the synod faced up to what many of its members see as a regrettable necessity and voted for a covenant – or binding agreement – setting out the responsibilities of each Church to the others.
It was best put by the Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright.
“We thought we had some sort of agreement and then, four years ago, it turned out that we didn’t,” he said testily.
“Lambeth, and the Primates [the archbishops leading the 38 independent Anglican churches] asked the Americans not to do something, and they did it anyway.”
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Note: thanks to a kind reader, we have an unofficial transcript of Bishop NT Wright’s remarks posted below in the comments.
Yes’sirree! Those English prelates seems about as skittish as thoroughbreds in the starting stalls over that covenant business.