As an ex-Jesuit, I crossed the Tiber away from Rome to Anglicanism. Many of my Jesuit friends are Anglican in spirit anyway. The RC Church want Newman to be the paradigm for ecumenism, with the guilty parties returning to Rome as the offended party. I am against the Covenant as it caters to gaining a favorable impression from Rome. Vive la difference!

Don Hands

As an ex-RC Benedictine, I second that. Mostly what I see in this covenant is the opportunity for some to bully others into submission.

Jim,
This was too big an opportunity. I posted over at Real Anglicans. Hope you don't mind.

With regard to Section Four:
I am reminded of my old friend and mentor, Alan Jones', haunting question: "If you were in charge...would there be room for me?"

I very much agree with Bishop Chris (who was formerly my bishop, Back In The Day!). I am opposed to the Anglican Covenant, and have said so in various venues. My criticism of the first three sections is that they are superfluous, although probably benign, and a little superfluity in the profession of our common faith might not hurt! But the fourth section is potentially malignant. Schismatics like David Anderson love this stuff. I was disappointed that Mexico and Southern Africa have indicated their favor for the Covenant -- it may come back to bite them. The good news is that the orthodoxer-than-thou gang may reject the Covenant because it falls short of giving them the authority to be the Anglican Inquisition. The concept of an Anglican Covenant may be okay. This particular Covenant? Not so much.

>> Anglicans have been loath to state that we hold or teach anything other than the creedal Faith of the “undivided” Church and that the Creeds, the Baptismal Covenant, and perhaps the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral should be all we need by way of “confessional” statements. But are they today?

Yes. Now more than ever. As constituted, the Covenant seems too "Roman" to be comfortable for me.

I agree with the Covenant, frankly I'm sick and tired of far left liberals using the Baptismal covenant as an excuse to do whatever they wish, the "respect the dignity of all human beings" part in particular, it's probably the only part you know.

What I would like to know is why everyone is so afraid of the Covenant, as we all see what happens when we all go un-checked, you end up getting branded by the rest of the Christian community as an apostate church. I think the Covenant will get our standing and respect back in the greater Christian community.

Actually, no. It begins with an ancient catholic creed, proceeds through scriptural references such as Acts 2:42 and statements about moral theology and Christian ethics. (But, "respecting the dignity of all human beings" is not a bad place to begin!)

And that,Bishop Epting, is the problem.

A "problem?" Respecting the dignity of all human beings made in the image of God? That's pretty much where the Bible starts!

Well, it seems like people are looking more so for approval of their lifestyles rather than the way to salvation. Just my personal opinion.

Is it really about "approval of their lifestyles," Mr. Jackson? Or acceptance of the way people were born?

It's ironic how "sexuality" has suddenly become a litmus test of "orthodoxy," while violence and wealth, which Jesus preached against much more, are not only ignored, but sometimes even coddled by Christians. Once upon a time, you had to quit military service to get baptized (Hippolytus of Rome), and even later combat veterans had to abstain from communion for three years even if the war was defensive, because "his hands were not clean" of bloodshed (Basil of Caesarea). But now we see no incompatibility between being a Christian and soldiering -- sometimes even honoring with the latter to an uncritical and imprudent degree. And wealth? Despite the Bible's repeated warnings of it being a preoccupation that can lead people away from God, and is often the fruit of dishonest dealings that hurt other human beings, who pries into the rich parishioner's finances to make sure his/her money was earned in a truly ethical, Christian manner? No one. In fact, more often than not, they're courted for sizeable donations, no questions asked. Contemporary American culture doesn't seem to worry much about violence and wealth getting in the way of "the way to salvation."

"Treat others the same way you want them to treat you" (Luke 6:31). Without following that prime directive from Jesus Christ, there really isn't much Christianity left at all, even though historically many Christians haven't been wild about putting those 11 words of his into practice. Oh, that Jesus, breaking the Sabbath, dining with harlots and tax collectors (read, enemy collaborators), and shielding an adulterous woman from getting stoned to death, like she "deserved for her sin"! And yet that is the example he left for us to emulate. One wonders how popular he'd really be today, among the oh-so-righteous-and-religious, if he showed up in 21st-century America preaching and behaving as he did in the first-century Roman Empire. Judging by a lot of the rhetoric I hear today, he wouldn't last very long here at all, given what his message and ethics.

I can't believe this thing has gotten as much traction as it had and that Anglicans of sound mind are actually voting for it. As for Mr Jackson's comments, the word, 'lifestyle,' says it all; it is covert language for the more blunt thought: don't let the queers be part of our church. Someday people will understand that it is not a lifestyle or a choice.

