Updated again Friday
The BBC Radio programme, Sunday had two items about this.
The programme can be found here including a downloadable podcast.
First, Stephen Bates of the Guardian gave a brief outline of the significance of the GAFCON announcement. This is 6 minutes into the programme, and lasts for about 4 minutes.
Then, starting at about 33.5 minutes in, and running to the end of the programme, i.e. for about 10 minutes, there is a longer discussion about this. It features in turn the retired archbishop Lord Carey, then Bishop Martyn Minns of ACNA and GAFCON, and then Bishop Graham Kings of the Church of England.
This should be listened to in full.
Bear in mind that ACNA is not a member of the Anglican Communion although it is a member of GAFCON.
Graham Kings noted that GAFCON is not the same as the Global South Anglican movement, and at least three GSA primates (Chew of SE Asia, Anis of Jerusalem and the Middle East, and Ernest of the Indian Ocean) are themselves moderates in favour of the Covenant. He also argued that the GAFCON primates cannot speak for their provinces until their provinces have actually considered the Covenant themselves.
It also appeared from what he said that the Sudan province, whose primate was a member of the GAFCON council (is he still?), has already voted at least once, if not yet definitively, in favour of the Covenant.
Confused yet? You should be.
Updates
See the Comments below for links to some partial transcripts.
Anglican Mainstream has very helpfully transcribed more of the programme, see BBC interview with Bishop Minns on Gafcon Primates’ Statement.
And Fulcrum has transcribed the whole of Bishop Kings’ remarks at Interview with Graham Kings.
There is now an even fuller set of transcripts in the Comments on an article at Titusonenine, starting here (and in the following comments).
45 CommentsThis week’s Church Times carries a report of the recent GAFCON primates statement, which was linked here on Wednesday, while the General Synod debate on the Anglican Covenant was still in progress, but which was not known to synod members prior to the voting. (The GAFCON/FCA Primates’ Council met in Oxford from October 4th through October 7th, 2010.)
The story, Empty seats in Dublin as Primates opt out, by Ed Beavan lists a total of ten primates who will not be attending.
AT LEAST ten Primates from the Global South are now expected to boycott the Primates’ Meeting in Dublin in January.
In a statement released on Wednesday, five African Primates, members of the GAFCON Primates’ Council, confirmed that they would not attend the two-yearly meeting. In addition, it is understood that the Primate of South-East Asia, Dr John Chew; the Primate in Jerusalem & the Middle East, Dr Mouneer Anis; and the Primate of the Indian Ocean, the Most Revd Ian Ernest, will not go to Dublin.
Furthermore it is expected that two new Primates, Presiding Bishop Tito Zavala, Primate of the Southern Cone, and the Most Revd Onesphore Rwage, Primate of Rwanda, will also boycott the meeting…
The names appearing on the GAFCON statement are (my annotations added)
The Most Rev’d Gregory Venables, GAFCON/FCA Chair former primate of the Southern Cone
The Most Rev’d Justice Akrofi, Archbishop, Anglican Province of West Africa
The Most Rev’d Robert Duncan, Archbishop, Anglican Church in North America not a primate of the Anglican Communion
The Most Rev ‘d Emmanuel Kolini, Archbishop, Anglican Church of Rwanda former primate of Rwanda
The Most Rev’d Valentino Mokiwa, Archbishop, Anglican Church of Tanzania
The Most Rev’d Nicholas Okoh, Archbishop, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
The Most Rev’d Henry Orombi Archbishop, Church of Uganda
The Most Rev’d Eliud Wabukala, Archbishop, Anglican Church of Kenya
The Most Rev’d Peter Jensen, Archbishop, Diocese of Sydney, Secretary not a primate
The Church of England Newspaper carries this report by George Conger Canterbury rejects African call to postpone Dublin primates meeting.
41 CommentsThe Archbishop of Canterbury has rejected Africa’s call to suspend the Dublin primates meeting, a spokesman for Dr. Rowan Williams’ tells The Church of England Newspaper, and the meeting will go on as scheduled.
On Nov 17 Lambeth Palace confirmed that Dr. Williams had received a letter from CAPA chairman Archbishop Ian Earnest. This letter raised a “concern about the planning process for the Primates’ Meeting and request[ed] that it be postponed.”
“However, given the closeness of the time, and the fact that the majority of Primates have already indicated that they will attend, the Archbishop of Canterbury is not minded to postpone the meeting whose date was set two years ago,” the Lambeth Palace statement said.
