It’s not been such a great week for the original chocolate teapot known as the Anglican Covenant. First, it was taken down a few notches by The Pluralist, who lableled it as
shot through with politics. Its very presentation, and its ramroading through with biased documents, is all to do with bureaucracy and politics.
Then we heard tell of the Covenant’s being ruled out of bounds by Maori Anglicans in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, who cast their wise dissent in this light:
That Te Hui Amorangi o Te Manawa o te Wheke, for the purpose of providing feedback to te Hinota Whanui/General Synod, states it’s opposition to the Anglican Covenant for the following reasons:
-After much consideration this Amorangi feels that the Anglican Covenant will threaten the rangatiratanga (self determination) of the Tangata Whenua (local people).
-We believe the Anglican Covenant does not reflect our understanding of being Anglican in these islands.
-We would like this church to focus on the restoration of justice to te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi which tangata whenua signed and currently do not have what they signed for.
Bosco Peters adds:
Rangatiratanga is a very important concept. It is a word that occurs twice in the Lord’s Prayer, where the English version has “kingdom”. It is an important word in te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi. In the second article of te Tiriti rangatiratanga (chieftainship) is retained by the Maori chiefs.
I think it is not unfair to say that Maori have considerable experience and energy around the concept of signing a document which has the sense of a sacred covenant, and the use and abuse of such a document, the issues that arise through the differing understandings and misunderstandings of texts, the use and abuse of power, and the differing motivations of people who sign up to such a document and urge people to sign. All this, I think, I hope, helps to understand some of what is in and lies underneath the motion passed.
Then, from PRELUDIUM, this handy, if wonderfully subjective, pie chart of reasons for and against the Covenant:
Harris explains:
The Anglican Covenant Crapshoot is really this: Will the Anglophiles be able to drag the rest of the Churches into their playbook by shooting craps with loaded dice? The loaded dice are the two dice – Loyalty and Fidelity – Loyalty to the Church of England’s idea of a church of and for the nation, and fidelity to the idea of the Anglican family. IF family means everything AND we all wish our Churches had the power that we used to think the CofE had vis a vis the state – namely that it was THE church of the State, then we are sunk.