From New Zealand come reports that two further dioceses have voted against adoption of the Anglican Covenant:
Auckland Covenant clause ‘contrary to Anglican ecclesiology’
But, for the amended text of the resolution that was passed, please see the comments below.
Waiapu The following motion was passed by a 99.5% majority:
Waiapu affirms its desire to remain a member of the Anglican Communion. We do not believe that the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant will enhance the life of the Communion and request that General Synod/te Hinota Whanui declines to sign the Covenant. (All three regional conferences supported this motion going to Synod.)
The No Anglican Covenant campaign has criticised the materials recently issued in the Diocese of Oxford.
Meanwhile, the Living Church has published a number of articles in support of the Covenant, to which Lionel Deimel has helpfully provided a set of links. See this page. He explains why he did this here.
One of these is by Andrew Goddard who has published an interesting article which suggests that, in the light of the Anglican Covenant’s prospective adoption, some reforms are needed to the Anglican Instruments of Unity.
This is also available from the Fulcrum website: Commitment in Word and Deed.
Did the Waiapu defeat or pass the motion by a 99.5% majority.
YOur previous sentence doesn’t seem to fit if it defeated it.
Simon, the link to the Waiapu motion is missing the initial “h” of http://…….
Your Waiapu link url is missing a leading “h” and I think you meant to say that the motion was passed, not defeated?
Re: Waiapu – my understanding is that the synod PASSED the motion rejecting the Covenant – although I had not heard a margin.
should read:
Waiapu The following motion was approved by a 99.5% majority:
Do you mean that Waiapu accepted, rather than defeated, that motion by a stonking majority, Simon?
Also, Auckland has voted to affirm that people in same-sex relationships are not to be barred from ordination: http://www.anglicantaonga.org.nz/News/TIKANGA-PAKEHA/Auckland-synodsees-no-bar-to-same-sex-ordinations
And Waiapu, not to be outdone, has requested same-sex partnership rites: http://www.anglicantaonga.org.nz/News/TIKANGA-PAKEHA/Waiapu-asks-for-same-sex-liturgy
It will be interesting to see what the more cautious dioceses – Wellington and Christchurch especially – and the the highly conservative Nelson diocese make of the latter proposal if it comes to General Synod.
Unfortunately, the source you quote has printed an early draft of the motion agreed by the Auckland Synod. The motion, which I seconded, and was passed by a 2/3 majority, was substantially changed. In particular Clause 2.a expresses a strong opinion against the covenant. That this Synod: (1) Noting that the General Synod/te Hinota Whanui has approved in principle Sections 1-3 of the proposed Anglican Covenant, and have asked Episcopal Units to respond to its 2012 Session, and noting that some other Episcopal Units have already rejected the proposed Covenant, and anticipates that the various Episcopal Units will express a… Read more »
My apologies for the mistakes relating to Waiapu, which I have now corrected. Sorry!
And thank you Edward for the corrected version of the Auckland motion. I will insert this into the main body of the article shortly.
My ACANZP colleague, Fr. Edward Prebble, has now put to rest any doubts there may have been about the Auckland (N.Z.) Synod’s rejection of the Covenant document as it presently stands – with section 4:2 intact. There can be no doubt that, in our New Zealand context, the ethos of disciplinary exclusivism that is contained in section 4:2 is seen to be against the traditional Anglican Way of Unity in Diversity. Other dioceses have still to offer their own ideas on the Covenant, but I find it encouraging that 2 of our dioceses have already affirmed the presence of LGBT… Read more »
Another “interesting article” can be found over at the American Anglican Council website where Stephen Noll gives his views on the story so far. He has several things to say about the Covenant but here are some worth a read: “Having acknowledged a problem, Williams skipped past the questions and uncertainties and stated that “when enough Provinces had adopted the Covenant, then the Standing Committee could think about behaving as if the Covenant were in force.” His skip in logic and process was similar to the tactic employed at the 2010 ACC meeting in Jamaica, where serious procedural irregularities had… Read more »
Thank you, Martin, for drawing our attention to the Stephen Noll extravaganza. One sentence sticks out a mile in his very extensive overview of what he says is going on in the Communion at the moment: ” Strong theological objections were raised by scholars of the Anglican Communion Institute (ACI)” The objections raised by the oddly-named ‘Anglican Communion Institute’- (4 theologians and a web-site) – are little more than an agglomeration of opinions from these disaffected North American conservatives, who are hell-bent on getting rid of TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada out of the Anglican Communion. Their theological… Read more »
the only real growth in new zealand Anglicanism is amongst the evangelicals, who recently establsished their own theological college. I fully expect the Diocese of Wellington, Nelson and Christchurch to approve the Covenant.
I wouldn’t want Robert Ian Williams’ last post to be the last word about N.Z. Evangelicalism on this thread. It needs to be realised by readers that R.I.W. was once one of the Evangelical candidates for ministry from the Nelson Diocese in New Zealand. Being now a lay convert to the Roman Catholic Church in Wales – he is not privy, locally, to all that goes on here in N.Z. His talk of ‘their own theological college’ is one situated in his old diocese of Nelson – quite small and evangelical in timbre – but not representative of N.Z.’s ethos.… Read more »
Wellington said yes, Dunedin said no:
http://anglicantaonga.org.nz/News/TIKANGA-PAKEHA/Wellington-says-yes-to-Covenant