Fighting off Covenant fatalism

Our friend Giles Fraser writes in the Church Times:

I think I have partly resigned my­self to the fact that this Anglican Covenant thing is going to happen. Published in its final form last week, it reminds me of that awful state­ment of belief that Christian Unions force their speakers to sign before they are allowed to say a word to their stu­dents.

In both cases, it is not so much the content that I object to. I object to the Covenant’s very exis­tence. I’d object to it even if I agreed with every word.


Let me be clear. There is nothing wrong with the expression of mutual commitment, and for this mutuality to have a formal aspect. The marriage service, for instance, is precisely that. But the Anglican Covenant isn’t at all like the commitments of a marriage service. It is more like the anxious and untrust­ing legalism of that thoroughly distasteful feature of modern life, the pre-nuptial agreement.

But he isn’t resigned. So read it all.

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