Better argument for Covenant today

A better argument for the Covenant is available today, courtesy of Bishop Graham Kings CiF article, also reproduced on Fulcrum. Here is a key part of his case:

"The model of the Covenant is drawn from family ties and kinship and bounded by mutually agreed norms of behaviour which benefit everyone. It is not a document of doctrinal specifications, like the conservative Jerusalem Declaration, drawn up mostly by those who boycotted the Lambeth Conference. Nor is it a contract, as feared by its liberal critics. It is truly a covenant.


In his address to the Lambeth Conference 2008, the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, was pithily penetrative and perceptive in drawing out contrasts:

'A contract is a transaction. A covenant is a relationship. Or to put it slightly differently: a contract is about interests. A covenant is about identity. It is about you and me coming together to form an 'us'. That is why contracts benefit, but covenants transform.'

The four sections of the Covenant cover the themes of belief, mission, church and relational consequences. They provide for a delicate balance of communion with autonomy and accountability. It seems to me that the ‘unbounded’ is soon the ‘empty’ and we do not want the life of the body to drip out, dissipate and disappear."

As I continue to read across the internet I find it curious that some of the greatest vehemence against the Covenant is associated with the notion that being Anglican is being free to explore theology in an open-ended manner, and thus with the fear that the Covenant will end this freedom - +Kings 'unbounded' in the citation above.

Apart from the fact that it is very doubtful that the Covenant will precipitate the end of Anglican theological freedom, it is offensive to some Anglicans such as myself that, on these arguments, 'Anglican' is a synonym for 'liberal', and that the vehemence works from the certainty that this liberal way is the only way to be Anglican. (As an aside, it is curious that the liberal arguments against the Covenant are not at all 'open' to the benefits of the Covenant!)

There are, of course, many liberal Anglicans, including some who comment here, who are comfortable with a range of theological views intermingling in the Anglican Communion. But I am disturbed by those liberals who make comment on the Covenant as though to be Anglican is to be liberal and that is that!

ABC Unequivocally Promotes Covenant

Alyson Barnett-Cowan (i.e. 'ABC' but not 'the ABC"!) makes a simple, succinct point about the Covenant. One many NZ students appreciate in the month of November: read it then respond! (In their case 'read the examination question'). Alyson is Director for Unity Faith and Order in the Anglican Communion Office.

"The first thing to say is that for any Anglican or Episcopalian to be able to properly enter into a discussion about the Covenant it is vital that they first read it for themselves here http://anglicancommunion.org/commission/covenant/final/text.cfm "

She goes on to point out the role of the Covenant as the opposite of draconian, devilish, or deranged:

"The point of the processes outlined in the Covenant is precisely to encourage one part of the Communion, when seeking to respond responsibly in its own context in mission, to consider how that will affect other parts of the Communion It is not that one Province would exercise a veto over another, but that there would be collaborative discernment. In a globalised world, it is no longer possible (if it ever was) for one church to act entirely for itself; decisions have ramifications, and the intention is for these to be explored together. "

But, or BUT, ABC goes on to say some things which, frankly, this pro-Covenant covenanter does not find as persuasive as he would like!

(1) The Covenant will work for those who sign up to it and the Communion will still work as a mixed group of signers and non-signers

"It is also not true that non-signatories would no longer count as part of the Communion. There will be Provinces which have adopted the Covenant, and there may be (though one hopes not) Provinces which have not. They are equally members of the Anglican Communion, according to the Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council. The difference would be that signatories will have made a commitment to live in that communion in a particularly enhanced way, and to a process of consultation and common discernment."

Is not this an articulate form of nonsense? True, if 35/38 member churches sign up, three non-signers could be 'carried' along in some kind of communion as a Communion while 35 work 'in a particularly enhanced way etc'. But what if 19 sign and 19 do not, or 31 sign and the 7 non-signers are TEC, ACCan, ACAustralia, ACANZP, CofE, ACWales, and EpCScotland, would the Communion really be able to operate as a (so to speak) mixed economy? I suggest the ACO works on clarity about the level of support the Covenant requires for it to be a meaningful rather than nonsensical document.

