The Church Times has published an analysis of the Church of England’s response to the proposed Covenant. (The release of which we covered previously here.)
The article points out a number of substantive concerns that the Church of England response has to the draft. One of the key concerns is the imbalance in power given to the “instruments of Communion” in the draft.
From the article in the Church Times:
“In the section ‘Our Commitment to Confession of the Faith’, issue is taken with the phrase ‘biblically derived moral values’ because it ‘assumes a deductive approach to the relationships between Christian ethics and the Bible to which many Anglicans would not subscribe’. Changed wording is suggested here.
The response tightens up much of the wording in the original. Bishops should be described as ‘guardians’ and not ‘custodians’ (mere maintainers) of the faith in the section ‘Our Unity and Common Life’, which seeks a much more expanded definition of the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The section ‘The Unity of the Communion’ should set out ‘the distinctive Anglican theological method, the distinctive Anglican approach to discernment and decision-making in the life of the Church, and the distinctiveness and importance of the Anglican liturgical tradition’.
The original draft text gives the Primates’ Meeting the power to ‘offer guidance and direction’ where there is no common mind, after ‘seeking it with the other Instruments and their councils’.
Stephen Slack, head of the legal office and legal adviser to the General Synod, said that it would be unlawful for the Synod to delegate its decision-making power to the Primates. It ‘could not sign up to a Covenant which purported to give the Primates of the Communion the ability to give ‘direction’ about the course of action the C of E should take’. A new form of words that removes the word ‘direction’ is suggested.
The C of E text also includes a new subsection that addresses intervention in the affairs of Anglican churches — absent from the original draft. In the suggested wording, signatories commit themselves ‘to [refraining] from intervening in the life of other Anglican Churches (sc. provinces) except in extraordinary circumstances where such intervention has been specifically authorised by the relevant Instruments of Communion.’”
Read the rest here.
The Church of Ireland also released its response to the Covenant in 2007. The full response can be found here.
Thinking Anglicans pulled out the following highlights from the Irish response which had deeper objections to the proposed Covenant than did the English church and advocates a complete rewriting:
The thinking behind the Church of Ireland re-drafting could be listed as threefold:
1. A Covenant should express very clearly the themes of Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence within the Body of Christ;
2. A Covenant should aim, insofar as possible, to be inclusive;
3. Whilst perhaps not solving the present crisis a Covenant should, by emphasising what is implied by mutual responsibility, go some way to prevent similar crises in the future.
The methodology of the redrafting included the following:
- To reduce discursive material;
- To remove elements of legislative structure;
- To recognise that the present Instruments of Communion should not be “set in stone”; in a Covenant, as these have evolved in the past and will do so in the future;
- To sharpen a sense of common identity and inter-dependence;
- To retain an emphasis on provincial autonomy;
- To emphasize responsibility to consult and listen in the context of mutual commitment.
In discussion it became clear that, though procedures were felt to be inappropriate within the context of a Covenant, the Anglican Communion would have to put in place procedures, in keeping with the Covenant, to deal with crises which might develop.
The full analysis and commentary that followed the release of the Irish response can be found here on the Thinking Anglicans.