The weekly Church Times had a delightful letter on the Anglican Covenant from the Rev. Jonathan Clatworthy. The letter has just come out from the subscriber wall. An extract:
We therefore have two opposing cases against the Covenant. Many Synod speakers said it was too punitive; the ten Primates say it is not punitive enough. The Covenant itself, lacking any theoretical basis, has been worded to allow either interpretation.
The underlying issue is whether the Church should still allow diversity of opinion or whether it should become more uniformitarian. These options are mutually incompatible: if we try to do both, the uniformitarians will always see it as their Christian duty to suppress the inclusivists, and will always prefer schism to diversity.What to do now? At one point, Archbishop Williams described the issue well: “the Catholic Spirit is neither a climate of imposed universal agreement nor a free-for-all held together by mutual tolerance.” Sometimes governments have to resist democratically elected politicians who oppose democracy. In the same way, in order to defend diversity of opinion within the Church, we must now positively defend it against its opponents.
Read the whole thing.