Bishop of Lincoln: Covenant process okay, if it never ends
Bishop John Saxbee of Lincoln said some very sensible things during the debate on the Anglican Covenant in the Church of England's General Synod, and thanks to the Rev. Lesley Fellows, we can share them with you:
In relation to the Anglican Covenant, I’m on record as saying in this synod that I entirely support the process, as long as it never ends. Let me explain what I mean. The Anglican Communion doesn’t need a Covenant because Anglicanism is a covenant. It is a way of Provinces listening, living distinctively apart from each other whilst remaining part of one another. That is a way of doing difference differently from the ways in which groups and individuals usually do difference. It is predicated on grace and goodwill, and if there is grace and goodwill then a covenant will be unnecessary and if there is no grace and goodwill then a covenant will be unavailing....The Covenant may of itself not be tyrannical, but there are those in the Communion whose treatment of our lesbian and gay sisters and brothers has had at least a touch of the tyrannical about it. And if I ever come to the conclusion that a covenant of this kind would give them comfort then I would be bound to resist it.
Anglicanism has been described as a fellowship of civilised disagreement. Well I leave you to judge whether a two-tier Communion with first and second division members answers to that description of civilised disagreement. It frankly feels like we will be sending sincere and faithful Anglicans to stand in the corner until they have seen the error of their ways and can return to the ranks of the pure and spotless.
It is one thing to be naive, quite another to continue to hope, as Bishop Saxbee in the face of the long standing, vociferous, crude and mean spirited portrayal of gays that has fallen from the lips of the GafCon primates and their handlers.
Dogs, devils, perverters of children and on and on... non of which is either loving or true about the glbt community and yet such language, which is followed by action or harm and denigrate this community is ignored by these Bishops. That is called denial, not hope.
TEC has no reason at all fall in penitential groveling before the vicious tyrants of GafCon. When they choose embrace and listen to those they now vilify there might be a process... but the present Covenant is not a process, it is a punitive polity.
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November 29, 2010 2:58 PM