Analysis of the Provincial Votes By Jonathan Clatworthy

From Jonathan Clatworthy, who is both a member of Comprehensive Unity: The No Anglican Covenant Coalition and General Secretary of Modern Church, we have received this analysis of recent actions by provinces.

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So neither Ireland nor South-East Asia decided to adopt the proposed Anglican Covenant – but neither felt able to just say no. Ireland voted to ‘subscribe’ to it, South-East Asia to ‘accede’ to it. As both provinces know, these are meaningless expressions; the Covenant will only come into force if the provinces sign on the dotted line to adopt it. Why are they pussyfooting about?

There is a good reason. Provincial leaders are under immense pressure to sign the Covenant, but few of them like it. It was originally conceived as a way of threatening the USA with expulsion over gay bishops. The present text makes two changes to that aim. Firstly, instead of directly threatening to expel, it sets up an international system which could respond to complaints by expelling but could decide not to; we wouldn’t know the result until after it had been set up. So GAFCON have decided this is not discipline enough and have gone their own way, leaving the rest of us wondering who still wants it.

The second change is that the Covenant makes no mention of same-sex partnerships. It would be possible for one province to object to any initiative by another and demand a judgement from the newly empowered central authorities. Anglicanism would become a confessional sect where we were told what to believe.

So what do provinces do? If they refuse to sign, they may find themselves effectively expelled. If they do sign, they will no longer be able to run their own affairs without constantly checking whether someone in another part of the world objects. So they opt for a third alternative. There isn’t one, but they act as though there is. Whether ‘subscribe’ and ‘accede’ end up counting as ‘adopt’ will no doubt depend on which side has the cleverer political manipulators.

It's hard to unscare people

Do you think people run around scared a lot? I do. I was interested in this piece that Canon Alan Perry wrote:

Reading the paper yesterday, I was interested in an article about the scandal of the falsified study linking childhood vaccines to autism. Although the initial study has been thoroughly discredited as a fraud, and numerous attempts to replicate the results have failed, there is still great fear that a link might exist and so parents are putting their children at risk of serious diseases by refusing vaccination. This quote from Dr Paul Offit, of Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, leapt out:

"It's very hard to unscare people. You can do study after study, but people are far more compelled by their fears than by their reason."

It strikes me that that's a pretty good description of what's going on in Lambeth Palace and the Anglican Communion Office these days. There's a lot of people who seem to be far more compelled by their fears than by their reason.

Over and over again, I find that if I act out of fear it is the wrong decision. It is a motto of mine to act only out of love, and not fear. I do get sick of feeling scared - I spent many years as a child and young adult being afraid. I think life in all its fullness is a life without fear. Let us model this as Christians, as Anglicans, as Human Beings. I am a strong believer that if we take a step backwards in the face of fear, then the fear will take a step forwards, and we will be boxed into ever smaller places. Fear stops us being free, and the Anglican Covenant is an example of the fruits of such fears.