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SO WHAT IS THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION COVENANT?
For the second time in 15 years General Synod has referred to Dioceses the legislation to adopt the Anglican Communion Covenant. This is because, under the Constitution of the General Synod, certain kinds of legislation may not receive the final approval of General Synod unless they have first been approved by the majority of diocesan synods.
General Synod needs to have a clear decision from each diocese, taken at a diocesan synod meeting, on whether to approve the following motion: "That this synod approve the draft Act of Synod adopting the Anglican Communion Covenant".
The idea of an Anglican Covenant was prompted by a desire to deal with divisions in the Anglican Communion which came to a head following the election of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. The Bishop is in a homosexual relationship.
The Covenant is a freely entered-into agreement that affirms what Anglicans believe, urges restraint where there is disagreement between national churches and offers a route to resolve those disagreements. It is intended to help the Anglican Communion address the challenges of living out the principle of autonomy-in-communion by committing its member churches to mutual accountability, consultation, the achievement of consensus and a means by which the Anglican Communion can discern its calling to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world.
The Anglican Covenant - Friend or Foe?
Clare Sykes - Member of General Synod
As a new girl at General Synod, in preparation for the February 2011 Synod meeting I read The Anglican Covenant Briefing Paper. I had heard and read many criticisms of the Covenant. I read carefully, pencil in hand, ticking off every clause I agreed with as I went. I was surprised. Those criticisms did not seem to stem from the text. Was I reading the same document as the critics of the Anglican Covenant?
The Covenant aims to be 'a positive means for handling our diversity, not a tool for either control or forced division' (para 63). It provides a supportive framework within which to disagree and find consensus - an ecclesiastical playpen if you like. It affirms the traditional Anglican way of theological and moral reasoning in the use of scripture, tradition and reason (1.2.2), but acknowledges that the common life in Christ that we share has to be continually reinterpreted as we face ever changing contexts (3.1.4)
The Covenant is not a coercive document that seeks to hinder the work of the Spirit among us, but rather it invites us to face our differences of theological opinion and practice and to stay with the pain of those disagreements until a consensus is found. It does not dodge the consequences of un-resolved disputes but rather provides us with a mechanism that can be used to bring resolution.
This document has been born out of hours of prayer, pain and discussion borne by our God given leaders. I believe we have to approach it with generosity and thanks, rather than suspicion. It continues to commend my support.
The Reasons to Vote No to the Anglican Covenant
John Dinnen - Member of General Synod
Introduction
The Church of England is a broad church, following Christ with a balance between scripture, tradition and reason. The Anglican Communion is a family of self-governing churches with this shared heritage. Member churches listen to each other and support one another. In the past Provinces have been free to act differently but genuinely held differences have been debated until such time as common ground is established.
Covenant
The Anglican Covenant is an attempt to solve the problem of disagreement in the Communion by giving central committees of the church new powers and the Covenant document attempts to constrain the Anglican Communion i.e. to make it more narrow. For example in the Covenant document the "reason" leg of the tripod appears to have been lost. The trigger for drawing up the covenant was the ordination of a gay bishop in the USA. There are differing views on this and other issues in the Anglican Communion, but is this single issue important enough to split the church? The Covenant commits churches not to introduce changes with which other churches disagree. If the Covenant had been in place twenty years ago ordination of women and acceptance of divorce would have been held back or prevented till all the churches agreed. The Covenant would work against developments in the church. In my view it would be a bit like trying to drive a bus with 38 people each with their foot on the brake.
Bishop John Saxbee (formerly Bishop of Ludlow) spoke very fluently in his farewell speech to General Synod about the bad effects of bringing in the Covenant - the"cure" which would make matters worse. Bishop John is a patron of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition (see the website below). In General Synod we heard about the "Indaba Process" in which dioceses as diverse as Gloucester, El Camino Real in California and Western Tanganyika met, talked and worshipped together. This is a much more Christian way of working than driving out those with whom you disagree. Many of the groups that called for exclusion of the Episcopal Church in the USA say that the covenant doesn't go far enough and won't accept the covenant document anyway! Several dioceses have already voted against the covenant, including Wakefield and five New Zealand dioceses
It would be foolish to adopt an agreement guaranteed to destroy the generous diversity and willingness to be led by the Holy Spirit that have characterized Anglicanism simply to achieve the illusion of unity.
