Understanding the significance of the Maori NO vote

Last week the governing body of the Maori jurisdiction of The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia voted decisively against the proposed Anglican Covenant.

To understand the significance of this vote it’s helpful to know something of the unique constitutional arrangements of this antipodean church. As it name suggests it involves more than one jurisdiction and more than one country – Polynesia is actually a number of countries: Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, and the Cook Islands. Also, as the name suggests, in the land mass commonly known as New Zealand, there are two jurisdictions, reflecting two histories: the Maori indigenous church [Aotearoa] and the settler church [New Zealand].

The first constitution of this Province was in 1857 and, with the blinkers of colonialism, only reflected the settler church's understanding. This constitution was radically revised in 1992. At the level of General Synod/te Hinota Whanui matters could now be decided not only by a simple majority, or a majority vote in each of the houses of laity, clergy, and bishops, but also by a vote in jurisdictions. In this latter method the three jurisdictions [Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia] need to either assent or abstain. If any of these three vote against a matter that matter is lost.

So the vote last week by Aotearoa’s governing body, Te Runanganui, means in effect that The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia will next July at its biennial General Synod/te Hinota Whanui reject the Covenant.

As reported in the official news magazine of the Church section 4.2 the proposed covenant was seen to be about control. If the Anglican Communion were to adopt the Anglican Covenant, the ability of the Standing Committee to commend relational consequences to the churches or the instruments of communion was viewed as a challenge to their sovereignty. The resolution passed by the Runanganui said, “Clause 4.2 of the proposed Covenant contains provisions which are contrary to our understanding of Anglican ecclesiology, to our way of unndestanding Christ, and to justice, and is unacceptable to the Runanganui.” For the jurisdiction of indigenous tribes that struggled for sovereignty in the structures of the Church for 145 years it was unlikely they were ever going to agree to this covenant. Two of Aotearoa’s dioceses [or rohe] had already rejected the covenant, one of those being the see of the Archbishop, Brown Turei, where it was rejected unanimously with acclamation. This is the equivalent of the Synod of York or Canterbury rejecting the Covenant.

In the other jurisdictions of The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia, the New Zealand dioceses are currently three for, three against, and one still to vote. They won’t vote as a whole jurisdiction until just before the General Synod in July, but whatever that vote’s outcome it won’t change the ‘no’ decision for the whole church. The jurisdiction of Polynesia also has not yet voted, and likewise their decision will not affect the end result.

The Rev'd Glynn Cardy of Auckland, New Zealand.

Enforcing Nice A Response

Peter Arnett, a legendary TV and print news reporter famously wrote

“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,” a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town, regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong. [“Major Describes Move,” New York Times, February 8, 1968.]

It awakens my sense of irony to note that Mr. Arnett is a New Zealander. I have no idea if he is an Anglican, but his description of the US (failed, we now all know) strategy in Vietnam is apt for the defense of the Anglican Covenant mounted by Peter Carrell and his boss, Bishop Victoria Matthews. They stand willing destroy the communion to save  it. While Matthews’ defense of the Covenant achieved only incoherence, Carrell peels down the layers and give us clarity. The picture is really, really ugly.

Matthews intends the Covenant to do exactly what I have said in my posts it will do: destroy the Anglican Communion. The difference between us is that, as Carrell explains, he and Matthews anticipate a new Covenant-based Anglican Church that will take on the role of the Communion and exclude bad people, thoughts, originality—and this is key—pesky North Americans, with their liberal ideas, and annoying Africans who think they should have a say in Communion management. I see disaster, a church that replaces Anglican comprehensiveness with exclusion.

In his key paragraph, Carrell says

If I am correctly interpreting +Victoria’s argument, then the Covenant is a sheep-and-goats moment for global Anglicanism. To one side will be those member churches who choose to not commit in this new way, churches which will not stop listening to others, but which will always listen when it suits and not when it does not.

This new “Anglican Covenant Church,” a name that I think has just been invented by Carrell, will be all the things we who oppose the Covenant have been arguing against. It will impose a supra-church canon law, an utterly arbitrary decision process, a curial “Standing Committee,” uniform unyielding confessional standards, and above all, terminally bland niceness.

Somewhere in Section 4, Matthews and Carrell find an enforceable requirement that the churches listen to each other. If I understand their somewhat opaque reasoning, “listening” means limiting progress to the least common denominator.

Carrell describes the “new way” the Covenant will, he thinks, create.

... that way is to force those who claim to be in Communion to actually listen to one another and thus to be in relationship with one another (that is, an actual working relationship).

Somehow, forcing someone to listen creates “relationship,” although Carrell does not say how.

My sense of irony is also awakened as I consider Dr. Williams, who would not let +Robinson, or any LGBT voice, be heard at Lambeth, and who will not treat our presiding bishop as a bishop, enforcing this “listening” they describe.

But force may not be required. Both Matthews and Carrell seem quite content to visualize this new bland-leading-the-bland replacement as a small, but nice, church. Indeed, excluding most of the Global South, most of North America, and parts of the UK (Scotland, Wales, and perhaps Ireland) won’t leave much. And, in case England finally wakes up and declines to adopt the Covenant, Carrell is even willing to consider a new, small church without fellowship with Canterbury! Lest anyone forget, fellowship with Canterbury is the standard definition of membership in the Anglican Communion. Not so, it appears for the new “Anglican Covenant Church.”

If this vision actually prevails, will some of those who have said they are in stay in? I can imagine Mexico reconsidering. Did the Mexican church really sign up for the “Anglican Covenant Church?” Do its members, recently independent from TEC, really want an international Curia (sorry, “Standing Committee”) forcing them do things? Are their bright, educated, and pastoral bishops really prepared to submit themselves to required niceness?

