British Methodists say the Anglican-Methodist Covenant is facing challenges that some here might call a “bumpy patch.”
Signed in 2003, the covenant agreement sets out plans for greater cooperation between the two traditions. Commenting on a report about its implementation during the 2007 annual conference, British Methodist officials say the process has yielded “some encouragements and some disappointments.”
The role of women in church leadership and the role of bishops themselves are among issues that still have no formal agreement between Anglicans and Methodists. The British Methodist Church has no bishops.
United Methodist Bishop William Oden, ecumenical officer for the denomination’s Council of Bishops and a representative to the British Methodist Conference, expressed concern about the covenant’s progress.
“It seems (the covenant) is stalled at the moment when U.S. United Methodist and Episcopal relations are going forward,” Oden told United Methodist News Service, referring to progress in dialogue between those denominations. “The Church of England is busy with other issues, and British Methodists seem to have backed off.”
That’s interesting because when I was in England in the fall, I got to know some Methodists while I was over there. They are largely indistinguishable from the C of E, but they largely distrust the C of E because they think the Anglican church is always looking down their nose at their “little Methodist brethren.” I am interested to see how this plays out.
I am not sure how such a covenant would work as Methodists are Arminians and Anglicans are Lutheran/Calvinist?
#2. Lutheran/Calvinist? Speak for yourself: I’m a Catholic. 🙂
But anyway, Arminianism doesn’t seem that different from mainstream Calvinism. Would even hardcore Anglican Calvinists reject a covenant with Methodists because of disagreements about whether salvation was linked to faith in Christ or not (my understanding is that classical Calvinism believes the elect are the elect, and that nothing they can do can affect it, while Arminians believe that one’s elect status is dependent upon saving faith in Christ)?
#1
There is a lot of truth in what you say. The C of E structure – which of course if one wishes one may describe as a properly Apostolic structure – encourages petty snobbery, of which the Methodists are sometimes victims. The continued separation is of course absurd – and would have been incomprehensible to the Wesleys.
I write as an Anglican …
This raises a related question. If someday ABC announces that CoE is in full communion with the UMC (using authority granted by Parliament), would UMC be ipso facto a member of the Anglican Communion? If not, what makes the distinction? If so, is the AC then merely a ministry of CoE?
Where is the line between the roles of the ABC as (1) Primate of All England and as (2) First among Equals with other AC primates? There are many other questions concerning both the US UMC and relations to the AC member provinces.
If ABC invititations to the Lambeth Conference define in/out of the AC, can he invite Methodists? Unilaterally? Is there (should there be) a different way of defining AC membership?
These questions seriously effect the meaning and value of the invitations that he did send in May.
“If someday ABC announces that CoE is in full communion with the UMC (using authority granted by Parliament), would UMC be ipso facto a member of the Anglican Communion? If not, what makes the distinction?”
There are Churches that are in communion with the CoE but that are not members of the CoE. I have in mind specifically the Porvoo Lutheran Churches and the Union of Utrecht’s “Old Catholic” Churches.
Presumably, any “intercommunion” with the UMC, the British Methodist Church, etc. would look similar to the relationship with Porvoo Agreement Lutherans or Bonn Agreement Old Catholics: “in communion with” them, but they remain outside the AC.
Dear Billy D and all, I guess what is not clear to me then is what is the functional meaning of a covenant? What actually happens when such a covenant is agreed upon and enacted?