As Justin Welby prepares to become Archbishop of Canterbury, Malcolm French, convenor of No Anglican Covenant Coalition offers his thoughts:
A recurring image used by populist politicians in opposition, “a new broom sweeps clean,” perhaps also describes the opportunity presented to the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev’d Justin Welby. While Dr. Welby is unlikely to make any loud pronouncement against his predecessor’s misguided project, he does have an opportunity, very quietly, to sweep the discredited Anglican Covenant into the dustbin of church history.
I was a little startled to realize that I had not made a single blogpost about the so-called Anglican Covenant since July, when I blogged daily from the Episcopal Church General Convention in Indianapolis. In part, the extended silence was due to the lack of substantive developments.
Indeed, having seen the Covenant go down in flames in England, Scotland and New Zealand, it is now pretty obvious that the thing is dead. Yet because it was so incompetently drafted, it staggers on like some dessicated zombie or reflection-free nosferatu. And in the background, its bewildered partisans try to pretend that everything is coming along swimmingly. [read more on its lack of support despite efforts by former ABC and his staff]
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It seems unlikely that Justin Welby will want to waste his ecclesiopolitical capital trying to revive a discredited and discreditable project which, whatever the intentions of its authors, has failed in its purpose.