Not the same stream: Reasons to abstain or vote against the Covenant

22/11/2010

Reasons to abstain or vote against the Covenant

Reasons to abstain

If you think dealing with the Covenant in the first session of a new Synod is too soon with insufficient time for new Synod members to consider the issue
If you are unhappy about the Covenant but don't want to vote against the Archbishop of Canterbury
If you think a Covenant is a good idea - only not this one

please abstain.

Reasons to vote against
I've set out far too many reasons against and I won't repeat them. I'll just add:

Innovations should come to Synod with a financial statement, yet nothing official has ever been said about the costs of implementation. So: how much will it cost? Is this a sensible use of church money? And why is there no financial statement? It would be wrong to vote for the Covenant without some idea.
The world - and relations between churches as much as anything else - is becoming increasingly complex. Trying to centralise decision making and simplify issues is understandable, but it won't meet the needs of the future church.
In fact the Covenant is retrospective. It is designed to bring an end to conflict over the place of homosexuals in the Church by expelling The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada from the decision making bodies of the Communion. But it won't change anyone's opinion, nor stop other churches taking comparable stances towards homosexuals as the North Americans. And homosexuality is a short-hand for for a much bigger war against social change that is not going to go away. There is much of value in Sections 1-3 of the Covenant; Section 4 means the Covenant will be used to break down, not to build up.
The Windsor Report included 'subsidiarity' (that decisions should be made at the lowest appropriate level of an organization) amongst its concerns. There are no such safeguards in the Covenant.
The Windsor Report (and the authors of Towards an Anglican Covenant subsequently) were concerned that the Covenant should be 'owned' by a sufficient majority of Anglicans and that adequate time should be given to enable this to happen. Instead debate has been muted and largely confined to the most senior levels of Provincial and Communion-wide bodies. Except for certain Provinces taking their own initiative, no effort has been made to engage the wider membership. This is a bosses' Covenant from which members - those who pay - have been almost wholly excluded.
The Covenant is a Very Bad Idea.