STICK A FORK IN IT
The Anglican Covenant is done:
Sydney has rejected the Anglican Covenant. The 11 October vote by the 49th meeting of the Diocese of Sydney Synod likely spells the death knell for Dr Rowan Williams’ plan for a global agreement to set the parameters of doctrine and discipline for the Anglican Communion.
Support for the Covenant peaked in the run-up to the 2009 meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in Kingston, however, Dr Williams’ untimely intervention into the Covenant debate and changes made to the document have alienated both left and right.
Liberal dioceses in New Zealand, Australia and the US have rejected the plan as un-Anglican, while the Global South Primates last year stated that “while we acknowledge that the efforts to heal our brokenness through the introduction of an Anglican Covenant were well intentioned, we have come to the conclusion the current text is fatally flawed and so support for this initiative is no longer appropriate.”
Good riddance. As George Conger correctly states, no one likes this thing. Liberals refuse to agree to anything that might limit their theological innovations while conservatives have known for a long time that the Covenant, as written, has no teeth and cannot rein in the Canadians and the Americans.
What now? I suppose Rowan Williams could kick the can down the road once more and take another run at it. Of course, any new covenant, however many years it takes to create one, will be even more worthless than the current one is.
If Dr. Williams was as intelligent as people think he is, he would forget about Anglican covenants altogether, drop the idea of who is “officially” Anglican and who isn’t and let the Anglican world revert to its pre-1868 condition. But I don’t think Dr. Williams is as intelligent as people think he is.
Sydney has rejected the Anglican Covenant. The 11 October vote by the 49th meeting of the Diocese of Sydney Synod likely spells the death knell for Dr Rowan Williams’ plan for a global agreement to set the parameters of doctrine and discipline for the Anglican Communion.
Support for the Covenant peaked in the run-up to the 2009 meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in Kingston, however, Dr Williams’ untimely intervention into the Covenant debate and changes made to the document have alienated both left and right.
Liberal dioceses in New Zealand, Australia and the US have rejected the plan as un-Anglican, while the Global South Primates last year stated that “while we acknowledge that the efforts to heal our brokenness through the introduction of an Anglican Covenant were well intentioned, we have come to the conclusion the current text is fatally flawed and so support for this initiative is no longer appropriate.”
Good riddance. As George Conger correctly states, no one likes this thing. Liberals refuse to agree to anything that might limit their theological innovations while conservatives have known for a long time that the Covenant, as written, has no teeth and cannot rein in the Canadians and the Americans.
What now? I suppose Rowan Williams could kick the can down the road once more and take another run at it. Of course, any new covenant, however many years it takes to create one, will be even more worthless than the current one is.
If Dr. Williams was as intelligent as people think he is, he would forget about Anglican covenants altogether, drop the idea of who is “officially” Anglican and who isn’t and let the Anglican world revert to its pre-1868 condition. But I don’t think Dr. Williams is as intelligent as people think he is.
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