Paul called us to curtail our liberty in God to support the weak among us. Many in TEC, Anglican Church of Canada and other churches have been willing to do that. They also, however, hear Jesus calling them to do justice. It is all a delicate balance. But it not in Matthews’ and Carrell’s anticipated   new church: one is told what is nice and one had best do it.

The thing is, I agree with Carrell and Matthews. Section Four, indeed the entire Covenant if adopted, will kill the Anglican Communion. Despite my doubts, it may give birth to an, “Anglican Covenant Church.” And that new body will be a church, not a communion, with canon law, a Curia, a ruling archbishop, and homogenized, bland, and static theology.

I predict that if this vision turns into reality, at least initially, it won’t be all that nice. For a shrunken church without most of the Canadian and American money that now sustains the Communion, I can only see politics—politics that determine, eventually, what Section Four means, how much of the Anglican Communion Office staff is retained, and who is in and who is out. In short, I predict the new “Anglican Covenant Church” will be a copy of the ever fragmenting, ever schism-ridden “Continuum.^*”

What is amazing is that anyone thinks this is a good idea!

FWIW
jimB



* The “Continuum” is the collective name for the pseudo-Anglican churches that emerged from the “St. Louis Declaration, ” crafted after TEC began to ordain women. That document pledged unity, and failed utterly. The most current listing I know of the many churches in the Continuum is in the “Not In Communion” section of Anglicans Online.

More News from New Zealand

Our friend Bosco Peters has posted more news from the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand & Polynesia. In his September 19, 2011, post, he says, in part:

The Dunedin diocesan synod also strongly strongly rejected the proposed Covenant as it stands, and passed a motion identical [I think] to the Auckland one:  that is, that Sections 1-3, are useful statements and commitments and a process for dealing with disagreement; Clause 4.2 is unacceptable; the rest of 4 is acceptable.

Wellington diocesan synod accepted clauses 1-3 of the Covenant but went for a division (a vote in houses bishop/clergy/laity) for clause 4. The voting on that section was: Clergy: 63 for; 41 against. Laity: 52 for; 44 against. One synod member said he counted up to 25 abstentions.

Our best understanding of where things stand regarding Anglican Covenant adoption can be found here on the No Anglican Covenant Web site.

Auckland Diocese Passes on Covenant

I learned earlier today from our New Zealand convenor, the Ven. Lawrence Kimberley, that the Diocesan Synod of the Auckland Diocese had rejected the Anglican Covenant, but Kimberley could offer no details. (Note that I am writing from Pittsburgh, but time stamps on this blog are given in London time.) This afternoon I became aware of a helpful post from the Rev. Bosco Peters.that offers the actual resolution that was passed. According to Peters, the resolved adopted said

That this Synod,

• noting that the General Synod/te Hinota Whanui has approved in principle Sections 1-3 of the proposed Anglican Covenant, and asked Episcopal Units to respond to its 2012 Session, resolves as follows:

• (a) Sections 1 & 2 of the proposed Anglican Covenant may be considered to be a useful starting point for consideration of our Anglican understanding of the Church
  
  
• (b) Section 3 of the proposed Covenant contains an acceptable description of the basis for relationships between the churches of the Anglican Communion, and suggests a series of commitments which provide a useful framework within which churches of the Communion could discuss differences between them.
  
  
• (c) Clause 4.2 of the proposed Covenant contains provisions which are contrary to our understanding of Anglican ecclesiology, to our understanding of the way of Christ, and to justice, and is unacceptable to this Synod.
  
  
• (d) The other parts of Section 4 contain technical provisions that are acceptable to this diocese if Clause 4.2 is rejected
  
  
• Notes that some other Episcopal Units have rejected the proposed Covenant, and anticipates that a variety of views on the proposed Covenant will be expressed by the various Episcopal Units.
  
  
• Asks General Synod/te Hinota Whanui, if it rejects the proposed Covenant in part or as a whole, to commit itself by Standing Resolution to following processes similar to those set out in Section 3 of the proposed Covenant if another church of the Communion raises concerns about actions this Church takes or considers taking.
  
  
• Asks General Synod/te Hinota Whanui to request its representatives to the Anglican Consultative Council to bring a motion to the 2012 meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council to affirm that full membership of the Anglican Communion is not conditional on adoption of the proposed Covenant.

We are beginning to see a healthy trend in New Zealand. Three dioceses have said no to the Covenant, and, as best as I can tell, no diocese has said yes.

Couple of Great Covenant Posts

From Preludium:

So it is high time to give a reading of the tea leaves. It is high time for the Anglican Covenant Crapshoot, whereby, by guess and by golly, a chart of the impending frightful mess is uncovered, complete with some wild guesses as to the number of National or Regional Churches (that's what Provinces are) willing to buy into the Anglican Covenant, and why. Read the rest HERE

And From Liturgy:

I think it is not unfair to say that Maori have considerable experience and energy around the concept of signing a document which has the sense of a sacred covenant, and the use and abuse of such a document, the issues that arise through the differing understandings and misunderstandings of texts, the use and abuse of power, and the differing motivations of people who sign up to such a document and urge people to sign. All this, I think, I hope, helps to understand some of what is in and lies underneath the motion passed. Read the Whole article HERE.

Latest Movement News

Anglicans in New Zealand have established their own No Anglican Covenant blog, as well as a Facebook page.

Recall that the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia has expressed approval for Sections 1–3 of the Covenant, but has concerns about Section 4. The matter comes back to the General Synod in 2012.