(2) The Covenant will make a difference (badly illustrated)

One of the arguments against the Covenant is that it is not needed as current structures are sufficient to deal with imaginable future developments. So I find a less than helpful point being made when we read this:

"The assertion is often made that the ordination of women could not have occurred if the Covenant were in place. It is not at all clear that this would have been the case. The consultative processes of the Anglican Communion actually resulted in the discernment that this was an issue about which Anglicans were free to differ. That is exactly the kind of discernment that is needed when any new matter emerges: how do churches in communion distinguish between that which may further the Gospel and that which may impede it? There are never simple answers, but the intent is that the Anglican Communion Covenant provides a way of doing this in a collaborative and committed manner."

The intent is one I agree with: to counter assertions about a hypothetical situation (if the Covenant had been in place then X would have/not have taken place). But the wording here undermines the Covenant. If the pre-Covenant Communion previously found a way to engage in common discernment on a tricky matter, why would it need a new way via the Covenant?

The better argument to make here is that the pace of communication around the globe today means that we are interconnected as member churches of one Communion in a different manner to the past. A formerly ad hoc approach to controversial matters, appropriately informal and patient over time, now needs a structured, clear, formal process able to be entered into with speed and efficiency (even if the process, once engaged, should take as much time as the particular issue warrants).

I imagine that both supporters and opponents of the Covenant might agree on one thing, at least, about ABC's post: it has a whiff of panic about it! We can be sure, by the way, that the ABC will have approved of ABC's action in writing and publishing this promotion.

It's not 1951

Here is an intriguing argument against the Covenant, in the first of the CiF posts about the Covenant:

"Such a process represents a more developed system than archbishop Geoffrey Fisher knew. In 1951 he said: "We have no doctrine of our own – we only possess the Catholic doctrine of the Catholic church enshrined in the Catholic creeds, and those creeds we hold without addition or diminution." Fisher was no woolly liberal. Why is his doctrinal standground no longer adequate?"

That would be "1951" as in the years before Robinson, Spong, and Cupitt; before the Jesus Seminar; before, well, quite a few developments which severely strain the notion that 'the Catholic creeds' are adequate as a doctrinal standard. What, we may ask with all the reasonableness of Hooker himself, does the church do when the creeds themselves are reinterpreted by teachers of the faith dressed as Anglican bishops?!

That would also be "1951" as in the years before the post-colonial expansion of the Communion as a group of Anglican churches no longer run by Oxbridge educated English bishops and missionaries. A year, in other words, when Nigeria would never have questioned whether England was truly Anglican, nor vice versa.

Anglican life has changed!

Guardian publishes column in favour of Covenant

Thanks to the Guardian (UK) we have a very helpful column in favour of the Covenant (H/Thinking Anglicans). Admittedly it is an argument in disguise, for it looks to all intents and purposes like the introduction to one of its series of answers to a question in the 'Comment is Free' section, the suggested answers being provided by a range of opinion-makers. I expect to see some well-known C of E names contributing over the next few days!

Here is what is written:

"Next week the Church of England's General Synod will be asked to take an apparently momentous decision. Should it sign up to a formal, international, disciplinary process which would allow other churches a voice on whether it is truly Anglican or not? The proposed Anglican covenant is presented as a means to deepen unity within the Anglican Communion, but it will do so by strengthening discipline.


It has grown out of the schism of the last decade, and the desire of the conservatives to exclude, and have declared un-Anglican, and in fact un-Christian, the inclusion of of gay people on equal or comparable terms to straight ones. The question really does divide the church. Globally, there is a clear majority against it. In this country, there is probably a vague majority of Christians in favour, and certainly no strong sentiment for a purge of gay clergy. So why should the Church of England sign up to a document which can only be either another piece of toothless waffle, or something that one day will turn round and bite it, painfully?"

