LIFE SUPPORT
How much trouble is the Anglican Covenant in? This much trouble:
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But what is the Covenant really about? Essentially, it’s about being accountable to each other in the Communion. As in any family, what we do affects those with whom we are in a relationship. The Covenant is about thinking through those relationships, and what the consequences are of whatever we choose to do in our own particular bit of the Communion’s life.
But one of the greatest misunderstandings around concerning the Covenant is that it’s some sort of centralising proposal creating an absolute authority which has the right to punish people for stepping out of line. I have to say I think this is completely misleading and false.
The Covenant suggests a process of scrutiny. That is, when any particular bit of the Anglican Communion decides it wants to do something new, for whatever reason, then that particular bit of the Communion needs to look at what it is doing and think it through in terms of what its effects might be elsewhere in the Anglican family. And as that process of scrutiny goes on other provinces are drawn in, and the instruments of the Communion at large are drawn in. We look at what we’re doing in the light of its effects, not just for us, but for others.
But then people say the difficulty comes with the fourth section. But that fourth section is not a disciplinary system. It’s about a process of discernment and discussion. Nobody has the power to do anything but recommend courses of action. Nobody is forced by that into doing anything.
The Covenant won’t solve all our problems, but it will express what a great many people in the Communion and outside need to hear: that we are answerable to one another; that we take each other fully seriously. And in terms of the Church of England, it means that we understand and accept that the Church of England is part of the Anglican family, not some special isolated little bit that doesn’t have to ask these questions.
We’re being invited not to sign away our freedom but to accept that in the body of Christ we are all obliged to one another. We’re all responsible to, and for, and with one another. If we can approach the Covenant in that spirit then I believe passionately that it’s worth voting for and worth supporting. And my prayers will be with all of those who are making decisions about this in the dioceses of the Church of England.
Over at The Jimi Naughton Experience, Jim and his band of merry pranksters are delighted by all this, presumably because they think that the death of the Anglican Covenant means that the Episcopal Organization will once again get to make crap up, call it “Christianity” and continue to claim “apostolic” status while the idiot Africans have to go back to keeping their stupid, backward and bigoted opinions to themselves.
But the funny thing is that Jim Naughton and I are basically on the same side of this issue(but for obviously different reasons). The fact of the matter is that this Covenant, as written, won’t change anything and was designed not to. While Dr. Williams claims that it will make Anglican churches “answerable to one another,” the idea of the Communion ever doing anything serious about Episcopal apostasy has been taken off the table.
All that can be done, claims my gracious lord of Canterbury, is that in the event the Americans officially go full Unitarian, a course of action can only be recommended. And since we all know how well and how often the Anglican Communion actually decides something, it’s safe to say the technology for time travel will be developed long before TEO might once again be asked to skip another Important Anglican Meeting.
The Anglican Covenant is ludicrously too little and far too late. Let it(and the Anglican Communion) die. The sooner that the entire worthless edifice comes crashing to the ground, the sooner that serious Anglicans can get started building a new international structure that glorifies God rather than embarrasses and angers Him.
Popout
But what is the Covenant really about? Essentially, it’s about being accountable to each other in the Communion. As in any family, what we do affects those with whom we are in a relationship. The Covenant is about thinking through those relationships, and what the consequences are of whatever we choose to do in our own particular bit of the Communion’s life.
But one of the greatest misunderstandings around concerning the Covenant is that it’s some sort of centralising proposal creating an absolute authority which has the right to punish people for stepping out of line. I have to say I think this is completely misleading and false.
The Covenant suggests a process of scrutiny. That is, when any particular bit of the Anglican Communion decides it wants to do something new, for whatever reason, then that particular bit of the Communion needs to look at what it is doing and think it through in terms of what its effects might be elsewhere in the Anglican family. And as that process of scrutiny goes on other provinces are drawn in, and the instruments of the Communion at large are drawn in. We look at what we’re doing in the light of its effects, not just for us, but for others.
But then people say the difficulty comes with the fourth section. But that fourth section is not a disciplinary system. It’s about a process of discernment and discussion. Nobody has the power to do anything but recommend courses of action. Nobody is forced by that into doing anything.
The Covenant won’t solve all our problems, but it will express what a great many people in the Communion and outside need to hear: that we are answerable to one another; that we take each other fully seriously. And in terms of the Church of England, it means that we understand and accept that the Church of England is part of the Anglican family, not some special isolated little bit that doesn’t have to ask these questions.
We’re being invited not to sign away our freedom but to accept that in the body of Christ we are all obliged to one another. We’re all responsible to, and for, and with one another. If we can approach the Covenant in that spirit then I believe passionately that it’s worth voting for and worth supporting. And my prayers will be with all of those who are making decisions about this in the dioceses of the Church of England.
Over at The Jimi Naughton Experience, Jim and his band of merry pranksters are delighted by all this, presumably because they think that the death of the Anglican Covenant means that the Episcopal Organization will once again get to make crap up, call it “Christianity” and continue to claim “apostolic” status while the idiot Africans have to go back to keeping their stupid, backward and bigoted opinions to themselves.
But the funny thing is that Jim Naughton and I are basically on the same side of this issue(but for obviously different reasons). The fact of the matter is that this Covenant, as written, won’t change anything and was designed not to. While Dr. Williams claims that it will make Anglican churches “answerable to one another,” the idea of the Communion ever doing anything serious about Episcopal apostasy has been taken off the table.
All that can be done, claims my gracious lord of Canterbury, is that in the event the Americans officially go full Unitarian, a course of action can only be recommended. And since we all know how well and how often the Anglican Communion actually decides something, it’s safe to say the technology for time travel will be developed long before TEO might once again be asked to skip another Important Anglican Meeting.
The Anglican Covenant is ludicrously too little and far too late. Let it(and the Anglican Communion) die. The sooner that the entire worthless edifice comes crashing to the ground, the sooner that serious Anglicans can get started building a new international structure that glorifies God rather than embarrasses and angers Him.
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