Jonathan Clatworthy has written a response to this recent article by Andrew Goddard.
Read it in full at Reply to Andrew Goddard.
Andrew Goddard has now provided a lengthy defence of the Anglican Covenant against the arguments in PDF our advertisement of 29 October. At over 15,000 words it bears witness to Dr Goddard’s commitment. It is not light bedtime reading, and a point by point reply would not be either. In any case our views are already available. Although he does not refer to it, at the bottom of the advertisement we printed a website address (www.modernchurch.org.uk/anglicancovenant) for further details, where we had already provided much of the further information he asks for. Since then a huge amount of additional material has been placed on websites. There is a list in the resources section at www.noanglicancovenant.org, of which notthesamestream.blogspot.com is particularly worthy of note.
Nevertheless it may be helpful to respond to the substance of his points…
Note: the reply is only 3,700 words long.
More good work from Mr. Clatworthy.
To me the question really boils down to this: Does a family need a constitution?
‘The bitter controversies of the last decade have indeed been most unfortunate. The presenting issues have been ethical and theological disagreement. They should be resolved by patient, informed ethical and theological dialogue, not by ecclesiastical power politics and threats of exclusion.'(Jonathan Clatworthy) Now that is a thought. It is the way things were done in the Church of England, and other anglican Churches, I think, for much of the twentieth century. BUT how can you have dialogue with women-who-*demand-Ordination*. Never mind those dreadful, immoral, abusers,- Homosexuals with their Agenda which Force on (the rest of) Us Good People.**** * Women… Read more »
Jonathan Clatworthy’s response addresses Andrew Goddard’s points very clearly.
Reporting from Episcopal Cafe on media remarks back here: BBC Radio 4’s ‘Sunday’ sees Edward Stourton asking Times religion correspondent Ruth Gledhill about the Anglican Covenant – if it’s primarily about discipline or something else. She responds: ‘You can’t get round the fact that it does apply a potentially disciplinary procedure to provinces that step out of line and it probably will create a two-tier Communion and America probably will be relegated to the outer tier, so [the Covenant’s] critics feel that this is imposing a centralized disciplinary structure which is very un-Anglican.’ And it comes on a day that… Read more »
Laurence. I sometimes wonder what you are wanting to convey in your posts. Obviously, this one must be irony. However, I beg you – not to be too down-hearted. It is God’s Church after all! Remember,
Christ the Universal King will have the last Word!