22 February

A year ago today our city, Christchurch, was changed for ever. Beginning last evening a series of services are being held through today to commemorate the deaths and devastation wrought by the 12.51 pm earthquake. For many Christians the remembrances will continue into Ash Wednesday services being held this evening. For the people of Christchurch the aftermath of the destructive forces of an earthquake whose vertical forces were nearly as strong as any ever recorded continues. Yesterday yet another set of shops were red-stickered and cordoned off. In the last few days several schools have had to set up marquees as temporary classrooms while buildings are brought up to 67% strength measured against the new building code.

In some ways for the Diocese of Christchurch the hardest work of the post-quakes era is just beginning. We know most of what is damaged, including finding out at the weekend that our largest stone church apart from the cathedral has to close, St Mary's Timaru, a city 160km south of Christchurch. What we do not yet know are all the financial implications of the damage, the changes we need to make to the way we are organised, and the best ways forward to respond to changing communities, especially those communities who are losing their most able people as they shift districts, and those communities just being developed as new housing springs up.

I know many readers here have been praying for our city, our bishop and our diocese. Don't stop!

No Second Thoughts Covenant Coalition

It would be easy this week to have second thoughts about the Anglican Covenant. Thinking Anglicans take us to GilesFraserian blasting against it and the announcement that Marilyn McCord Adams is the new patron of the No Covenant Coalition (see also here for NCC announcement). Cranmer has a thoughtful piece on the Covenant which cleverly offers an insight about Tory and Whiggish forces operating in the to-ing and fro-ing over the Covenant. The thoughtfulness leads to a conclusion that the Covenant is unnecessary (many in the NCC will agree) and the 39 Articles are sufficient 'covenant' for us (many in the NCC will not agree, neither about the sufficiency nor about any place for the 39A to define or determine 21st century Anglicanism). John Richardson highlights the breakdown of episcopal collegiality in the C of E (over precisely the issues interconnected with the journey of the Covenant). For counter-balance of a refreshing kind for those wondering if the Anglican church remains a place from which to engage in gospel ministry, Cranmer's Curate offers good thoughts.

Why, then, obtusely maintain an apologetic for the Covenant?

First, a simple point about understanding Anglicanism: there is more than one version around, more than the liberal, diversity, freedom of doctrinal and ethical conscience version, and it is a good Anglican thing to do to argue for Anglicanism with doctrine and discipline at its centre (the Anglicanism, incidentally, we must never tire of reminding ourselves, which is enshrined in the constitution and canons of every member church of the Communion - the Covenant's novelty only consists in raising to the Communion level what each member church enjoys already).

Secondly, a serious point about the future of global Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion: the anti-Covenant argument about the future of global Anglicanism expressed through a Communion with the Covenant is this, "It will be bad." By implication, the prognosis of a Covenant-less Communion is, "It will be good." I suggest there is a different prognosis to contemplate: without the Covenant there will not be a Communion: neither a good, bad nor indifferent Communion, no Communion. By contrast the argument for the Covenant and global Anglicanism represented through the Communion is not, "It will be good" but, "It might just survive."

So, Cranmer, Fraser and the NCC: do your darndest to rid the Communion of the Covenant. But be careful what you wish for!

If I had time

I would post more frequently and for longer than currently, but quite a few projects are on my plate at the moment, including some considerable work now for the Strategic Working Group of the Diocese. We meet weekly and generate work between meetings! But if I had time today I would speak my mind on ... heritage fanatics who write in the Press bewailing the loss of heritage buildings ...

They shoot horses, don't they?

Our cathedral here in Christchurch is in very, very serious trouble. Our diocese this week is mounting an intense campaign to get the word out about how seriously and terminally ill the cathedral is after the shakes of September 2010, December 2010, February 2011, June 2011 and, finally to date, December 2011. Bishop Victoria Matthews has appeared on Campbell Live (TV3), one of two premier current news and views slots on free to air TV here. Today our Christchurch Press is carrying a half page advertisement which includes a letter from +Victoria and pictures of the damaged interior and exterior of the cathedral. An article based on the advertisement is here.

When a horse is dying, can scarcely walk let alone trot or gallop, serious consideration is given to shooting it, to put it out of its misery. Dead horses cannot be resurrected but deconstructed cathedrals can be rebuilt stone by stone. As I interpret what is being said in the advertisement and in Bishop Victoria's media interviews this week, the decision the relevant diocesan authorities have to make when the full engineering reports are made available next month is not whether the cathedral should be put out of its present misery. It is so dangerous it will need, at a minimum, significant deconstruction before anything can be done in order that every worker on and around the site is safe. The significant decision these authorities will need to make is what the future should hold by way of a stone-by-stone restorative rebuild (very unlikely as +Victoria indicated on a National Radio interview yesterday as the costs could be in the region of $100m above insurance) or a partial retention of the sturdier bits of the cathedral built into a new edifice or a new build in a complete manner (and could or should that be some kind of replica, say, in wood (as one local cleric is arguing) to overcome people's fear of re-entering the building, or another design altogether).

That is a lot of deciding to do.

Diocese of Christchurch Covenant motion

A correspondent here reports that the Diocese of Canterbury in England has voted in favour of the Covenant (report is here), and raised the question what my diocese, of Christchurch (i.e. Canterbury and Westland, NZ) has decided re the Covenant. The answer is that we have a one day synod on Saturday 21 April and the draft motion in the synod papers reads thus:

"That this Synod, 1. Affirms the Covenant in principle; 2. Supports Parts 1 to 3; 3. Supports in principle the adoption of Part 4.

Naturally I disagree with this motion as currently worded. Can you work out why I disagree with it?

Incidentally, this is what ++Rowan, who will be visiting our fair city and see later this year, the Right Reverend Trevor Willmott, Bishop of Dover, to whom ++Rowan delegates oversight of Canterbury Diocese had to say to his synod about the Covenant,

"The Anglican Covenant, which we are about to debate, takes us into the very heart of what we believe to be our church’s true vocation within God’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. It seeks to explain how we are called to grow more fully into the life of “mutual responsibility and interdependence”.


We miss entirely the fundamental point if we see the Covenant, as some do, merely as a product of disagreements over human sexuality, or as a way of excluding those churches which act unilaterally without the consent or understanding of the wider Communion. Instead the Covenant places God’s vision for God’s Church and God’s world centre stage and then invites us to live into this as our overriding calling.

Contrary to what some might argue, it does not, in my judgment, create new structures or new authorities. Nor does it seek to offer legal solutions to the failure of human relationships. But equally it challenges any understanding, again erroneous in my judgment, that our Anglican Communion is nothing more than a series of independent churches linked in some sort of federation. Instead it offers us ways of living faithfully and authentically, offering us processes of handling differences while at the same time allowing for the Spirit of God to breathe new life into our existing Communion framework. It enables Anglicans across the world and Christians of other denominations to understand who we are and how we seek to share in God’s work. In these times of anxiety, it surely demonstrates the stability of the standing cross. Personally I support the Covenant wholeheartedly and I hope that Synod will do the same when we come to vote."

You Are a Campsite on A Hill

The Festival of Salt and Light, previously noted here in December, took place last weekend. 330 young adults from around Christchurch camping on a farm at Gore Bay (about 90 minutes north-east of Christchurch). It was lovely to visit the Festival on Saturday, swinging around a bend in the road to see their campsite literally 'on a hill'. The organisers put a massive amount of time and energy into setting up the Festival so they may not thank me for hoping there will be another one.

Dean sweeps election

Our Dean, Peter Beck has won the election to a seat on our City Council. His farewell function is Sunday 19th February. I am very pleased for him.