I have boldened words which seem quite outrageous in their claims. Quite how the writer estimates that globally there is a clear majority 'against' the Covenant, I do not know. Even within England itself, presumably best known to the writer, there is the uncertainty implied in the word 'probably' which gives lie to the certainty expressed in the previous sentence.

Italicised by me are the words which I think neatly sum up two arguments for the Covenant! (1) That in a global Anglican entity it is a good and necessary thing for all members to have the right to choose to have a say in what any one member body proposes to be an assertion of what it means to be Anglican. (2) That in a body keen to deepen unity, it is (again) a good and necessary thing to have a clear means of discipline in order to reject those things which work against the deepening of unity. It would be folly to work on deepening unity while having no means of countering forces working against unity!

Crossed out by me are words which undermine the credibility of the writer's accurate understanding of the Communion's situation. Quite how they slipped by the editor, I do not know. Conservatives do not wish to exclude anyone from the church but they do want to uphold the church's teaching on marriage. The tension is not about inclusion/exclusion but about what our common doctrine on marriage is. Perhaps in the next few days as further columns in Comment is Free are produced, we will see greater accuracy!

Play with Marriage and Divorce is Likely to Follow

It was a lovely wedding on Saturday - see 'Perfect Day' below - and the weekend turned into a rich experience of Anglican diversity as Sunday morning's worship was experienced in a lively, informal, family communion service in a suburban parish, and Sunday evening's service was a pitch perfect choral evensong in the Cathedral. A thread through the diversity was the commonality of doctrine pervading the three services, all sermons (only one of which was delivered by moi) being orthodox in interpretation and application of the Scripture readings.

The Communion's life as a common entity of connected Anglicans around the globe is not threatened by many manifestations of diversity within our common life, but it is affected by some. Much as some Anglican pundits seem averse to doctrine featuring in any account of that common life, in the end what we believe does affect the Communion. ACNA, for one instance, is not admitted as a member church because we do not believe (or do not yet believe!) it possible to have two distinct Anglican members of the one Communion drawn from the same geographical region. The Communion itself is not yet drawn into greater communion with the Church of Rome because a uniting belief of Anglicans is that communion with the Bishop of Rome is not a prerequisite of validity of sacramental ministry.

So emerging reflections on a recent decision in the Diocese of Toronto have drawn me to consider a post made recently but overlooked by me. Two concerns arise. Is the doctrine of marriage, as understood commonly by Anglicans, capable of fundamental change (i.e. marriage is a man and a woman to marriage may be any combination of man/woman, man/man, woman/woman)? May Anglican polity change fundamentally so that obedience to the decisions of bishops can trump obedience to Scripture as received by the whole Anglican Communion? In the post below, assuming its representation of the promulgation of the bishops in Toronto is accurate, it is strikingly revealed that the bishops do not have the confidence to take their desire for change even to their diocesan synod to endorse a decision for change. Read for yourselves what Catherine Sider Hamilton and F. Dean Mercer have written. If they are correct in their reading of the situation we have a diocese of the Communion playing with marriage. We should not be surprised if this play becomes yet another blow of the wedge in our Communion life leading to divorce!

"On September 14, 2010, Archbishop Colin Johnson ordained priest in the Diocese of Toronto a woman married (by civil law) to another woman. On November 3, the College of Bishops issued “Pastoral Guidelines” for the formal and liturgical blessing of same gender commitments in the Diocese of Toronto.

These actions are problematic both in their content and in their form.

The first action contradicts the doctrine, discipline and worship of the church and disregards its marriage canon. The second does one of two things. In one case, it gives the church’s formal blessing to a civilly married same-sex couple. In the other, it blesses a sexual relationship that is not a marriage. In either case it departs from the historic teaching of the church and its moral vision, both as to the nature of marriage and as to the role and limits of sex.

