Tracking Covenant Resolutions

I am tracking the progress of Covenant resolutions through General Convention. Please check out developments on my blog.

The Unfriendliness and Place-at-the-Table Arguments

By the Revd. Dr. Marilyn McCord Adams, patron of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition

Some who wouldn’t have proposed the idea of the covenant in the first place, are inclined to feel that--now that the covenant is put before us--it would be unfriendly to other Anglican Communion members to reject it outright, rather than greeting it with some kind of muffled acceptance.

Our reply is that when it comes to the Gospel agenda, it is not unfriendly to disagree vigorously. Disagreement and debate is one tool the Holy Spirit uses to bring all of us fallible human beings closer to the truth. Fog and stalling does not.

Some argue that it is important not to reject the covenant outright, because we need to keep a place at the Anglican Communion table--a place that would be forfeited by voting the covenant down.

We reply with a question: who sets the table? Here the Windsor Report muddied the waters by asserting its presumptive legitimacy. Even before anyone had agreed to anything the Primates were moving to enforce its punitive consequences on TEC and New Westminster.

If the majority of provinces had signed on to the covenant, then it would be reasonable to suppose that only covenanters have a place at the table. But it is not the case that most provinces have signed on. Not even the Church of England has signed on. So it cannot be right to think that TEC will have a place at the table only if it accords the covenant some measure of acceptance. In advance of a covenant landslide, the criteria for Anglican Communion membership should be what they were before.

Perhaps +Ian Douglas will say that in fact the powers-that-be will deny TEC a place at the table if we reject the covenant outright. This hypothesis presupposes that the powers-that-be will apply exclusionary procedures unevenly. The Church of England’s refusal yet to accept has not excluded it. The Church of Scotland’s rejection has not denied it a place at the table.

But if the powers-that-be would do that, why would TEC want to collude with such unjust procedures? Why shouldn’t TEC rather join the Church of Scotland in rejecting the covenant and roll up its sleeves to work for fresh expressions of Anglican Communion around the globe?

MMA

Primus of Scotland on not adopting the Covenant

From the Most Revd. David Chillingworth, Primus of The Scottish Episcopal Church:

At our recent General Synod, the Scottish Episcopal Church decided by a clear majority not to adopt the Anglican Covenant. In 2011, Synod had discussed the Covenant in Indaba session. It was clear then that a decision to adopt was unlikely.

We tried hard to keep the issue open. I believe that the Anglican Covenant is an honourable attempt to heal our brokenness. But some time ago, as I set out to address yet another meeting in my diocese, I confided to my blog that I was going to listen to the most committed Anglicans on the planet telling me why they didn’t like the Anglican Covenant. Put simply, they believed that the Covenant is un-Anglican.

The Scottish Episcopal Church holds tenaciously to its commitment to the Anglican Communion. I see three reasons for that.

First, it’s our size – to a small church, it matters that we belong to something bigger. Then there is a reason which is proprietorial and slightly presumptuous - we invoke the memory of Samuel Seabury, consecrated in 1784 by the Scottish bishops as the first bishop of the church in the United States of America. We like to believe that we were in at the beginning. We want to be part of the bringing to birth of a new phase of Communion life. Finally and more subtly, our particular attitude to authority - rooted in the collegiality of a College of Bishops – finds an echo in the Anglican Communion’s aspiration to dispersed rather than centralised authority.

We approached this decision with great care and with some apprehension. We too are a diverse church. We have congregations who see the Anglican Covenant as important and necessary for their security within our church. This decision has called on our reserves of internal trust. Those congregations needed to know that, whether or not we adopted the Covenant, we intend to take a measured and respectful approach to our diversity. But therein lies the first of the problems. The Covenant addresses what it sees primarily as inter-provincial disagreement. But its effect may actually be to heighten intra-provincial tensions.

Provinces will continue to consider the Covenant and come to their own decisions. The Anglican Communion will continue to seek unity in an astonishing diversity of culture and context across the world. It already has structures and processes through which we build communion life. There are the four Instruments of Communion. There are networks - family, environment and others. There is the Anglican Alliance. There is Continuing Indaba - for which I serve as Chair of the Reference Group. There are Diocesan Companionship Links.

But we need a more comprehensive understanding of the challenges. We also need to recognise that no single measure can address them all.

The genesis of the Anglican Covenant lay in the Windsor Report – which arose from the development of conflict around issues of human sexuality. In my experience, conflict is almost never ‘single issue’. It is a complex of issues which sometimes don’t quite match in a directly adversarial way. And the passion with which those conflicts are experienced tells us that other issues are in play. It’s about more than the ‘presenting question’. Let me suggest two other issues which are part of this.

The first is one to which we are tangentially linked through the Seabury story - it is the legacy of history. The sharp word is colonialism. People assert independence of thought and action more strongly - challenge authority more resolutely - when relationships are shaped and conditioned by the legacy of history. In the Anglican Communion, that history affects interactions between the New World and the old world and between the developed and the developing world. The challenge is to build an Anglican Communion which transcends its history – a post-colonial Communion.

At the Primates Meeting in Dublin last year, I learnt that another of the great diversities of Communion life is in our understanding of authority. A bishop in the Church of England does not exercise authority as we do in Scotland - different again in America and in Nigeria and in Hong Kong. That diversity enriches – but it has led to misunderstanding and disappointment in one another.