Just to copy what I posted at Bishop Epting's blog:

I, too, have problems specifically with Section 4 of the Covenant-as-proposed. I have been willing to consider some statement on points on which we can agree; and I think some of the changes that came to this Draft were helpful (for example, citing the historic Anglican documents as examples of, rather the specific documents defining, the Anglican tradition).

However, I think the problems with Section 4 orbit around assumptions reflected in our language. Consider your own text:

We have always seen ourselves as interdependent but autonomous Provinces bound together primarily by our approaches to the Bible and the Liturgy and by our historic ties to the See of Canterbury and the Church of England. This relationship has served us well in the past but,… do we not need something more now as a kind of skeletal structure to bind us together.

I have stopped speaking of “provinces” of the Communion to instead refer to “national/regional churches.” Provinces implies a stronger, more intergrated institutional life than has been our history. By the same token, have we been “bound,” or “associated” or “in fellowship?” And what would it mean now for us to be “bound,” whether for the first time or in some stronger structure? The Quadrilateral speaks specifically of an episcopate “locally adapted;” but if we are “bound” rather than “associated” or “in fellowship,” how much freedom do we have to adapt locally? It has been quite a struggle, as you know, even to adapt locally to include the ministries of women. However, it is precisely because we haven’t been bound that some national/regional churches feel they can ordain women to the episcopate (or at all) while others do not. By the same token, how will this serve some of our African siblings who, when they think institutionally of not being “yoked to unbelievers,” already consider us in that category? They seem to want to bind us more than they want to be bound to us.

Sadly, I feel Canterbury’s “last, best hope” is already lost, and was, almost from the moment he began seeking an institutional solution. I think we owe all our Anglican siblings full consideration of the Covenant-as-proposed. I don’t know, though, whether after full consideration we can sign on.

Marshall Scott

It is truly amazing in the midst of gay suicides here in the United States and the by far greater and more enduring oppression of gay and lesbian young people and adults across the Anglican Communion that "orthodox" Anglicans seek a means to punish Anglican Provinces such as the Episcopal Church who don't comply with the policies of documents such as the Windsor Report (despite the fact that such documents have no canonical authority in any regard).

The baptismal covenant we claim to respect for the dignity of every human being is grounded in Jesus' Commandments to his disciples to be gracious unto others, especially those who we deem to be our enemies. It comes directly from Jesus' Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6. There are other pericopes that I could mention but suffice it to say that it's improper biblical scholarship and a poor hermeneutical argument to suggest that the trajectory of Jesus Christ's gospel invites his disciples to diminish the role and status of "outcasts" such as LGBT persons. Jesus' relationships with women, slaves, lepers, and day laborers were far more friendly and complimentary than his relationships with the scribes and organized religious leaders of his day. Theologians from around the communion have drafted and published numerous texts, reports, and papers to qualify the full baptismal presence of LGBT persons in all orders of ministry. Anglican Communion leaders have predominantly chosen to ignore these documents and seemingly have chosen to abruptly halt the "listening process" that primates and bishops agreed to abide by in their recent gatherings.

Additionally, if homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, is adultery a similar sort of choice? Perhaps supporters of the Anglican Covenant should searched for terms to punish provinces who don't take strident positions on matters of heterosexual behaviors that are not in line with particular readings of New Testament texts.

I am discouraged by the prospect of The Episcopal Church signing the Anglican Covenant, especially given the current contents of Section Four. I believe someone, some province, must courageously take a stand for marginalized Anglicans. The Episcopal Church is perhaps best positioned economically and theologically to provide such resistance.

I wish people would stop saying that homosexuals are being kicked out of the church. I just don't feel that non-celibate homosexuals should be ordained clergy, period. Where is this "gay gene"? The Covenant is the best thing to happen to TEC, until further study is done, this is what is needed.

Scientists have isolated the gay gene right next to the straight gene. As for the rest of your free associative post, at least you are clear that the Covenant is a means of degrading the status of LGBT people within the Anglican Communion. Many of the folks who want us to sign it aren't willing to acknowledge that.

With great respect to Bishop Epting, I am not so sure that I am even willing to give a pass to sections 1-3 as “harmless.” They are, in many ways, the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” that serve as the fair-seeming cloak for the purposes of discipline that “come out,” as it were, in section four.

Section 1.2, in particular, troubles me as I could easily hear such a formulation coming out of a Roman context (see the comments of our former-Roman brothers above). They would seem to establish a sort of Anglican Magisterium that we could come to regret in years to come. Un-Anglican sounding phrases such as

“...to teach and act in continuity with the scripture and the catholic and apostolic faith, order and tradition as received...”
“...Christian theological and moral reasoning and discipline...”

really strike me as wrong for us, and these words are not randomly nor lightly chosen here.