Dr. Williams’ decision not to postpone the Dublin meeting, will likely cause a quarter to a third of the primates to stay away, replicating the divisions surrounding the 2008 Lambeth Conference where a majority of African bishops boycotted the meeting…
Here is the official summary for Wednesday afternoon: General Synod – Summary of business conducted on Wednesday 24th November 2010 PM.
More reports later.
1 CommentThere are numerous reports in the media of the action taken by the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres today in disciplining the Bishop of Willesden, Pete Broadbent.
Here is the actual text of the statement from the Bishop of London (emphasis added):
The Bishop of London has issued a statement regarding the Bishop of Willesden.
“Dear Colleague,
“I was appalled by the Bishop of Willesden’s comments about the forthcoming royal marriage. In common with most of the country I share the joy which the news of the engagement has brought.
“I have now had an opportunity to discuss with Bishop Peter how his comments came to be made and I have noted his unreserved apology. Nevertheless, I have asked him to withdraw from public ministry until further notice. I have also been in touch with St James’s Palace to express my own dismay on behalf of the Church.
“Arrangements will need to be made in Bishop Peter’s absence and further details will be given in due course.
“With thanks for your partnership in the Gospel.”
The term “suspension” is not used, although many media reports have used that word. For a suspension to occur, the Clergy Discipline Measure would have to be invoked, and this has not happened.
Earlier, Bishop Broadbent had issued a public apology for his remarks about the forthcoming Royal wedding, which he had made on Facebook.
41 CommentsJim Naughton wrote about it at Episcopal Café in The Anglican Covenant: a tool for the strong to oppress the weak.
So many points have been made against the proposed Anglican Covenant, which will be voted on this week by the Church of England’s General Synod, that one risks redundancy in expressing one’s own reservations. Mine have to do primarily with how the covenant would operate if approved. It is a dangerous document which takes John Adams’ famous formulation—“a government of laws and not of men”—and stands it on its head. The covenant is a document that sets forth a system for adjudicating disputes based on criteria that are almost entirely subjective and ad hoc.
In this peculiar system, one can do nothing that offends another province in the Communion, and anything that does not. Offense is judged not by analyzing the act, but in analyzing the response to the act. This is governance by hurt feelings, a system in which power flows to those who complain the loudest and the most frequently. The covenant lacks any of the safeguards, contained in most civil codes, to protect the accused from frivolous accusations. Hence there is no cost and much potential benefit in lodging complaints simply to keep one’s theological adversaries on the defensive. There is great incentive for them to behave in similar fashion.
One doesn’t have to be a lawyer to notice that the covenant contains no standards of evidence, and provides for nothing resembling due process, The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion can investigate complaints in whatever manner it sees fit. Perhaps this is unsurprising. If the only fact at issue is whether a party has given offense, the only evidence necessary is the offended party’s assertion that they are, indeed offended. Having conducted an investigation under standards of its own devising, the Standing Committee can then respond in whatever manner it chooses including the imposition of “relational consequences…”
Andrew Goddard has written yet again, this latest is titled The Anglican Covenant: Why a ‘Yes’ Vote is Significant.
As General Synod approaches its crucial vote on the Anglican covenant, recent discussions have revealed that there are at least three significant perspectives at work in the debate on the covenant and that there are some important differences between them which have not been explicitly articulated. Broadly speaking there are (1) those who, though unhappy with elements of the final text, are supportive of the covenant, (2) those who are against it and whose views are represented on the left by Inclusive Church and Modern Church and (3) those who are against it (though appear to be proposing to abstain in the Synod vote) on the right from a more conservative/GAFCON perspective. What are the reasons for the differences?
There is also an article by Benjamin Guyer at Fulcrum titled In Praise of Rhetoric? Anti-Covenantal Myths of Puritanism and Anglicanism (Part Two Richard Hooker)
Meanwhile, today the No Anglican Covenant Coalition issued a further press release, the full text of which appears below the fold.
8 CommentsBishop Alan Wilson has written My fluttering Pelagiometer.
The Anglican Covenant may well not end up accomplishing as much bad or good as it is cracked up for, but the discussion around it has been worthwhile and fascinating, and at last something of a broader debate seems to be starting up, for example Andrew Goddard and Jonathan Clatworthy, here and here. People are still, however, often picking over the bones rather than addressing the big questions around having such a thing in the first place, and it seems to me those are where the action is. Many thanks to all who have offered comment on this blog for their clarity, honesty, and will to try and understand the whole picture.
