Williams gazes down deep well;
sees own face
The Pluralist doesn't much care for the Archbishop of Canterbury or his Covenant:
It represents centralisation and conformity and conservation with conservatism. Anything a Church does can be referred up by any other element of Anglicanism. A Church should already have consulted others widely (so a reference up may already be a black mark, or a disagreement). The Standing Committee itself doesn't take the final decision for 'relational consequences', but it does all the reasoning and so carries that form of authority.Does the dispersed nature of Anglicanism and its autonomy, its cultural connections and sensitivity, really wish to take on something that would be impossible - wide and unending talk before anything was done in a geographical area? This process may be Rowan Williams looking down a deep well and seeing his own face, but it is not Anglicanism in its decentralised nature. It is an innovation, to produce a centralised Catholicised Rowan Williams Anglicanism long after he has gone.
Update
Mark Harris doesn't like it either:
So the Anglican Communion ought to support, not repress, local conditions in which the universal birth-right takes specific form. The Anglican Communion ought to support life long committed relations between and among people, ought to support sexual expression within such relationships. It ought to promote and encourage baptized members of the Church to consider God's call to them to various ministries in the Church. At the same time the Anglican Communion ought to speak with some clarity about situations that arise locally which would categorically deny basic human rights to individuals in this or that place. In order to do this the Anglican Communion voices - the voices of the "Instruments of Communion" - need to be supple and nimble.Instead the Anglican Communion, if it adopts this Covenant, will become less supple, less nimble, less able to act locally and think globally, more bloated and without the ability to act swiftly except by employing this new engine, the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion. As seen in its communique several days ago, the Standing Committee has acted swiftly concerning Bishop Elect Glasspool. At the same time it said nothing about the situation in Uganda. What gives?
It is also less Catholic, though certainly more Roman. The Catholic position is that the fullness of the Church is present in the local assembly (in our case the diocese), which is in intercommunion with other Catholic churches, but free to incarnate Jesus in its local context.
Rowan Williams offers us a neo-colonial, neo-Roman model of catholicity with a defined center of power. Historic Anglican decentralization is both more Catholic and closer to the Gospel of Christ. It's also the only way to create effective worldwide mission. What good missiologist would tolerate this kind of cultural imperialism?
The real culture that +Rowan seeks to export is not the fundamenalism of Africa, but the basic duplicity and discretion that prevails in his own ecclesiastical context. The Episcopal Church's sin continues to be not that we permit same sex unions, but that it looks like we will do it (in some cases already do) openly and officially while calling it what it actually is. Our sin is not that we ordain partnered clergy, including bishops, but that we do so openly and honestly, and call it what it is.
Posted by R. William Carroll![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/nav-commenters.gif)
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December 19, 2009 8:00 AM
I keep wondering if ++Rowan is unaware that as he covertly (and now openly) pushes so hard to get what he thinks we must have with Drexel´s Covenant, that something is wrong? I´m the kind of person that quietly believes that if I must resort to overpowering others with my DEMANDING IDEAS of right vs. wrong...well, I better take a closer look because ALL may not be as I thought it to be.
Watch it Archbishop Rowan, you´re pushing far harder than would be necessary...something is wrong and it could be your own Anglican Worldwide VIEW!
Posted by Leonardo Ricardo![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/nav-commenters.gif)
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December 20, 2009 1:34 PM