Press Release from Modern Church and Inclusive Church
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.
The full text of the Church Times advert is available as a PDF file here.
Bravo! May these ads have a powerful impact. Perhaps this is the best way to present views by those opposed to the Covenant. I hope this opens the discussion wide up and divulges the serious implications if such a “covenant” were to be enacted by the Church of England.
Hurrah!! Sense at last!
Excellent. Deserves the widest circulation possible.
Major groups? How do you come to that conclusion?
They could have made more of an argument for their wider Anglican audiences.
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/10/trying-to-stop-thing.html
Graham Kings wants the General Synod to say yes so the dioceses can discuss it, thus accuses Modern Church etc. of restricting discussion. Nonsense – the General Synod is a legitimate and representative place to vote on the thing at the Church level. What he means is keep passing it until he can demand that it should be passed.
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/forum/thread.cfm?thread=16951&sort=creatasc
If you don’t want it, vote against it.
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/10/trying-to-stop-thing.html
“Graham Kings wants the General Synod to say yes so the dioceses can discuss it”
Has anything prevented dioceses discussing the Daft Covenant in its various iincarnations over the past 5 years?
Canadian Anglicans have been asked to study the covenant by General Synod in advance of 2013. As of yet, there is no organized plan or process in place for that to be done.
• 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. •
Not true. The Standing Committee has no such authority in the Covenant. The Standing Committee is not a new entity, just a new name for an existing entity.
If you are against something winning approval, which yes I am against the Covenant, it is best to understand it and not misrepresent it.
Where do I sign up ? Yes, circulate it widely. If Synod passes it with so little discussion and no consultation they will have trivialised both it and themselves — and all of us. Btw Is the Anglican Communion intent on gradually taking up great religious words and limiting even belittling them by such usage ? So we often get nowadays lazily ‘the Communion’ when what is intended is ‘the Anglican Communion’; and the Covenant when what is meant is the Anglican Covenant. The Communion is the sacrament, and also the Communion of Saints (nuff said); and the Covenant is… Read more »
This statement, by Inclusive Church and ‘Modern Church’, enunciates quite clearly the problems facing the Church of England’s General Synod as it begins to explore the relative benefits and disadvantages of taking onboard the culture of the proposed Anglican Covenant. Not only would its adoption compromise the independence of the Church of England, it would deliver power into the hands of a completely new ‘Instrument of Unity’ which, contrary to its stated intention, would become nothing less than an instrument of disunity within the Communion as a whole. To deliver overall authority into the hands of an unelected sodality as… Read more »