Why I urge you to vote against the covenant:
1. The C of E would be giving up the freedom to decide for itself how to serve and witness to Christ among the people of England.
2. Power would be over centralised - the Standing Committee and the Primates Meeting given too much power, upsetting the balance between bishops, priests and laity in leadership of the church.
3. The Covenant doesn't satisfy those who wanted it originally - alternative structures are already being set up e.g. GAFCON and Anglican Mission in England, with its own panel of bishops.
Conclusion: The Anglican Communion would lose by signing the covenant, not gain.
John Dinnen for further discussion see www.noanglicancovenant.org
An Anglican Communion View
The Rt. Rev. C. Andrew Doyle, Bishop of Texas.
The Proposed Anglican Covenant is no less controversial today than was the Chicago Lambeth quadrilateral, which birthed an evolving movement of church unity that continues to intrigue and challenge us today. There are many views about the Proposed Anglican Covenant. Even our collection of Anglican Primates seem somewhat divided. However, one thing is certain, all have agreed that as a community (globally and locally) we must take stock of how the Gospel of Jesus Christ has bound us together. We are called in our own locales to discern, through prayer and discussion, our place in the wider Anglican Communion and to share with one another our thoughts on what it means to live a missionary life together.
The ministry of the Anglican Communion is not dependent upon our agreement on the Covenant it turns out; nor is it dependent upon our agreement around issues of sexuality or on the integrity of provincial boundaries. Nor is it dependent upon solving the ecclesial deficit within Anglicanism. The ministry of the Church is dependent upon the Holy Spirit and the grace of God.
If we read Paul's letter to the Galatians we are reminded (as the Archbishop of Canterbury did remind a cathedral full of bishops as Lambeth 2008) it is God who sets us apart, God who calls us by his grace, God who reveals himself in me. If this is true for us as individuals it is even more true for us as a community of faithful believers. God is revealed through our common life, worship and mission. The prayer of Chrysostom based upon Matthew 18.20 comes to mind, "when two or three are gathered I shall be there in the midst of them."
We claim that the Church is the family of God (Episcopal Church Book of Common Prayer, page 531). That family is as diverse as the world's population. The family of God is not defined by our marital relationships but by our relationship to the Holy Spirit, our shared baptism -- our shared covenant. Our family of God -- the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion -- is one part of the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are bound by the Spirit and we are pressed into service on God's behalf by the Spirit.
We are globally and locally engaged in Spirit-led mission where those we serve long for transformation and some small whisper of God's love. This is the reality of who we are and we share one unifying element: the love of God.
In all parts of the Church, I hear people who yearn for a way to move forward together. Even in the most cynical I hear a hope that our lives, mission and Church can itself be transformed.
Anglicans are known for our ability to bring differing political forces to the table for conversation and to help local communities find ways out of terrible situations. We need only think of South Africa, Ireland and the Middle East. Each is an icon of the local laity and clergy who have worked behind the scenes to walk in step with victims and victimizers and to bring them to a common table. The Anglican Communion and its interrelated parts are recognized for mediating conflicts far greater than the Anglican Covenant on a global stage.
We have in recent years seemed eager to be the prophetic voice against one another. Why not be the prophetic actor doing the unexpected, leaning into the conflict in a spirit of conciliation? We publicly mimic the victimizer, becoming (in accord with Nietzsche's concept) the monster we have been fighting instead of the Christ we follow.
How we are "being" Church today does little to build a stronger, healthier, vibrant community. Playing our division out in the press is not good communication. Lawsuits do not build up the body of Christ. Vitriolic voices on one side and closed minds on the other do not make for better conversation.
It is time for a new diplomacy, a new virtuous citizenry in the household of God. It requires recognition that ministry happens within particular cultural contexts, which are affected by things that happen in the Church half a world away. I think the Anglican Covenant attempts to do this in its own way. I support the Anglican Covenant because of the positive aspects it holds up as a common rule of life for an emerging and ever maturing global missionary society.
