Tag: Anglican Covenant

Last weekend three Church of England dioceses voted to affirm the Anglican Covenant. The week before three voted against. So far this week, including the

There is no question but that the Covenant originated in a wish on the part of certain primates of the Communion to put the Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada in the Naughty Corner.

Now that IASCUFO has decided to make a case for the Anglican Communion Covenant to the average Anglican in the pew, it’s clear that they were never really prepared to make the case in the first place.

Episcopal priest Mark Harris writes on three videos produced by the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity Faith and Order (IASCUFO), which was tasked with offering

Of fifteen English dioceses that have voted to date, ten have voted against the Covenant. This gives the Coalition a significant tactical advantage. To have the Covenant return to General Synod for a final vote, it has to be approved by 23 of the Church of England’s 44 dioceses. However, defeat in 22 dioceses in enough to derail it. Thus the Covenanters need to win 18 of the 29 dioceses remaining, while the Covenant’s opponents only need another 12.

In the words of the rule of law, there is no procedural due process and no substantive due process guaranteed by the covenant. The outcome is to be trusted and respected based on the persons/bodies making the decisions rather than a system based on how the decision is made.

“The reason why the Covenant is such a terrible idea is that it replaces the search for common ground with a fear that the Other is out to get me. It gives the Other a means of my exclusion, and thus turns the Other into the enemy.”

The Diocese of Norwich in the Church of England has a web page highlighting papers giving arguments both for and against the adoption of an Anglican Covenant.

The proposed Anglican Covenant was conceived in moral indignation and pursued with disciplinary intent, its global gate-keeping mechanisms would put a damper on the gospel agenda, which conscientious Anglicans should find intolerable. The Covenant is based on an alien ecclesiology, which thoughtful Anglicans have every reason to reject. ~McCord Adams