It is not my purpose here to attempt a full analysis of the recently released document titled Towards an Anglican Covenant: A Report on the Covenant Proposal of the Windsor Report. However, I shall address several key areas for those who receive this Report to consider.
As important as the content and form of any future Anglican Communion Covenant may be, it is equally important to note the process by which it may be established. The present document gives important clues as to what to expect – at least from one direction.
According to the final section of the Report:
This document was prepared by a small working party convened by the Deputy Secretary General [of the Anglican Consultative Council] at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General… Since this would be only a tentative and provisional document, it was decided to keep the drafting group small, both relatively inexpensive by confining membership to those who could come easily to London for two day meetings. This explanation is not acceptable, given the potential importance to the whole Communion of the Covenant. This is the age of the Internet, so why is it that the circle of insiders was limited to those near a train-ride from London? The appointing of “safe white males” to dominate commissions and task forces is an all-too-common feature of Anglican Communion politics to overlook. Was the “working party” aware that others in the Communion have been thinking about the Covenant? Does it not follow that the “working party” is suggesting itself as the core of the “covenant drafting group (CDG)” that will control the further process?
Furthermore, it is common wisdom in corporate governance that essential stakeholders be included in the critical decisions of an organisation. It is all too easy for management to unduly influence decisions of a Board of Directors by using a task force or an executive committee. It seems in this case that any decision to initiate an Anglican Communion Covenant and to determine its terms of reference should have been made by the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council and not by a working group or even by their Standing Committee. The Report identifies relational, educational and institutional goals of the Covenant-making process (secs. 8-10). If one holds, as I do, that the fundamental challenge to Anglican identity is doctrinal, the omission of any significant concern for a doctrinal goal is significant. When combined with disparaging comments about “narrowly confessional” positions and dismissing of the Lambeth Quadrilateral as a “lapidary Anglican formula,” it is clear that the Report is not going to call for a crisp restatement of Anglican doctrine. Beyond this fact, the reference to the “educational” goal of the Covenant obviously dovetails with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s desire to promote “Theological Education in the Anglican Communion.” So the formulation of the Covenant is described as
“a significant educational tool within the Communion, enabling Anglicans worldwide to understand and deepen their commitment to the beliefs, history and practices they share in common and their development of these as they engage in God’s mission to the world.”
For anyone versed in contemporary church lingo, this paragraph suggests the following:
Let me ask a simple question. Would the educative function of the Covenant have been expressed in this way by a working group of bishops from Africa? But of course, they are not within a train-ride of London.
One of the more controversial aspects of the Report is the suggestion that the adoption of the Covenant might result in two circles of belonging: call them the Covenanters and the Dissenters. The Report bends over backward to assure the latter group that they would be no less Anglican. What it fails to address is what happens when individuals, bishops and dioceses within a Dissenting Province wish to be full partners in the Covenant, indeed are hanging their theological identity on that affiliation. The Report seems to presume that opting in or out of the Covenant will take place within the current territorial structures of the Communion. So the Church of England in South Africa will continue to be non-Anglican even if it affirms the Covenant, while the Church of the Province is assured that it remains Anglican even if it refuses to join. The Anglican Communion Network and other Common Cause groups in North America will continue to be out of communion with the See of Canterbury, but ECUSA, even if dissenting from the Covenant, will remain in.
If this is the viewpoint of the drafters, they seem to want it both ways: a theologically flexible Communion with rigid jurisdictional boundaries. All eyes are currently on the upcoming General Convention of the Episcopal Church in June 2006. Many are expecting that decisions made at this Convention will signal whether the Episcopal Church will be restored to full fellowship with other members of the Communion or walk apart. Is there any significance to the publication of the Anglican Covenant Report at this time?
One cannot but be struck by the long time-line which is proposed for the full adoption of the Covenant – anywhere from six to nine years. Clearly Lambeth 2008 will not be a kairos point for the Communion; look, rather, to 2018. What in the meantime will happen for those who have disrupted the Communion for the past nine years? Does it not follow that, regardless of proposals like To Mend the Net, documents like the Windsor Report, admonitions like the Dromantine Communiqué, and resolutions of Primates’ Meetings past, present and future, there is simply no “legal” way that an autonomous Province like ECUSA or the Anglican Church of Canada can be disciplined? One cannot help but wonder if the long drawn-out Covenant process will not simply provide cover for the revisers of the faith to complete their takeover of their Provinces and to begin working on the others.
To test the political intent of this Report, let me suggest the following provision.
Until the Covenant process is complete, no Province will unilaterally violate an established Anglican article of faith and practice, in particular Lambeth Resolution 1.10. Any Province refusing to abide by this provision, will forfeit its role in the process and be replaced by an entity which is willing to abide by it. In particular, the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada must take steps, in accordance with the Windsor Report, to institute a full moratorium on same-sex ceremonies and ordinations.
In other words, stop the innovation and rebuild the foundations that have been undermined and “bonds of affection” that have been strained to the breaking point. If this approach is not acceptable to the innovators in North America or to the officials at the Anglican Communion office, then I think the current proposal must be deemed more mischievous than serious.
The Rev Prof Stephen Noll is Vice Chancellor of Uganda Christian University and author of “The Global Anglican Covenant: A Blueprint” (www.globalanglicancommunion.org).
The full text of the Covenant and the reflections of the working group can be found at www.anglicancommunion.org/commission/covenant/index.cfm
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