The Lead

Two English church groups have united against passage of the Anglican Covenant during next month's General Synod. Meanwhile, Bishop Alan asks if anyone, anywhere can say anything nice about the document--and if they can't why should it pass?

Thinking Anglicans reports:

Thursday 28 October 2010
Church Groups Unite Against Anglican Covenant

Two major Church of England groups, Inclusive Church and Modern Church (formerly MCU) have joined together to campaign against the proposed Anglican Covenant.

In November the Church of England’s General Synod will be asked to approve the Anglican Covenant. Many Synod members do not realise it, but it could be the biggest change to the Church since the Reformation.

Each of the 38 Provinces in the Anglican Communion is being asked to sign it. By signing, it undertakes not to introduce any new development if another Anglican province anywhere in the world opposes it – unless granted prior permission from a new international body, the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion.

The campaign opens tomorrow Friday, when full-page advertisements appear in both the Church of England Newspaper and the Church Times. It will continue during the weeks leading up to the General Synod debate scheduled for Wednesday 24 November, and if the draft is not rejected, but referred to the dioceses, it will continue throughout 2011.

Last week, Bishop Alan Wilson asked what kind of tool the Anglican Covenant might be: a Swiss Army knife or a turkey turner.

I am slightly bemused when I am told some big signature project is perfectly safe because it won’t make any critical difference. If not, why bother? Is there anything worth doing instead that might make a difference? But a new General Synod is about to sign the C of E up to the Anglican Covenant, pretty much on auto-pilot, some say as much out of fear of giving offence as positive endorsement for its suposed virtues. Everyone else can then back-pedal, ignore it, even, depending on where they stand in the culture wars,
* because they fear it will spank TEC

or

* because they fear it won’t,

The Covenant then joins a select number of other magnificenti in the lumber room, like the Kikuyu declaration, and life carries on. But, inquiring minds will wonder, what kind of a tool is it? What for? Whose benefit? How?

There’s a scale for assessing tools, that runs from Swiss Army Knife to Turkey Turners.

Not to give away the ending, but "Turkey Turner" is winning his informal poll. But his question is a good one: will a document that is at best useless and at worst harmful to Anglicanism pass out of sheer niceness?

Comments (5)

I agree with Bishop Alan that we need to question the worth of the document overall. I know that thousands of hours have gone into formulating it, but that is not a reason for passing something about which no one indeed has much good to say, and that does not do any good.

And Lord, please protect us from doing something out of "sheer niceness"! I prefer some passion, please ...

Posted by laurenstanley | October 29, 2010 9:18 AM

Swiss Army Knife or Turkey Turner? I think just turkey - describes the idea. Not one of those smart wild ones but a domestic overfattened ones that cannot fly and will open its mouth and drown in a rainstorm or panic and crush others in a corner of the fence.

Posted by Ann Fontaine | October 29, 2010 11:27 AM

Preach it, Ann!

Posted by Josh Thomas | October 29, 2010 2:03 PM

One major problem with the Covenant, it seems to me, is that in the current environment it is reactive rather than proactive. The time to put systems in place to deal with conflict is before the conflict occurs, not in the midst of it. When one comes up with protective measures in the midst of a conflict, it just seems like a power grab or something vindictive or forced.

We need to acknowledge the reality that there is a great difference of opinion across the Anglican Communion on a variety of issues. Those differences of opinion are intertwined with cultural differences, a legacy of colonialism, and the reality of a world that is undergoing tremendous cultural transitions. That being the case, it seems to me that the question that should be asked is: "What sort of relationship can we reasonably have with other provinces of the Communion and what might best facilitate that relationship?" rather than "What can we do to make people get back to the way it was before?"

Posted by Tom Sramek, Jr. | October 29, 2010 3:06 PM

It's taken me several hours to realize that the Anglican Covenant is a do nothing policy like unto that proposed by Chamberlain in 1939. What alternative is there for those of us who believe that all are created equal in the eyes of God?

Posted by Christi Hill | October 30, 2010 5:00 AM

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