UPDATED
The Scottish Episcopal Church has vote no on adopting the proposed Anglican Covenant.
The General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church today voted against the adoption of the Anglican Covenant. Following a variety of views expressed by members of General Synod, the Motion that Synod agree in principle to adopt the Anglican Covenant was put to vote – 112 votes against; 6 votes in favour; 13 abstentions. The Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, The Most Rev David Chillingworth, Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld & Dunblane then presented a resolution on the Anglican Communionin support of Motion 27, saying “The Anglican Communion matters deeply to us in the Scottish Episcopal Church. We invoke the history of Samuel Seabury, consecrated in 1784 by the Scottish bishops as the first bishop of the church in the United States of America. We want to be part of the re-founding – the bringing to birth of a new phase of Communion life.”
The Primus’ full speech on the Anglican Communion is available as a PDF document.
On Thursday the Primus wrote:
My key focus is of course on the Anglican Covenant debate. We are slightly taken aback because our mood seemed to be that we were prepared to stand fairly alone in our lack of enthusiasm for it. And now the Church of England has got their before us. That wasn’t in the plan. But it seems to me that, whatever our feelings about the Covenant, we defer to no one in our enthusiasm for the Anglican Communion.
The Anglican Communion News Service reports here.
UPDATE:
From The Scotsman
THE Scottish Episcopal Church has rejected an agreement backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury that could have seen sanctions imposed on them if they diverged from the Anglican Communion’s rulings on issues such as the ordination of gay bishops and same-sex unions.
The church’s General Synod, currently meeting in Edinburgh, overwhelmingly rejected the covenant, stating that it threatened its independence and went against the spirit of the communion.
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You canna fool a canny Scot!
😉
JC Fisher
The Executive Council resolution gives away too much. We need to make it clear that we support an Anglican Communion—we need to be careful about what sort of Anglican Communion that might be—and we need to say a firm NO to the Covenant. We shouldn’t be making gratuitous concessions. (See my analysis of the submitted resolutions so far here.)
So, now I’m confused. With his own province voting against the covenant, Rowan still supports and backs it. Does that mean is the majority of provinces vote for it it’s okay with him that England and Scotland become second tier? Whatever that means? Where’s Tim Sedgwick and our class in Anglican Identity when we need him?
I loved the Primus’ speech, and I’m so pleased that he will be present at GC.
June Butler
Yes, at this point I’m inclined to go with the Executive Council’s resolution — thanks for the work, we’re committed to the Communion, we cannot accept it at this time. That’s basically what the C of E said (through her people). Let our “Yes” be “Yes” and our “No” be “No.” If there is another attempt at something better in the future we can give that the same kind of careful look we gave to this proposal.