Also, in section 3.2.5 we get another clue as the the “real” purpose of what this covenant is for:

“..to act with diligence, care and caution in respect of any action which may provoke controversy, which by its intensity, substance or extent could threaten the unity of the communion and with the Instruments and Commissions of the communion...”

Hmm... now just who are we thinking of here that took actions that have provoked controversy? Poster above, Mr. Jackson, makes it quite clear that he understands just what this covenant is for (as Jim has commented), and why should we “liberals” pretend otherwise?

My greatest dislike of this covenant is that its intentions were flawed from the first. It did not grow, primarily, out of a desire for stronger “bonds” of communion and affection. It grew out of frustration and anger against TEC from persons and bishops who could not “get their way” and have TEC slapped down by the institutional structures already in place. They needed a new set of rules to allow them to do what they have already decided to do--punish.

I think that we need a lesson from Gandhi here in considering that means and intent make a great deal of difference to outcomes and are not “indifferent” things. I love his “watch” example: “ If I want to deprive you of your watch, I shall certainly have to fight for it; if I want to buy your watch, I shall have to pay for it; and if I want a gift, I shall have to plead for it; and, according to the means I employ, the watch is stolen property, my own property, or a donation.”

The biggest problem with the covenant and the covenant “process,” in my opinion, is that they were flawed in intent right from the start. This was not started out of a desire to “form a more perfect union” but to put a tool of discipline and coercion into the hands of persons who want TEC ostracized. I cannot see that signing the covenant is going to help us here, if that foundational intent is allowed to have its way. We’ll be “ostracized” either way, but we don’t have to consent to it. That was part of the problem with B033. It was coercive and counter to our sense of right from the very beginning, but we adopted it to keep the peace, which end it accomplished not at all. To me, this seems just like another big B033, a way of extorting a promise of altered behavior from us. Do we really intend to “stop” doing everything that might upset someone in the Anglican Communion? Is that how we see Jesus command to us? “Verily, verily I say to you, don’t do anything to cause a controversy, but always do whatever keeps everyone from getting upset, no matter whether you believe it to be really right or wrong.” If Paul had taken that choice little piece of advice, I don’t think that the gentile Christian church would even exist today.

A profoundly true quote of Andrew Gerns a while back in Episcopal cafe:

"An Elizabethan Catholic approach would require that the bishops of the Anglican communion remain in communion with one another - precisely because we differ: because our only unity is found in Christ."

Our unity, our communion, is in Christ alone - who are we, then, to break that communion... but rather, we should seek unity in diversity, and a sort of New Elizabethan settlement, based on prayer and gracious love and respect for the faith integrity of one another.

The great genius of the Anglican Church over the centuries has been the way it has afforded space for grace, and for communion in diversity, avoiding the controlling rigidities of sectarianism.

To quote Father Ron Smith: "by prayer and supplication, we need to seek the mind of Christ as to how we all might best bring the freedom of the Gospel into our diverse communities - with integrity and faith - bringing Christ's redeeming love into the part of the world in which we are called to serve.

We must not imitate the culture of those who want to fracture the Church on the basis of their own perceived 'holiness'. Rather we should seek to carry out, humbly, the mission of Christ in our own context and environment, while allowing others to do what they see as their own mission, in theirs."

The communion needs to afford space for grace - and this implies not controlling one another, but each person, each church, walking the way of the cross, with integrity, and according to conscience, allowing the grace and peace of God to gently invade us, to grow us, to draw us towards the perfection we find in Christ alone.

The human church will never be perfect. Therefore much grace and compassion is needed. Grace to share in communion even with those of differing views - because we are one in Christ.

If you won't ordain us, Richard J, then don't baptize us.

What? You say "but you look just like us, as little babies in christening dresses!"

Well, maybe there's a reason for that? Maybe we ARE just the same, despite the gender of who we fall in love with?

Maybe we make the "lifestyle choice" EXACTLY as God created us to make?

I, for one, am really SICK and TIRED of your constant dismissals as of the Baptismal's Covenant's Biblical affirmation of human dignity, as some kind of secular agenda. "Far left liberal"? Only like Jesus was! ["it's probably the only part you know": I'm going to assume that was directed at me, personally ;-/]

Finally, re

you end up getting branded by the rest of the Christian community as an apostate church ... standing and respect back in the greater Christian community.

The first will be last, and the last will be first! There are any number of "Christian" leaders whose respect I DON'T want---because the only opinion that matters is Christ's (and high esteem in the former is antithetical, IMO, w/ the "Welcome to My Father's Kingdom" in the our Savior's)

JC Fisher

Perhaps we should take a cue from Bishop Mark Lawrence and the Diocese of South Carolina: we sign the Covenant, after first reading a statement that says what we actually believe and mean by our assent. How could a conservative object to our doing exactly what they do?