The coup has already occurred

One of the key objections to the Covenant was that it would lead to a concentration of power within the Communion and a centralising of decision making.

That doesn’t matter now. Concentration and centralisation have already happened: the coup has occurred and very people seem to have noticed.

(Some have, of course. See, from a couple of points on the spectrum, Mark Harris, Bishop Mouneer Anis, and the Anglican Communion Institute.)

The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion has become the executive body for the Communion and is in the process of arrogating more powers to itself. If the Covenant is passed it will become the governing body of the Anglican Communion.

How we got here.
1) Joint standing committees
From its beginning the Anglican Consultative Council has had a standing committee in order to conduct its business between meetings. This is a sensible and unexceptional arrangement for many organizations, not least an elected body that meets every 3 years.

In ACC-10 (Panama, 1996) joint meetings of the standing committees of the ACC and the Primates’ Meeting were noted as a ‘recent practice’. The hope, following a suggestion in the Virginia Report, was that the then Standing Committee of the ACC could be expanded ‘to allow an appropriate balance of bishops, clergy and laity, with consideration to age and gender’ [Resolution 6].

At ACC-11 (Dundee, 1999) and 12 (Hong Kong, 2002) the ACC had its standing committee, the Primates’ Meeting had theirs, and there were also joint meetings. Matters were referred either to the ACC standing committee or to the joint standing committee depending on the nature of the business.

In 2002 further constitutional revision was requested which was agreed at ACC-13 (Nottingham, 2005) [Resolution 4]. Five Primates were added ex officio to the membership of the ACC in a little class of their own and were appointed to the standing committee.

In constitutional terms this is quite misshapen. The joint standing committee is thus only partly accountable to each of its different parents and its members are elected by different mechanisms and for different terms (I’m guessing, since the Primates’ mechanisms are entirely opaque). Politically, however, it makes perfect sense to bring the key people of the three most active Instruments of Unity together formally.

Resolution 6 is indicative of the concern that members of the ACC must have had about their creation. They asked that the standing committee

circulate the agendas of Standing Committee meetings to all members of the
Council prior to meetings, and the minutes of the Standing Committee meetings to
all members of the Council as soon as possible following the meetings.

Only in this way could they possibly hope to keep any sort of watch on the activities of their runaway child.

Most recently, at ACC-14 (Kingston, 2009) the ACC asked for a quid pro quo for their largess in allowing Primates privileged access to their Council. They requested that ‘an equal number of non-Primatial members of the Standing Committee [should attend] as non voting participants in the Primates' Meeting.’ Thus the boundaries blur still further. [Resolution 38]

Furthermore, it would seem (resolution 39) that the ACC now has a new constitution which is operative, has had the assent of two-thirds of its members and yet has not been made public. If this is a straw in the wind it is a worrying indicator of the way the new communion will work.

This is why the title ‘Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion’ does not appear in the resolutions of the ACC. But it was referred to by Bishop John Patterson in his concluding sermon:

Anglican polity has always held that it is bishops in synod, or bishops in council, that are able to make decisions that guide the life of the church locally. For the Communion, the Primates’ Meetings cannot do that, although we should be able to look to our Primates for wise guidance and theological insights, but in my view that is quite different from making binding decisions
from which the rest of the Church is excluded.
We have now moved to seeing what we have known as the Joint Standing Committee of the primates and the ACC become more simply the Standing Committee of the Anglican communion, possibly meeting more than once a year, with the right balance of Primates, clergy and laity represented. That is a significant advance in the tightening of our structures, a significant advance in helping the four ‘Instruments of Communion’ work more cohesively together, without taking anything away from any of those Instruments.

2) A charitable company
In 1978 the ACC was registered as a charitable trust in England (no. 276591). Between 1999 and 2009 discussions led to agreement that the ACC should also be a charitable company. At ACC-13 Memorandum and Articles for this new company were endorsed though not made public – then or now. [Resolution 3] The finances of the ACC have been transferred to this new company.

The detail of the rules is important (there has been dark discussion of a ‘secret’ constitution on some conservative sites). But there is a much more immediate and significant point. Trustees cannot be mandated by another body but must exercise their own discretion. Directors are legally responsible for the financial and other aspects of their company. They are autonomous.


and the point of this is ...
Thus is created the fifth instrument of unity of the Anglican Communion (if we forget, as everyone else apparently forgets, that this accolade was once formally given to Canon Law).

The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion is legally constituted, controls the finances of the Communion (except, on this latter occasion, the costs of the Lambeth Conference), and is embedded in the Primates’ meeting and the ACC. It is governed by the law of England and Wales. It gives an account to Companies House and the Charity Commission.

No doubt it will also report to the Primates’ Meeting and the ACC. But, formally, this is now a courtesy. Neither of these bodies can instruct the SCAC and, if its members accepted such instruction, they would be at risk of breaching their duties as trustees and directors.


