By Frederick Quinn
The St. Andrew’s Draft Covenant is a flawed document, deficient as both a theological and a canonical exercise. Its tedious language does not improve on Anglicanism’s foundational creeds, the “generous orthodoxy of the Prayer Book,” and other key historic statements like the Baptismal Covenant so central to the life of the American Church. Nor does it derive from the historic via media in both affirming Anglican identity and seeking ways of negotiating differences within the Anglican Communion. Its deficiencies include both what it says and what it leaves unsaid. The Draft Covenant‘s presumed purpose is to raise a red flag about “threats” to church unity and address issues affecting today’s Anglican Communion. But it does not mention:
—the plight and status of women and children, a major issue facing churches everywhere.
—the ministry (and power) of the laity, who comprise the bulk of church membership.
—the status of gay and lesbian people and their full inclusion, or not, in the church’s larger life, the issue that triggered these deliberations.
—Episcopal poaching, extraterritorial ordinations, and calculated intrusions on established dioceses. (The group’s chair has been an active supporter of such intrusions, raising a question about conflict of interest).
The Draft Covenant’s Preamble states the document’s purpose is to proclaim the Gospel message “more effectively” in different contexts. But such contexts and diversities of histories, traditions, and viewpoints within the Anglican Communion are nowhere recognized. At heart it is a colonialist document, papering over differences in Trollopian language, and trying to force a distinctly unAnglican centralized juridical mechanism on the wider communion. Will it work? No. Does it improve on our historic creedal and structural statements? Decidedly not.
The Draft Covenant is narrow in its conceptual framework and distorts Anglican history in several instances. Many of its disputable provisions are buried in footnotes, a Draft Appendix, and an accompanying communiqué, press release, and commentary. It is toward the end of the press release, for example, that we learn the clock is already ticking and “It is the intention to produce definitive proposals for adoption in the Communion” in the post-Lambeth period. Then, “Proposals for the process of consolidation, and reception of, the Covenant and its ultimate consideration by synodical process will be presented to the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates at their meeting in March 2008.”
It appears to be full steam ahead, despite substantial reservations careful readers of the Draft Covenant and Appendix are raising. Meanwhile, Covenant proponents are yet to convincingly prove there is any groundswell of global support for their proposals. Only twelve provinces of the Anglican Communion responded to the 2007 Nassau draft, and many substantial church groups replied with detailed qualifications, finding the Covenant exercise questionable.
Section (1.1) of the current draft contains six provisions and six footnotes. (Canonical drafters would caution against adding footnotes to key provisions, since it results in a confusing and difficult to interpret document.) When grouped together the origins of “Our Inheritance of Faith” are All-English, representing “the rich history of the Church in Britain and Ireland,” specifically the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and the English Ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. (2.1.1). Frank Turner, a Yale University specialist in English church history, has written of the first two documents, both “arose from the midst of deadly interchristian conflict….Both were designed to exclude people from the English Church and from institutions such as the English Universities dominated by the English Church.”
A reference (1.1.4 and Fn. 7), to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral 1886/1888 and “the historic episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of his church” is voided in the Draft Appendix which is really a set of circuitous provisions centralizing power in the Archbishop of Canterbury, other Instruments of Communion, Commissions, Assessors, Primates, and the Anglican Consultative Council in case of a perceived threat to church unity.
The process of centralization of power is further cemented in (1.2) by acknowledging only one element of the classical Anglican triad of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. Scripture is mentioned in (1.2.4) but allows for interpretation of the Bible “primarily through the teaching and initiative of bishops and synods.” Few modern bishops have time to be biblical scholars and the article ignores the Anglican Reformation heritage of placing the Bible in the hands of the common people and allowing its interpretation by individuals and church members at the most basic levels.
“Tradition,” the Anglican heritage’s second basic pillar, is not mentioned in the Draft Covenant, perhaps because traditions are diversely interpreted around the globe and extremely difficult to codify in a Covenant.
“Reason,” the third general characteristic of Anglicanism, is painted over with qualifiers and comes out as “a pattern of Christian theological and moral reasoning and discipline that is rooted in and answerable to the teaching of Holy Scripture and the catholic tradition.” (1.2.2) This pivotal Anglican Reformation heritage of a prayerful, reasoned relationship between person, church, and God is again ignored.
Centralizing of power provisions of the earlier Nassau Draft were dead on arrival, but the St. Andrew’s drafters have tried a new equally unacceptable approach toward consolidating ecclesial power. The technique is to state one thing and then propose the opposite. For example, the Draft Covenant states churches of the Anglican Communion are not bound together “by a central legislative, executive, or judicial authority” (3.1.2). After which foundations for centralized policy control are introduced, principally by changing the historic, largely advisory roles of the four so-called Instruments of Communion through melding together legislative, executive, and judicial functions in times of increased threats to unity. This becomes increasingly clear as readers attempt to trace the Appendix’s labyrinthine options, representing a structural wiring diagram that short circuits itself at every turn. They start out with informal conversations, but then send any red alert threat to church unity to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who may refer the matter to three assessors, who may in turn send the matter on to a Commission, or to another Instrument. Dealer’s choice.
Perhaps the wide-ranging provisions sketched out in the Appendix are left intentionally vague because the drafters have not thought them through. Perhaps so many are offered because the drafters hope that those who find one objectionable will accept another one of the four routes. Possibly Draft Covenant enthusiasts believe that readers will tire and not pay attention to the fine print, and that Appendix Article 8—the sanctions article in new dress—will sneak through without discussion. Article 8 gives power to the Instruments of Communion, mainly through the Anglican “Consultative” Council assembled now as a judicial body, to decide if a Church “may be understood to have relinquished the force and meaning of the purposes of the Covenant” if it is found to have threatened church unity by some as yet undefined act (8.4). This vague wording gives unlimited juridical power to the Council, with no appeals process.
The General Comments accompanying the Draft Covenant note, “Habits of civility and mutuality of respect have taken us a long way in the past. We are now in a place where our structures must provide a framework for the context of our belief.” Not so. Could the Anglican Communion’s leadership not wage an active effort to reintroduce the “habits of civility and mutual respect” that have served us well for centuries?
Flawed in concept and execution, both the Draft Covenant and its Appendix do nothing to improve on the via media and existing Anglican creedal formularies. The Draft Covenant’s final declaration has everyone agreeing “with joy” to the Covenant, but how could such a grim document enlist the enthusiasm of anyone outside its inner circle of zealous advocates?
Member churches of the Anglican Communion urgently need to increase sustained, thoughtful dialogue at all levels, and efforts at theological mediation are called for, but that requires a quite different set of responses, including patient listening, sustained dialogue, and interprovincial exchanges at all levels, leading to a greater appreciation of the diversity within Anglicanism. Joyful, life enhancing encounters, yes. Covenants, no.
The Rev. Dr. Frederick Quinn is an Episcopal priest and former constitutional advisor to countries of the former Soviet Union. He has written extensively on history, law, and religion and from 1993 to 1995 headed the Warsaw-based Rule of Law programs for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.