If Christians are alienated from each other, culturally, sociologically and psychologically, how high a formal fence should they erect between themselves? Enough, surely to give reflective space to both and a chance to relate their partial interests in the whole gospel picture whilst they live in tension and await, in joyful hope, a new heaven and a new earth. But temporary fencing, as low and light as possible, has to offer the best way forward if it’s relationships that count…
Episcopal Café had a useful roundup of some of yesterday’s media coverage.
In case anybody still thinks this Covenant is acceptable to conservatives, this FCA blog entry makes the position clear.
The recently retired Chancellor of the Anglican Church of Canada has written about the Covenant. See Canadian judge questions lack of clarity in Covenant language.
And for some light relief, see UFO Mission to Rescue the Archbishop.
5 CommentsBishop Pierre Whalon, who is Bishop of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, has written an article which is published at Anglicans Online.
You can read it at Covet a covenant?
…The Covenant Design Group tried their best to satisfy the demands of those who wanted to restrain local provinces from actions that would disturb, as well as those who insisted on maintaining complete independence. In that sense, the document is interesting, and I maintain that the process of discussing its proposals throughout the Communion is healthy for us all.
However one frames it, the Covenant does provide a mechanism for eventually determining who is “in” and who is “out.” Do I want, say, the Diocese of Sydney “in” or “out”? Based on what? Their peculiar ecclesiology, which lies well outside the usual range of Anglican options? Their desire to have lay people presiding at the Eucharist under certain conditions? That it often seems to be too much of a family affair? What benefit would there be to them and the rest of us in ostracizing them? Or any Anglican church you think has placed itself outside the pale?
Also, the weekly front page essay at Anglicans Online is about the Covenant. You can also read that over here (permalink).
3 CommentsWe decided it was a two-letter night. Like to read about the Covenant, to be voted on this week by the Church of England? See the left side.
If you’ve had quite enough of the Covenant, have a look at the right side.
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.
5 CommentsUpdated
Andrew Goddard has now turned his attention to this article.
Read his Conservatives’ covenant concerns: A critique.
On reading Truth or Conviction: questions over the Anglican Communion Covenant by Vinay Samuel and Chris Sugden I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. Part of me wanted to laugh, having just spent some time responding to IC & MCU. In part, that response sought to show that the covenant was not the punitive brainchild of neo-Puritans which ruled out dialogue and which if accepted automatically entailed the expulsion of North American church from the Communion. Here were two leading spokesmen often portrayed as those supporting the covenant because it is punitive and exclusionary making clear that they were far from happy with it because it did not do what IC & MCU claimed it did. But most of me wanted to cry. Here are two distinguished fellow evangelicals and friends not just taking a view with which I disagree but doing so in a manner which had so many of the hallmarks of those they are fighting – no reference to the text of the covenant, making unsubstantiated claims and even some clear falsehoods to raise doubts and fears in their constituency, and approaching the covenant seemingly driven by a wider agenda in pursuit of which the covenant could be distorted and dismissed but with no serious alternative on offer…
Update
Chris Sugden and Vinay Samuel have responded to Andrew Goddard.
4 CommentsThe Church of Ireland Gazette gave this topic some space, see:
Former Anglican Deputy Secretary-General’s comments add to Covenant controversy
and this editorial comment.
Alan Perry wrote Does the Anglican Covenant really mean what it says?
And Paul Bagshaw has a separate reason for voting against the Covenant for each day of the week:
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
and Friday.
There has been a flurry of interest around the references to what Archbishop Drexel Gomez (now retired) said in 2008. Here is the original report of those remarks.
Christian Challenge ARCHBISHOP GOMEZ: Need For Covenant Grows More Urgent by Robert England.
Leader Sees Good Chance That Final Covenant Will Go To Provinces Next Year; Expresses Openness To Possibility Of New North American Province
The process of finalizing an Anglican covenant needs to move forward more quickly if the Anglican Communion is to be preserved.
That was the message delivered Saturday (September 13) by West Indies Archbishop Drexel Gomez, the chairman of the group charged with formulating the pact intended to help ensure unity in basic beliefs, settle disputes, and administer discipline among historically autonomous Anglican provinces…
Another copy is over here.
8 CommentsChris Sugden and Vinay Samuel have written an article for this week’s Church of England Newspaper entitled Truth or Conviction: questions over the Anglican Communion Covenant. Here’s how it starts:
Many primates have indicated that they cannot support the Covenant in its present form. The African Primates said in Entebbe in August : “We realise the need for further improvement of the Covenant in order to be an effective tool for unity and mutual accountability.”
In April the Global South meeting said: “We are currently reviewing the proposed Covenant to find ways to strengthen it in order for it to fulfill its purpose. For example, we believe that all those who adopt the Covenant must be in compliance with Lambeth 1.10. Meanwhile we recognize that the Primates Meeting, being responsible for Faith and Order, should be the body to oversee the Covenant in its implementation, not the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion.”