The bishops have described both actions as pastoral. But in fact they affect the doctrine of the church. The ordination of a person in a same-sex marriage hallows that marriage and names it the ideal, a worthy example for all to follow, properly belonging within the Christian definition of marriage. This is to challenge the marriage canon of the Anglican Church of Canada. This is an act, that is, with concrete legal and doctrinal implications.

Likewise, to bless a civil same-sex marriage in a service complete with scripture readings, hymns of the church, and (if the couple wishes) a Eucharist, is to declare this a Christian marriage. There is no distinction between a civil same-sex marriage blessed in a church and a civil heterosexual marriage blessed in a church. To be sure, the guidelines prohibit the exchange of marriage vows and rings; but the couple has already exchanged vows and rings before a magistrate. If the nuptial blessings currently printed in the prayer books cannot be used, what of that? A new blessing can be written.

If the couple is not civilly married, then we are blessing sex outside of marriage. Whatever the current social mores regarding sex, this is a formal innovation in the church’s ethical teaching and practice.

These are not pastoral actions. They strike at the heart of the faith that has been handed on to us, and at the Christian moral vision regarding sex and marriage.

Indeed, far from being pastoral, these actions are pastorally irresponsible. They introduce substantial innovations in the teaching and moral practice of the church without adequate preparation for the people of the diocese, without adequate theological rationale, without public defense. Further, they put clergy in an unenviable position. Clergy are bound to be loyal both to the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as this Church has received them, and to their bishops. The two are now in conflict.

Is this what it means for the bishops, chief pastors, to shepherd the sheep?

In all this, it is perhaps the failure of truth that is most damaging. It is not just that the bishops have introduced doctrinal and moral innovations under the guise of “pastoral response.” It is also the way they have done it. For the sake of public peace, the bishops have proceeded without synodical debate, without public defense, so quietly – in the case of the ordination – that, though due process was followed, virtually no one except those present at the ordination knew that it was occurring. The bishops in this way have sought to prevent public opposition and have avoided public explanation. Surely actions carried out thus in disregard of the Christian calling to speak the truth in love cannot lead us into the truth."

Primatial prognostications

As news, views, and counter-assertions about the Primates' Meeting in January, 2011 circulates, it may be worth pondering that this is a significant meeting in the life of the Communion. If it were to be cancelled that would signal that the Communion is unable to assure itself of the viability of one of its four 'Instruments': a telling moment in the unfolding future of the Communion, and the telling would be of disintegration, not of renewal. I think we will see the Meeting going ahead.

It would not be helpful for the assurance of the viability of this Instrument if a significant number of primates did not attend, especially if those primates were drawn from just one or two regions. What kind of global entity cannot secure global representation? It makes sense that ++Rowan, according to a George Conger report, is exploring an alternative way of meeting via a set of small groups of primates meeting together in order to have all the primates in the same city.  Inevitably the eyes of the Communion will be searching any alternative proposal for signs that the primates gathered in the same city also gather, at least for a moment that matters, in the same room. I imagine this could happen if, say, the moment was to hear a report from each of the small groups.

A third prediction: the Primates' Meeting will be geared in such a manner that the outcome (report, recommendations, press release) is something that can be followed through and implemented. Recent meetings have suffered, it appears, from the perception that the Anglican Communion Office has found ways to ignore the outcomes. The perception looks like reality: the Primates have said one thing and another has been done (or not done). In the end this perception damages the reputation both of the Primates' Meeting and of the ACO. Expect to see a reputation saving outcome.

What is impossible to predict is whether the Primates' Meeting will be able to be viewed in February as 'successful'. It is possible to plan for such a meeting with blinkers on: if we do X and Y we can secure outcome Z and that will be well-received. Outcome Z might be received, in reality, with outrage, disbelief, or hollow laughter. ADU hopes that there are no blinkers on ++Williams, Kearon, and co.

Better than one might suppose

Stats for TEC, 2008/2009 out (H/T Titus One Nine). Table here. A bit of loss but less than one might think reading some naysayers?