From the Wycliffe Hall website:
During the first week of July, Wycliffe Hall hosted over 100 visitors from around the Anglican Communion for a four-day consultation. Building on the work of a similar venture exactly five years ago, we were able to invite a wide selection of bishops and pastors, theologians and those in mission agencies. They came together to confer on two key matters of common concern: taking forward the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant and examining the challenges and opportunities for Anglican Mission in the ‘First World’.
There were good contingents of visitors from Australia and New Zealand and from the United States and Canada, as well as smaller numbers from Continental Europe, South America and the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East. Each day included worshipping together and hearing from the Scriptures (focused on Ephesians). The consultation concluded with a Communion service in the chapel with a decidedly African feel as it was presided over by Bishop Gideon Githiga (Kenya), with a sermon from Archbishop Mouneer Anis (Egypt) on the theme of covenant renewal.
Wycliffe owes many thanks to those who made this consultation possible—especially our co-hosts in the Anglican Communion Institute. It is hoped that many of the ideas, generated through building good relationships and creative discussion, will bear fruit during the coming months as the Covenant Design Group receives input from around the Communion and as bishops prepare to gather for the Lambeth Conference in July 2008.
Papers are available as PDF files here and here and also here, and some are now on the ACI website:
When God Brings Things to a Point by Philip Turner
Why a Covenant, and Why Its Conciliar Form: a Response to Critics by Ephraim Radner
The Place of Confession in an Anglican Covenant: Outline by Ephraim Radner
Covenanting in the Church and in Scripture – Congruent or Discordant? by Christopher Seitz
Following Christ the Lord by Martin Davie
One thing that struck me in most of these papers is the writers are very prescriptive, and even military in their thinking. e.g. Radner’s parishioners pray for the Church Militant at least every Sunday and Seitz’s strong emphasis on God the Judger. Given we are dealing with people who like strong structure and military precision, it might be worth clarifying the nature of Jesus’ authority. In Jesus’ incarnation, he had the full support of all Creation, because it was anticipated that he was going to honorably respect the best intentions of the Torah, being a compassionate healer and beacon of… Read more »
Sara Savage (plenary) makes references to Generation Y analysed by Heelas and Woodhead (2005)The spiritual revolution: Why religion is giving way to spirituality. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. She notes their findings that young people live life in the moment, through communication networks, and support of family and friends, with next to no knowledge of Christianity and no interest particularly in other religions or New Age either. It is another stage in the secularisation debate. Then she makes a big mistake, that somehow this somehow places a lens over the New Testament and aspects of emerging church with its networks and… Read more »