Happy Coalition News

The No Anglican Covenant Coalition is proud and pleased to announce a new patron. The news release, which can be read at this site begins

LONDON – The Revd Dr Lesley Crawley, Moderator of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, has announced the appointment of Oxford University Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, DD, as a Patron of the Coalition. Professor MacCulloch joins the Rt Revd Dr John Saxbee and the Rt Rev Dr Peter Selby, who were appointed last June.

As we continue to present the case against the Covenant, we are thrilled that leading members of the Anglican Communion have joined us. Please do take a look at the complete news release. It can also be found at the Episcopal Café, at other major Anglican news sites, and on the No Anglican Covenant site here.

For the Coalition:
Jim Beyer

More on the Doll Paper

Lionel Deimel, in the steps of Jonathan Clatworthy, has written a criticism of Peter Doll’s paper. His blog post, “A (Very) Close Look at Doll’s Pro-Covenant Essay,” has been added to the Resources page of the No Anglican Covenant site here. Deimel points out factual and logical errors in Doll’s argument. The Lead has excerpted Deimel’s rather long analysis.

Tobias Haller has written two brief blog posts on the subject of the Doll paper that can be read here and here.
 

Clatworthy Responds to Doll

We have added an essay by Jonathan Clatworthy of Modern Church and the No Anglican Covenant Coalition to the list of Resources on the No Anglican Covenant Web site. (The entry is here.) The Clatworthy piece, “Americanism and the Anglican Covenant,” is a response to an essay by Peter Doll, Canon Librarian of Norwich Cathedral. Doll’s treatise was distributed by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to Church of England bishops. It is profoundly anti-American, an attitude that seems to be shared by the Archbishop.

“Americanism and the Anglican Covenant” identifies themes in Doll’s piece and responds to each one. The presentation of each them begins with a quotation from Doll followed by Clatworthy’s response. Here is a sample (I have included only the first paragraph of the Clatworthy response):

Federation or integration

I see the Covenant as offering a choice between our declining into a federation of churches sharing a common heritage or drawing ever more closely together in Christ as a real communion of churches.

‘Federation’ would be a fair description of the Communion as it is now, and has been for a long time. Nevertheless Doll’s view is common among Covenant supporters. I have two questions about it as a general preference. Firstly, why is ‘drawing ever more closely together’ a desirable aim at all? It is not self-evident: the question, after all, is only about how institutions relate to each other across long distances. It is hardly the stuff of the Sermon on the Mount; indeed, to English Anglicans of a certain age it seems only yesterday that we were encouraging black African dioceses to have black African bishops instead of white English ones, so that they would be truly independent. The persistent claim that we should now change direction looks suspiciously like a power struggle by ecclesiastical politicians.

When I set out to write this post, I intended to summarize Doll’s argument and to include some of my own thoughts on matters not dealt with by Clatworthy. Upon rereading the Doll paper, however, I realized that both his Episcopal Church history and his characterization of current day Episcopalians are too distorted to be answered succinctly. The distortions will be more obvious to Episcopalians than to our sisters and brothers across the pond. Exposing them will have to wait for another day.

I suggest first reading the Doll paper before reading Jonathan Clatworthy’s response.