The effect of the Covenant
In this setting the Covenant takes on a new significance. The ACC has given all its powers (except those specifically reserved to the Council) to its standing committee (previous Constitution, Article 8). Presumably, though its procedural rules are not online, the same applies to the Primates’ Meeting.

The point and effect of the Covenant is now this: to turn the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion into a body which, whatever its origins, will have significant powers of governance in its own right – in fact, a whole new tranche of powers which do not currently exist.

The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion will thus become the regulator of relationships between Provinces. It will have the capacity to limit the degree of participation Provinces may have in the communion’s Instruments of Unity – and potentially also its commissions, working groups and other international bodies. All, that is, except one: invitations to the Lambeth Conference will remain in the personal gift of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

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Covenant and canon law

The origins of Anglican canon law

A view of what's happening very different to that of the Editor of the Church of Ireland Gazette is presented by Kevin Donlon.

Kevin Francis Donlon is a corresponding member of the Global South Anglican Theological Formation and Education Task Force and his paper The Challenges of Covenant and Canons for the Future of a Ius Commune Anglicanae can befound on the Global South site.

Note: his paper, which does not seem to be dated, does not address any of the Covenant proposals later than Towards an Anglican Covenant, though the principles he discusses remain key.

He presumes that the Communion is in the process of reformation of a very Anglican kind (i.e. decently and in order) . It is turning into a comunnio ecclessiae sui iuris - one single church with one law.

The central problem, from this perspective, is the old order: a global communion where law-making is in the hands of 44 separate bodies. A body which covenants together and yet makes laws independently has insufficient coherence when amity is not enough.

The guiding principle has been “In essentials unity, In doubtful things liberty, But in all things love”. Unity under this principle has been expressed in common worship and in local customs which may be universalisable but may not. Clashes occur in church order where local action may conflict with global affiliations.

However

The possibility of a universal approach to canons has not been received well in Anglicanism and has been placed in deference to the idea of covenants. It seem the reasons are many, but the most visceral is because of past fears that an uncompromising devotion to canonical structure will damage the Spirit’s guidance to new models of anglicanae ecclessiae. Conversely, there is a posture holding that the present crisis of “anglicanae communio” lies in the fact that Anglicanism has consistently failed to embrace a clear set of universal norms and as such this has paralyzed its ability to witness to the truth of the gospel. The resolution of the tension between canons and covenants amidst such conflicts is “essentially contested and undecidable, particularly if the consensus fidelium is important in the determination”. (Stephen Pickard. , Innovation and Undecidability: Some Implications for the Koinonia of the Anglican Church. Journal of Anglican Studies, Volume 2.2, December 2004. pg.93)

He argues for a strengthening of the Covenant by grounding it in Divine Law and the long history of canon law making (both of which, in practice have been sustained by the Roman catholic church, not Anglicanism).

He would also draw on Orthodox law making which tends to be responsive rather than prescriptive, recognising and valuing local jurisdictions. In particular he suggests three levels of law: of the church universal, of the Anglican Church as a whole, and particular local laws.

This programme of codification of Anglican law, and its application across the Communion, would call for a new ecclesiology.

Ecclesiastically in terms of governance this has implications for the Principles of Subsidiarity and the orthodox Concept of Economy. As expressed in the Virginia Report, the call is for authority not to be concentrated in a single center but rather across a plurality of persons exercising various degrees of authority which would be governed according to the distinctions of gifts and roles.

This complements a participatory hierarchy whereby such role differentiations would exist in the church, with varying tasks and authorities afforded to those roles. Influence would flow freely among roles fully, but in a way appropriate to their function or office, for the good of the common life.

This contributes to a ius commune but at the same time allows for the concept of
Economy/ οικονόμια to be applied to the community which recognizes
that such an application is always an exception to the general rule.

On the basis of this argument he holds that the Covenant proposals are inadequate:

A draft of a Covenant without a canonical and conciliar structure illustrates once again that Anglican leaders seem unable to grasp the conciliar nature of the Church. A new model for a new day is required where conversations about Canons and Covenants are not simply the speculation of non-binding conferences that insure autonomy over and above authority.

Comment:

One key to Donlon's argument is the concept of subsidiarity. This is built into English canon law (see Canon B5), is discussed in the Windsor Report, but seems to have been wholly forgotten in the subsequent Covenant process. Donlon sets out three layers of law but does not specify the criteria by which matters should be allocated to one or another layer.

In principle I am not averse to this approach on two conditions: first, the more universal the law the more general it should be. Second, any law that can possibly by made at a local level should never be made at a higher level. I am averse to it in practice because the opposite is inevitably the case. Every local dispute leads to higher level decision making and once a decision is made at a higher level it is almost impossible to give the subject back to more local decision makers: it is a one-way ratchet.