Why the reticence?
And the article concludes:
20 CommentsThe current Covenant process interminably delays judgement and leaves little hope of discipline and thus of consistency. We are left in a permanent state of dialogue and conversation. This has practical implications at parish level when churches have to decide how to relate to same-sex couples requesting blessing and bringing surrogate children for baptism. If the covenant process in the Communion becomes the state of affairs in the Church of England, its practices could be so contradictory that chaos would result. Endless appeal could be made to conviction, openness, listening and time while practices and actions continue which go against the teaching of the church whether in a parish or whole diocese.
The above argument could therefore suggest abstention in the vote in General Synod next week for the following reasons:
The Communion needs recognition of orthodox teaching and for proper and appropriate boundaries. The Covenant does not achieve that purpose but substitutes conviction for truth. Some wish to travel further in the direction in which the Covenant is supposed to point, but do not wish to support the very weak approach of the current Covenant. Where the current Anglican Communion process is going today could be used to allow for English Dioceses to move in TEC’s direction tomorrow on the grounds that this is accepted Anglican practice.
This press statement has been issued following a meeting of the RC Bishops of England and Wales.
Implementation of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus
The Establishment of a Personal Ordinariate in England and WalesFull text appears below the fold.
Update
The Church Times has a report from today’s press conference on its website, see Ed Thornton We have no designs on your churches, says Archbishop Nichols
Last week, I linked to a news article by George Conger that appeared in the Church of England Newspaper.
This week, both the Church of England Newspaper and the Church Times have further reports on the matter.
In the former, George Conger’s story is headlined No plans to cancel Dublin Primates’ Meeting, ACC says.
There are no plans to cancel the Dublin primates meeting, ACC secretary general Canon Kenneth Kearon has declared.
In a statement released via Twitter on Nov 11 in response to a story last week in the Church of England Newspaper about the Jan 25-31 meeting, ACC spokesman Jan Butter wrote: “Am afraid this story is not accurate. Communion Sec. Gen. Canon Kearon adamant: never any plans to cancel Primates’ Mtg.”
…The report in the CEN, however, did not claim the archbishop’s Oct 7 letter called for the cancellation of the primates meeting.
In response to a request for clarification, the spokesman for the ACC stated there had been a “slip of the pen”’ in the Twitter message in saying there were never any plans to “cancel” the meeting. “The point I was trying to get across was that there have never been any plans to suspend the upcoming Primates’ Meeting in Dublin next January,” Mr. Butter wrote.
However, behind the scenes conversations between Dr. Williams and the primates remain on-going, CEN has been told. While reservations and supplies have been laid on by the ACC staff for the 38 primates and the Archbishop of York to meet at the Emmaus Conference Centre outside of Dublin, it is not clear how many primates will attend the gathering…
The Church Times news report on this is only available to paid subscribers until next week, but the story does quote Canon Kearon as saying there is:
7 Comments“a suggestion that this be a different kind of Primates’ Meeting, driven by the need for discernment and dialogue around issues affecting the life of the Communion”.
“The proposal is that it begins with a number of different conversations taking place simultaneously at first. This is to provide a safe space where dialogue can begin and progress together in a spirit of discernment.”
Cif belief has published an article, written by me, on the Covenant.
The covenant is a waste of time and money
9 CommentsEveryone agrees the Anglican Communion is in a mess, but increasing the power of a central committee won’t fix it.
Gregory Cameron, Andrew Goddard, and Graham Kings have all criticised attacks on the covenant as misinformation and scaremongering. But strikingly none of them has explained what benefit to the Church of England comes from endorsing the covenant. There’s a very simple reason for this: none exists…
Andrew Goddard has written more about the Anglican Covenant at Fulcrum.
How and Why IC & MCU Mislead Us on the Anglican Covenant
In the church press on Friday 29th October, two Church of England groups, Inclusive Church (IC) and Modern Church (formerly, Modern Churchpeople’s Union, MCU), published a whole page advert headed ‘Who runs the Church?’. This explains why they believe the Anglican Covenant would be a change for the worse. Having offered an initial short critique of it, this offers a more detailed analysis of its claims. In the week leading to the Synod debate on the covenant and subsequent diocesan discussion, their seriously flawed case risks being given greater circulation and credibility through the wider international (though predominantly Western liberal) No Anglican Covenant Coalition and other publicity such as the recent similar leaflet sent to General Synod members.