I believe that a new understanding of the problems we face is needed. By challenging the legacy of history, new axes of relationship will be encouraged. We shall be better able to address the deeply adversarial divisions which gather around the human sexuality issues. Communion grows when we share together in mission, grow together as disciples and act with a self-discipline which is the foundation of unity in diversity.

Our Communion is a gift to the world - a global institution which aspires to exist largely without centralised authority and to celebrate its rich diversity. Such a Communion models things which are important for the world community. Such a Communion is attractive in mission because it has learned to transcend conflict. I believe that we now have a historic opportunity to reshape the Anglican Communion so that it may become an instrument of God's mission to the world in the next generation.

Covenant Opponents Continue to Carry Votes

If we Anglicans share one characteristic, it is civility. Our Moderator is a Canadian and tells the joke (apparently common in Canada) about how one evacuates a swimming pool full of Canadians. One says, quietly, "It is time to exit the pool." The same joke works for a pool full of Anglicans. So, in some polities where our civility makes it hard to tell Dr. Williams how silly his "Anglican Church" idea really is, we see votes to extend consideration of the Covenant until after he retires. Which leads to the vote this week in the diocese of Brisbane.
The delegates to their diocesan synod are thinkers: they are also polite. So we have a resolution that follows the civility path:

That this Synod recommends to the General Synod that it:
1. Affirm the commitment of the Anglican Church of Australia to the Anglican Communion.
2. Affirm its readiness to engage with any ongoing process of consideration of the Anglican Communion Covenant
3. Request clarification from the 15th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council as to the status and direction of the Covenant Process in the light of the position of the Church of England.
4. Urge upon the Instruments of Communion a course of action which continues to see reconciliation and the preservation of the Communion as a family of interdependent but autonomous Churches.

There are several points to note here.
First, the rules of the Australian Church require that all the diocese agree to something like the Covenant. That means that this vote is decisive for this year.
Second, Resolve 3 suggests what is clear to this writer, the no vote in England should be decisive. That it is not so treated by the Church House staff is deplorable.
Finally, Resolve 4 makes it clear that this diocese at least and we know, others in Australia and around the world, reject the content of the Covenant, even when they are entirely to polite to simple say it. The entire "Anglican Church" enterprise stands as the singular failure of the Williams term. The ideas simply makes no sense. But we are Anglicans, we find it hard to let our "no" be, "of course not!"
None-the-less, the Covenant is dead in the water. It is good to see the Australians adding their voices in the no column, no matter how politely. Their vote like that in Wales, can and likely will be misconstrued by the "secretary general" whose entire office is dependent on the Covenant. But even he knows, I am sure, that the "Anglican Church" enterprise is DOA, and deservedly so.

FWIW
jimB

Support Our Presence at General Convention

Dear Coalition Supporter,

The No Anglican Covenant Coalition will send our moderator, Malcolm French, and me, our Episcopal Church convenor, to the 2012 General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. The convention begins in less than two weeks. Along with other Coalition members and friends, we will monitor the progress of Covenant-related resolutions and will lobby for The Episcopal Church to take a strong stand against the Anglican Covenant. We will also distribute buttons and brochures to convention bishops and deputies in support of our lobbying efforts.

For the first time, the No Anglican Covenant Coalition needs to solicit financial help in support of our efforts. To date, coalition members have run our operations on a shoestring, and some members have made significant personal sacrifices to enable us to oppose what we believe is a disastrous change in direction for the Anglican Communion.

Our presence at General Convention will be our most expensive undertaking so far, requiring funds for travel, lodging, meals, buttons, brochures, etc. We estimate that this project will cost more than $3,000 US. Your help is urgently needed. Please consider making a generous donation to this important effort.

The No Anglican Covenant Coalition is an unincorporated organization, and contributions are not tax-deductible. However, donations of $25 US or more will be acknowledged with our Yes to Communion button that we will be distributing at General Convention.

By making a donation through PayPal, anyone in the world can contribute to this effort. Note that I, as Episcopal Church convenor, am acting as treasurer, so you will see both the Coalition’s name and my own on the PayPal pages when you make your donation using the button at the bottom of this post.

Thank you for your support,
Lionel Deimel
NACC Covnenor for The Episcopal Church

General Convention Resolutions Analyzed

The General Convention of The Episcopal Church meets next month and will take up Covenant adoption. To date, depending on how one counts, as many as seven resolutions have been proposed to deal with the request from the Anglican Communion to adopt the Anglican Covenant. These will go to a legislative committee that will determine just what legislation will come before the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies. Almost certainly, that legislation will be an amalgam of what has been proposed thus far.

Blogger Lionel Deimel has written a helpful post explaining and comparing the seven resolutions. Anyone who wants to understand the resolutions should read his post, which you can find here.
 

This Just In From Scotland!

It takes courage to stand for the right. The Scottish Episcopal Church has that courage. They have officially said no to the Covenant and yes to Communion. The news is posted on their official web site at this page.

The address by their primus is worth reading. It is a solid endorsement of the Anglican Communion, not the unwelcome hierarchical "Anglican Church" Dr. Williams and his myrmidons have been so eager to inflict on us. FWIW jimB