Reuters and the BBC have posted lengthy reports this evening on the votes that for all intents and purposes have scuttled the Anglican Covenant in the Church of England.
Reuters features a number of quotes from people that have figured prominently in opposition to the Covenant in England:
“”With today’s results … the proposed Anglican Covenant is now dead in the water in the Church of England. This also poses serious problems for the covenant in other provinces (member churches),” said Lesley Crawley, an English priest and moderator of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition.
[…]”The covenant is either buried or disabled,” said Simon Barrow, co-director of the religious think-tank Ekklesia.
[…]”It seems to me the scheme is dead in the water throughout the Anglican Communion,” said Diarmaid MacCulloch, professor of the history of the Church at Oxford University.
“There really would be no point in other provinces signing up to it, since already some are most reluctant to do so.””
Reuter’s full coverage can be found here.
The BBC article ends by pointing out that the Covenant has already been rejected by a number of Anglican Provinces, in fact enough provinces have signaled that they will not take any action on the question, effectively rejecting it so that their numbers probably outnumber the ratifications. The article reminds us that the process went quickly off the rails soon after the Church of England decided to send the question to the dioceses for their votes.
The Church of England General Synod backed the covenant in November 2010, despite the misgivings of many liberals within the Church, and referred it to the dioceses.
But the covenant received a decisive setback immediately afterwards when it was rejected by the Gafcon Primates’ Council – the very Church leaders that it was intended to placate.
The Gafcon leaders said: “While we acknowledge that the efforts to heal our brokenness through the introduction of an Anglican Covenant were well intentioned we have come to the conclusion the current text is fatally flawed and so support for this initiative is no longer appropriate.”