The key questions that need to be answered in relation to the covenant are as follows and each section is hyperlinked here so it can be read on its own
(1) Where does the Anglican Covenant come from, who wants it and why?
(2) What does the Anglican Covenant actually do?
(3) What will happen if the Church of England signs the Anglican Covenant?
(4) But isn’t the covenant disciplinary?
(5) What if…?: Hypothetical futures and pasts
(6) Conclusion: What vision and future for Anglicanism should we embrace?
Read the original to get the links.
20 CommentsBishop Graham Kings has written at Cif belief The Anglican covenant is the only way forward. (Another copy here.)
21 CommentsIts detractors say it will stifle diversity, but unless the church votes for the covenant, deeper divisions will be unavoidable.
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” is a celebrated line in WB Yeats’s 1920 poem The Second Coming. How that relates to the Church of England and the tensions in the wider Anglican communion, 90 years later, we shall witness next week. On Wednesday 24 November, General Synod will be debating the Anglican covenant.
This covenant of unity seeks to hold the Anglican communion together organically in the face of increasing fragmentation. The choice in this debate is to opt into intensifying our world-wide relationships in affection and commitment or to allow splits to develop further and irrevocably. Do we consider each other and decide we belong together, or do we do our own thing and hang apart?
Updated again Wednesday morning
Canon Alyson Barnett-Cowan, Director for Unity Faith and Order, The Anglican Communion Office has written a press release:
Many things have already been said in the public arena about the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant. As Provinces around the world continue to discuss this important document I think it worth clarifying some points about it. I am not arguing here for or against the Covenant, merely pointing out that it should be debated fairly, with an accurate reading of the text…
Updates
This article has been swiftly rebutted point by point, on the blog of the No Covenant group. See Pleading Guilty over the Covenant at Comprehensive Unity.
Bishop Alan WIlson has also commented at Only us, redeemed.
45 CommentsFrom her rather improbably titled office, Canon Alyson Barnett-Cowan, “UFO Director at the Anglican Communion Office,” reminds us that the Anglican Covenant hovering over us poses no threat to Churches whose antics may be referred to the First Fifteen, but they must accept that if processes of mediation have broken down their actions have (Euphemism alert) “relational consequences.”
Frankly, this phrase needs very careful handing before can possibly be applied to Christians…
Paul Bagshaw has written What is the Covenant supposed to solve?
7 Comments…But what problems is the Covenant supposed to solve (now, as opposed to when it was first conceived)?
First, the unity of the Communion. Sadly, I think it’s too late – and perhaps was always too late. In fact it increasingly seems that pushing people to sign will be the last step in the de facto schism. By going for a Covenant that was acceptable to a sufficient majority of the players in Global Anglicanism the Covenant Design Group has failed to bring enough of the Communion on board.
Second, to provide the framework for future disputes. Sadly the Covenant procedures will almost certainly only work for little disputes or issues exclusively between two parties. And they could probably be resolved in any framework.
Or they will work to exclude TEC and Canada – and then everyone will take fright because they could be next. They will move quickly to dismantle the Covenant – it will prove to have been a disastrous one-shell cannon.
The Covenant framework will not be adequate to any significant dispute. It’s back-to-front: what happens is that administrative structures & agreements work because people agree to make them work. In normal times conflicts flow through, and are contained by, the channels of the pre-existing system: people and systems are in continual dialogue. In abnormal (though not uncommon) times disputes overflow the system and leave it in pieces. Then people coming together, pick up the pieces and rebuild. The cycle starts over again: systems cannot be imposed without assent.
Third: as one more step in a long-term programme to reform the Communion by centralising and reducing the differences between provinces. This goal might well be met, in part at least, by the process to arrive at a Covenant as much as by the document itself. In the course of debate, it seems to me, the previously normative idea that the Communion was a federal structure with central consultative bodies seems to have been replaced by the normative idea that the Communion is a single entity whose centre needs to be strengthened because its component parts are too fissiparous.
Bishop Alan Wilson has written at Cif belief about the Anglican Covenant. The article is titled
Sugar and spice, or strychnine …
2 CommentsNiceness may carry the measure, but it won’t make the covenant the turbine of a more mutually engaged global denomination.
In the Hebrew scriptures, people cut covenants by chopping a bird in half and walking between the halves to indicate sincere meeting of hearts and minds.
The Anglican Communion is proposing a fractionally less messy covenant between member churches – part of the fallout from the Windsor report, which attempted to resolve its gay bishops row in 2003. Perceptions have progressed faster these last seven years in the world, perhaps, than in the higher echelons of the Anglican Communion…