Two voices against the Covenant

Professor McCord Adams appealing for
your vote against the Covenant

The Canadian Anglican Journal picked up the NACC press release that Professor Marilyn McCord Adams had agreed to become a Patron of the campaign against the Anglican Covenant.

The Journal says,

McCord Adams herself minced no words in the press release when speaking of the covenant. “The proposed Anglican Covenant was conceived in moral indignation and pursued with disciplinary intent," she said. "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.”

Giles Fraser who used to be at St. Paul's

In the Church Times Giles Fraser also had a go at it.  He says,

To recap: the Anglican Covenant is an international treaty, cham­pioned originally by the Bishop of Durham at that time, Dr Tom Wright, among others. It was a re­sponse to the threats by conservative Anglicans that they would walk away from the Communion if other provinces became more gay-friendly. It is rather like bankers’ saying that they would walk away from the City of London if they had to face the Tobin Tax. This sort of blackmail ought never to be pandered to.

..... 

If you allow one province a quasi-legal mechanism for pushing out another province, then you are providing a context for acrimony, not for reconciliation. Recon­cilia­tion comes when those divided by differences learn to see Christ at work in each other. Mostly, this is achieved through patient friendship and listening.

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I did wonder, in passing, about the explicitly gendered quality of the term 'patron'. Appointing Professor McCord Adams as 'matron' of the campaign just wouldn't have the same impact - though it might have been fun to designate Bishops Saxbee and Selby as our Matrons.  I guess we need a new word.

Either way NACC is delighted they joined the campaign and grateful to them for playing an active role.