No Anglican Covenant

On this feast of Richard Hooker I offer the following news release:

No Anglican Covenant Coalition
Anglicans for Comprehensive Unity
noanglicancovenant.org


NEWS RELEASE
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN SEEKS TO STOP ANGLICAN COVENANT

LONDON – An international coalition of Anglicans has been created to campaign against the proposed Anglican Covenant. Campaigners believe the proposed Covenant constitutes unwarranted interference in the internal life of the member churches of the Anglican Communion, would narrow the acceptable range of belief and practice within Anglicanism, and would prevent further development of Anglican thought. The Coalition’s website (noanglicancovenant.org) will provide resources for Anglicans around the world to learn about the potential risks of the proposed Anglican Covenant.

“We believe that the majority of the clergy and laity in the Anglican Communion would not wish to endorse this document,” according to the Coalition’s Moderator, the Revd. Dr. Lesley Fellows, who is also the Coalition’s Convenor for the Church of England. “Apart from church insiders, very few people are aware of the Covenant. We want to encourage a wider discussion and to highlight the problems the Covenant will cause.”

The idea of an Anglican Covenant was first proposed in 2004 as a means to address divisions among the member churches of the Anglican Communion on matters ranging from human sexuality to the role of women. The current draft of the Covenant, which has been unilaterally designated as the “final” draft, has been referred to the member churches of the Communion. The proposed Covenant establishes mechanisms which would have the effect of forcing member churches to conform to the demands and expectations of other churches or risk exclusion from the Communion.

Critics of the proposed Anglican Covenant, including members of the new Coalition, believe that it will fundamentally alter the nature of historic Anglicanism in several ways, including the narrowing of theological views deemed acceptable, the erosion of the freedom of the member churches to govern themselves, and the concentration of authority in the hands of a small number of bishops. Two English groups, Inclusive Church and Modern Church, ran anti-Covenant advertisements in last week’s Church Times and the Church of England Newspaper aiming to make more members of the Church of England aware of the dangers of the proposed Anglican Covenant.

"If the Anglican Communion has a problem, this is not the solution,” according to former Bishop of Worcester Peter Selby. “Whether those who originated the Covenant intended it or not, it is already, and will become even more, a basis for a litigious Communion from which some will seek to exclude others."

The launch of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition website coincides with the commemoration of the sixteenth-century theologian Richard Hooker. “Hooker taught us that God’s gifts of scripture, tradition, and reason will guide us to new insights in every age,” according to the Canadian priest and canon law expert, the Revd. Canon Alan Perry. “The proposed Anglican Covenant would freeze Anglican theology and Anglican polity at a particular moment. Anglican polity rejected control by foreign bishops nearly 500 years ago. The proposed Anglican Covenant reinstates it.”

The No Anglican Covenant Coalition began in late October with a series of informal email conversations among several international Anglican bloggers concerned that the Covenant was being rushed through the approval process before most Anglicans had any opportunity to learn how the proposed new structures would affect them.

noanglicancovenant.org

Revd. Dr Lesley Fellows (England) +44 1844 239268
Dr. Lionel Deimel (USA) +1-412-512-9087
Revd. Malcolm French (Canada) +1-306-550-2277
Revd. Lawrence Kimberley (New Zealand) +64 3 981 7384

The Collect for Hooker's feast, November 3:

O God of truth and peace,

you raised up your servant Richard Hooker

in a day of bitter controversy

to defend with sound reasoning and great charity

the catholic and reformed religion:

Grant that we may maintain the middle way,

not as a compromise for the sake of peace,

but as a comprehension for the sake of truth;

through Jesus Christ our Lord,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

--the BB

How could I resist?

The idea, popularized on numerous blogs (practically everywhere I turn today), belongs to Lionel Deimel. His version has delicious simplicity and is easy to grasp in a moment. I had to play with color (don't I always?) and got naughty by inserting some of the English text of the Donation of Pepin and affixing signatures of +Cantuar, +Abuja, +Walsingham, +Kampala, and +Dunelm. This is all for the church history and trivia buffs (and because I cannot resist snark).

Click on Lionel's name to see his original (which he encourages us all to use).

Anyone is free to use this image.

I don't suppose I need to tell any readers here how I feel about the idea of an Anglican covenant.

--the BB

A word from the Global Center

The conclusion of the response of the Bishops of the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil to the St Andrew's Draft and the whole covenant flap:

Communion is never created and developed by the letter. The true communion is nurtured by the Spirit. The true communion is life. The paschal mystery that we live in this liturgical season is an unmistakable demonstration of what we need to re-affirm. Faith in the Risen Christ does not presuppose text, but rather an open heart and a humble faith. It was the event of the Resurrection and the affective perception of it that generated a Community, a Communion. Thus, inspired by this liturgical season and aware of the richness of our Communion, we manifest the conviction that the Covenant is not an essential element to maintain or strengthen our Communion; on the contrary, it risks defacing it. Our history and the instruments we have are already sufficient to build unity from the richness of our diversity, in a continuous process of listening and mutual respect.

Curitiba, 04 April 2008.

Read the rest at OCICBW.
--the BB

John Locke weighs in on the Anglican Covenant

Photo of Locke from here

John Locke, for "A Letter Concerning Toleration" (1690):

". . .I esteem that Toleration [mutually among Christians] to be the chief Characteristical Mark of the True Church. For whatsoever some People boast of the Antiquity of Places and Names, or of the Pomp of their Outward Worship; Others, of the Reformation of their Discipline; All, of the Orthodoxy of their Faith; (for every one is Orthodox to himself). These things, and all others of this nature, are much rather Marks of Men striving for Power and Empire over one another, than of the Church of Christ. Let any one have never so true a Claim to all these things, yet if he be destitute of Charity, Meekness, and Good-will in general towards all Mankind, even to those that are not Christians, he is certainly yet short of being a true Christian himself."

""It is not the diversity of Opinions, (which cannot be avoided) but the refusal of Toleration to those that are of different Opinions, (which might have been granted) that has produced all the Bustles and Wars, that have been in the Christian World upon account of Religion."

(Hat tip again, to Turner and Quinn)

The above is lifted in toto from The Lead at Episcopal Cafe. Many thanks to Jim Naughton and the Turner and Quinn philosophical archaeology team!

They are, of course, trying to reintroduce Reason into Anglican discourse. This, for the sola Scriptura crowd, is anathema, to which I say: "You want sola Scriptura? Become Lutheran." Hooker--with his triple cord of Scripture, tradition, and reason--would be horrified at much that claims to be "Anglican" these days.
--the BB

Thanks, Manny!

I am lifting this comment on any proposed Anglican Covenant wholesale from The Lead at Episcopal Cafe:

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) [dates corrected from original post] on Religious Covenants. From "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)


"But should not a society of clergymen, for example an ecclesiastical synod or a venerable presbytery (as the Dutch call it), be entitled to commit itself by oath to a certain unalterable set of doctrines, in order to secure for a time a constant guardianship over each of its members, and through them over the people? I reply that this is quite impossible. A contract of this kind, concluded with a view to preventing all further enlightenment of mankind for ever, is absolutely null and void, even it is is ratified by the supreme power, by Imperial Diets and the most solemn peace treaties. One age cannot enter into an alliance on oath to put the next age in a position where it would be impossible for it to extend and correct its knowledge, particularly on such important matters, or to make any progress whatsoever in enlightenment. This would be a crime against human nature, whose original destiny lies precisely in such progress. Later generations are thus perfectly entitled to dismiss these agreements as unauthorized and criminal."

Hat tip Fred Quinn and Prof. Frank M. Turner, John Hay Whitney Professor of History Director, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
--the BB