ENGLAND: Synod discusses Anglican covenant; debate draws mixed reactions
Episcopal News Service, London. February 13, 2008 [021308-05]
Matthew Davies
The Church of England's General Synod, meeting February 11-14 at Church House in Westminster, London, heard mixed reactions from its members regarding the Anglican covenant, a second draft of which was released on February 6.
Introducing the February 13 Synod debate, Archbishop of York John Sentamu told members that the covenant "is not erecting a great Anglican wall of exclusion. As I see it, its purpose is to hoist the sails to empower the boat of Communion to sail again unafraid of the storms. It is a clarion call to hear again God's invitation to us to participate in Christ's death and resurrection."
The Covenant Design Group held its second meeting January 28-February 2 under the chairmanship of West Indies Archbishop Drexel Gomez and developed the second draft -- the St. Andrew's Draft -- after reviewing the responses from 17 Anglican provinces to the first draft -- the Nassau Draft -- which was released in January 2007.
The latest draft is being offered for reflection in the Communion at large, and in particular by the Lambeth Conference of bishops, which will meet July 16-August 3 in Canterbury, England.
The Covenant Design Group said it will meet again following the Lambeth Conference to review the progress on the development of the covenant. It is then expected to submit a further draft to the Provinces and ecumenical partners of the Communion for formal comment and response.
The Windsor Report, released in October 2004, proposed a covenant as a way for the Anglican Communion to maintain unity amid differing viewpoints. The Primates received and discussed the draft during their February 2007 meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. They then released both it and an accompanying report to the entire Communion, asking for comment from the 38 Anglican provinces by January 1. Out of a total of 38 provinces, 17 issued a formal response to the first draft.
The Church of England's response was submitted following a Synod debate on the principle of an Anglican covenant in July 2007 and the House of Bishops consideration of a draft response at its October 2007 meeting.
Sentamu told Synod February 13 that the covenant is not intended as "a new creed or Anglican-wide Canon law, nor an 11th commandment chiseled on Mount Kilamanjaro by the Anglican Primates."
"The whole intention of the covenant is 'to identify the fundamentals that we have in common and to state the common basis on which our mutual trust can be rebuilt,'" Sentamu said, citing the words of Gomez during his address to the Synod in July 2007.
The Rev. Brian Lewis of the Diocese of Chelmsford told Synod he disagrees with the idea of a covenant saying he feels it is "a mistake to introduce a formalized mechanism of exclusion into the life of the Communion. When you have an institutionalized method of division is it much more difficult to come back together again."
Lewis said he regrets that the Church of England was not more directly involved in the early stages of developing the covenant. "We might have got somewhere better," he said, questioning whether a covenant that "institutionalizes a method of exclusion" would receive the necessary two thirds majority from Synod.
The Rev. Canon Simon Killwick from the Diocese of Manchester spoke in favor of the draft covenant, noting that anything which promotes greater unity within the Anglican Communion "is very much to be welcomed."
However, Killwick said he regrets the document lacks specific reference to "the unity of the whole church."
"Ecumenism should be a goal for the whole Anglican Communion and the covenant should include this as a key goal," he said.
"I am weary by all of this," Bishop John Gladwin of Chelmsford said, adding that he thinks the text is problematic. "Throughout [the text] the Gospel of Jesus Christ threatens to come through with intent but the problems of the church weigh down upon it."
Gladwin also noted his "deep admiration [for] and some growing anxiety" about the amount of time the Archbishop of Canterbury has devoted to Anglican Communion affairs. "I am quite anxious that we don’t institutionalize that as a constant role of sorting out disunity within the Communion," he said, calling for "more of the joy of the world in the text and a little less of the demands of the archbishop's office."
Lincoln Bishop John Saxbee disagreed. "It is important that we don’t get weary but that we get excited with this process," he said. "We can make it better. We're enriched by these kinds of exercises and opportunities."
The Rev. Canon Ann Stevens of the Diocese of Southwark welcomes many of the changes made to the second draft, but has reservations about the document ending with the idea that the Anglican Consultative Council, the Communion's main policy-making body, "may deem that a particular province has relinquished the 'force and meaning of the covenant’s purpose.'"
"There is still profound logical and theological problems with this idea. Logically, any party in a covenant relationship can only speak for themselves and not for others," she said, using the marriage covenant as an example. "All sorts of lies can occur but whether or not the marriage covenant continues relies on the parties within it."
Stevens also expressed concerns that the document, she says, resembles law. "It's a bit like putting the 'pre-nup' in the middle of the marriage vows," she said. "That's why so many are struggling with this document and perhaps why so few provinces have responded to this draft."
Stevens commended the May 2007 declaration of the Latin American and Caribbean bishops. "They acknowledge their diversity but resolve unanimously to remain united and to come together at the Lord's table," she said. "Now that I would suggest is a covenant."
The Rev. Canon Tim Dakin from the Diocese of Oxford is secretary general of the Church Mission Society. He shared his excitement about the covenant because he says it looks like a resource for mission. "I want to maintain mission as the highest covenant for how we read this text," he said.
Kevon Carey, a layperson from the Diocese of Chichester, said he shares Gladstone's weariness with the covenant and described the Windsor Process as "an attempt to try to shut down freedom of speech in favor of uniformity or conformity."
"It is the same people who want to shut down the discussion who now don’t want to come to the discussion at Lambeth," Carey added. "Those who refuse to come to Lambeth should not be part of any process in this covenant that has the potential to exclude people."
Chichester Bishop John Hind said he wanted to make clear that the St. Andrew's Draft is the second draft in a process, "not something to sign up to." He also noted that most of the 17 responses to the first draft were received from provinces in the developed world. "We find it easier to respond to these things; most people in the developing world do not," he said.
Hind added it is "unfortunate when people focus too much on the mechanisms. [The covenant] is precisely an opportunity to set a framework…Anything in terms of canons and regulations should be entirely subordinate and secondary."
In his concluding remarks, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams described the nature of a covenant as being about the "self giving of human beings in response to God's giving."
"We try to find ways for mutual self giving which in some ways keeps alive God's suffering and a willingness to be converted by one another," he said. "We ought to be excited and enthused by the notion that our family might find new life and new vigor -- to make the sorts of commitments to one another to be converted by one another."
Members of Executive Council's International Concerns Committee had an initial discussion on February 11 about how Council might respond to the second draft.
Rosalie Ballentine of the Virgin Islands, chair of the work group that drafted the Council's response to the first draft of the covenant, told the committee that the group had met at lunch February 11 and would meet again to compare the first and second drafts, and to compare the second draft to Council's response to the first. That response came during Council's October 2007 meeting.
She suggested that what the group might propose would be some sort of document which the Council would ask the House of Bishops to consider during its upcoming March meeting. A formal Council response, she suggested, might come during the June meeting.
Ballentine said her initial look at the St. Andrew's Draft suggested to her that it is "substantially different" from the first draft and "much, much improved," especially in ways that make the proposed covenant "less punitive."
A response from the Executive Council to the first draft of the Anglican covenant is available here.