Yet, I also know that the kind of new diplomacy I am really speaking about begins in prayer and study that flows from our homes and congregations, then through our provinces and our global communion. It begins by seeing the Christ revealed in my life and in the life of the person sitting across the table from me. It demands a sacrifice of our egocentric nature. It demands humility -- a commodity that is in short supply in today's culture. It will take direct and personal communication. A willingness to cross oceans and travel across continents to make it happen; not unlike the recent exchange that was made between Hereford and Texas. True citizenry lived out globally requires of us local faithfulness and a global hope of communion. After all, we proclaim a God who was incarnated in human flesh, came and walked among us. We confess faith in a God who knows us and was willing to sit with us and break bread with us. Sometimes I think when we begin to imitate Jesus' own simple actions we find the covenant and bond of Christ's love already yoking us together.
I believe the Church I describe is attainable. It will recognize that this means a partnership forged in diversity, not for the sake of compromise but for the sake of comprehension. I will spend my ministry building relationships to that end.
The Rt. Rev. C. Andrew Doyle is the ninth Bishop of Texas.
Another View
Prebendary Kay Garlick - recently retired member of the Archbishop's Council and Chaplain
The impressive Roman viaduct that towers over visitors entering the town of Segovia in Spain is very high, very long, and constructed totally without the use of mortar. The enormous stones are laid one on top of the other, and have remained firmly in place for hundreds of years. Our own local dry stone walling is a rather more modest example of the same technique. But in most stonework, mortar is used to bind the stones safely in place.
I recently came across a poem "Pointing" written by a canon of the Cathedral, Peter Mullins.
In the poem we are invited to think about a wall, or a building, where the stones are surrounded by mortar. Because the stones will naturally move and expand over years, the mortar around them has to be able to allow a certain amount of movement - to be weak enough that if necessary it will allow itself to be forced out by the stone. And so, as we who care for ancient buildings know well, much time and money is spent on re-pointing. The poem tells of the lazy stonemason who gets tired of repointing the stone blocks again and again, and so he makes a mortar which is far too strong and rigid - now the mortar around the stone just won't budge, and so it is the stone itself that begins to break up.
Historically, the Anglican Communion has been built like that Roman viaduct - the provinces being like similarly shaped stones that have managed to nestle together safely without the need for man-made mortar to bind them. Of course, loving, faithful and sincere Christians do not always agree on the right and loving way forward, but in the past, the Provinces of the Anglican Communion have found themselves able to "agree to disagree" over particular matters, while still acknowledging the right of another Province to move forward in a different way. We have prided ourselves on being a "broad Church".
But more recently the individual stones have been expanding and changing shape - no longer do the provinces nestle together comfortably, and indeed over particular issues the Communion has threatened to fall apart and bring the whole structure down. Christians on both sides of the arguments have wanted to prevent this happening - to find a way of maintaining unity with diversity - could a Covenant be the mortar we need to hold us together?
Those who support the concept of covenant do so because it is a way of emphasising all that binds us together. It is a statement of belief that all should be able to sign up to - a way of defining what makes us Anglicans and helping us realise that we do therefore belong as one Communion.
But many fear that the Covenant, instead of being something that holds us together, may turn out to be a cause of division and exclusion. Too strong a mix of mortar can form such an impermeable crust around each stone that it can no longer touch the other, and the stone itself can find itself held so rigid that it is unable to move and expand, and might begin to crumble away.
If a Covenant is to be devised to be like mortar, holding the Communion together, we must make sure that the mix is not so strong and rigid that it won't allow for growth and movement within - for therein lies complete disintegration.
Pointing
By Peter Mullin
The blocks of ironstone
bound by rigid mortar
flake away
like some dry mud cracking
in a shallow hollow
once a pool
or honey coloured cells
in a comb of pointing
congealing.
A mix far too strong to
take the stone's expansion
and fall out
slapped in to free a man
from the tedium of
repointing,
the whole point of pointing
to take the punishment
forgotten.
Inside, with the same care,
the man places people in a vice
insisting that the words
should be stronger than the
lives they frame
while the words' own Word waits
to take the strain of our
distortions.