The ACC
1. thanks the Covenant Design Group for their faithfulness and responsiveness in producing the drafts for an Anglican Communion Covenant and, in particular, for the Ridley Cambridge Draft submitted to this meeting;
2. recognises that an Anglican Communion Covenant may provide an effective means to strengthen and promote our common life as a Communion;
3. asks the Archbishop of Canterbury, in consultation with the Secretary General, to appoint a small working group to consider and consult with the Provinces on Section 4 and its possible revision, and to report to the next meeting of the Joint Standing Committee;
4. asks the JSC, at that meeting, to approve a final form of Section 4
5. asks the Secretary General to send the revised Ridley Cambridge Text, at that time, only to the member Churches of the Anglican Consultative Council for consideration and decision on acceptance or adoption by them as The Anglican Communion Covenant;
6. asks those member Churches to report to ACC-15 on the progress made in the processes of response to, and acceptance or adoption of, the Covenant.
Track reports on Thinking Anglicans, Anglican Mainstream, etc to see that there was a lot of argy-bargy preceding this resolution; including some leadership of ambiguous quality.
Note section 3 (= delay); section 5 (= not to dioceses, not to ACNA).
Note also that on this and related resolutions, including some lost motions, voting was tight. At worst that means the Communion is as liable to split as ever. At best that means the ongoing, never ending character of this saga is reflective of a genuinely divided group of churches!
(Postscript, Sunday morning NZ time) For a robust, but I think necessary response, see Mark Thompson/Anglican Church League's statement from Sydney. One reflection I offer is this: each time since GAFCON (mid 2008) the Anglican Communion in some way or another has focused on the gospel, conformed to Scripture, and expressed clear leadership according to orthodox principles GAFCON has appeared to be a conservative over reaction; but each time the Anglican Communion has lost sight of the gospel, veered away from Scripture, and provided example of weak and vacillating leadership, GAFCON has appeared to be what the Anglican Communion ought to normally be. The latter is the case today. Supportive though I have been of ++Rowan, it is difficult to understand some elements of his leadership at ACC. Nevertheless, everything of importance which occurred there was voted on, and conservatives such as myself need to reckon with the closeness of some of those votes in assessing the general character and commitments of the Communion at this time.
1 comment:
Peter, I agree with your 'postscript' comments. It is hard to avoid the conclusion of some complicity with the maneuvers of those determined to delay or derail section 4 of the covenant draft, one way or another. It appears to have been procedurally an absolute mess and quite out of order - as I am sure they were quite aware. The irony is that I recall ++Aspinall ruling out of order exactly this type of process at an Aust. Gen Synod (someone foreshadowed an alternative amendment, the original was voted for and defeated, and the foreshadowed amendment was moved and was ruled out of order by Aspinall as chair because 'it can't be done' - as much as he claimed to sympathise with the sentiment. I have no doubt whatsoever that those instigating this process knew its irregularity and were putting themselves above due process to achieve outcomes to suit their concerns. It is interesting (and disturbing) to see a moderate like ++Mouneer use such a strong term as 'manipulated', and comment on how this has deepened the level of distrust.
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