And Defeat

I reported here yesterday that the Diocese of Derby voted to reject the Anglican Covenant. According to Thinking Anglicans, so has the Diocese of Gloucester, although no vote tallies have been made available. Significantly, Gloucester, like other dioceses that have voted against the Covenant, publicized arguments both for and against the Covenant. (See page on Diocese of Gloucester Web site here.)

Unsurprisingly, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s own diocese has voted in favor of the Covenant and issued a press release to that effect. According to the diocese, the vote was as follows: bishops—1 for; clergy—26 for, 14 against; laity—39 for, 13 against. There were no abstentions. The press release rather gratuitously praises the Covenant. An excerpt:

The Anglican Communion Covenant gives vision to a “communion with autonomy and accountability” and offers an agreed framework for shared processes of decision making, mutual accountability and responsibility for all churches in the Anglican Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has strongly commended the Covenant to the Church of England; in his 2011 Advent letter to the Primates of the Anglican Communion he said the Covenant: “Sets out our common life and common faith and in light of that proposes making a mutual promise to consult and attend to each other, freely undertaken. It recognises that not doing this, damages our relations profoundly.”

How could any possibly object to that?

Update, 2/8/2012: The vote totals for Canterbury were wrong in the original post above. They are now correct. (See comments below.)