Donlon is also keen to retain the diversity of locations of decision making which, in the proposed Covenants, are being reduced to the Instruments of Unity.

The concept of Divine Law, though venerable and theoretically the base of Catholic canon law, is problematic. There is no consensus about what constitutes such a law, which laws should be given such status and which should not - and, anyway, if divine law can only be identified by consensus then it is the law of the consenting, not of God.

The fact is that the move to a single canon law (unitary or layered, subtle or sledge hammer) is an attempt to cut across not only the 44 different localities of law making but also the fissures in the Communion which run through the middle of provinces as well as between them.

I think one clue to what is happening is in the quote from Stephen Pickard: 'The resolution of the tension between canons and covenants amidst such conflicts is “essentially contested and undecidable, particularly if the consensus fidelium is important in the determination”.' (see above).

The proposal for a single Communion law is an attempt to cut across the consensus fidelium because it does not exist either in the sense of the 'common mind' of the church or in the sense of the reception of change by the church. It is an attempt to declare to the Communion what their consensus fidelium must be: conform and be part of the Communion, or dissent and leave. It is an alternative to seeking a consensus fidelium.

It seems to me (see future posts) that the idea of law as integrative of the communion systematically ignores questions of power. Lawyers tend to see law as a good in itself (especially canon lawyers with a yearning for divine law) and tend to objectify laws as somehow morally (or, in this case, ecclesiologically) neutral.

I see canon law, and constitutional law in particular, as the outworking of conflicts between the contending groups in the church. They are temporary truces in the continual struggle to constitute and re-constitute the church in the group's own image.

Therefore the idea that law is an answer to the travails of the Anglican Communion seems to me a category error: law is the formal expression of an answer. The answer on the table at the moment is that the elite of the Anglican Communion are to take power to themselves to impose upon the rest of the body one particular solution, dressed in legal clothes. As no such power presently exists in any law, the reality of power will have to be covered up by retrospective law.

The Covenant remains an ecclesiastical coup d’état (coup d'eglise?)

And always keep a-hold of Nurse ...

 I wrote this for another context but it seemed worth repeating here, with a few corrections and some footnotes.


--------------------------------.

Church and State: the Church of England's capacity to determine its own worship and doctrine.

Until 1965 the CofE had no legal power to alter its own worship [Note 1].  There was a revised Prayer Book in 1928/29. Parliament refused to authorise it and after a major row Church-and-State row the bishops issued a statement that they would never sanction prosecution of clergy who conducted worship within the parameters of the revised book and no-one tested it legally [Note 2].  A revised book (again, technically illegal) was published in 1945 on the personal authority of Archbishop Fisher.

In 1961 the New English Bible was published and enthusiastically welcomed by clergy. However, legally, they could not use it in the Eucharist as the reading were printed in the BCP which could not be changed. A Measure (Church law authorised by Parliament) was prepared to allow the New English Bible to be used as an alternative to that printed in the BCP. [Note 3]

However, while this was in preparation, negotiation between the Church and the government of the day suggested that the Government would allow 'delegated legislation' i.e. Parliament delegated to the Church the power to determine its own worship - but only for a limited, experimental period of 2 to 7 years - in the Prayer Book (Alternative and Other Services) Measure.

That experimental period (taking 14 years) produced Series 1, 2, 3 styles of worship.  In 1974 the Doctrine and Worship Measure gave the Church further powers which led to the Alternative Service Book 1980 (to give it its full title - the date showed it was meant to be temporary).  This was valid for a decade and then a second decade's life was added.  The original intention had been to produce a single New Book of Common Prayer which Parliament would have been asked to authorise and which would have been set in legal stone.

But the Church had pulled off a coup: the temporary delegation of powers was finessed into a permanent delegation. The Church acquired - for the first time in its history - the power to determine its own worship.

The Doctrine and Worship Measure also gave the CofE power over its own doctrine. Thus was tested in law in 1994 and again in 1996 [Note 4] over the question of the ordination of women.  The court determined that, so long as the Church followed its own rules in making doctrinal decisions (explicitly or implicitly), there was no legal power to interfere in the substance of those decisions.

This autonomy was gained, critically, without the Church ceasing to be the Established Church. It was an invisibly amazing achievement: the goal had first been articulated in 1840 or 50 and it had been pursued for 120+ years.

And the relevance of this to a Covenant is:

(a) because the CofE is a State Church it has no ecclesiology - it has had no capacity to think for itself what kind of church it is and should and could be, 

(b) the CofE has had centuries of training in the arts of being subordinate and acting as though it was autonomous - it exists through a sophisticated systemic exercise of willful blindness and realpolitik.

(c) The point at which it acquired the power to determine its own doctrine was too late for it to exercise such power.  From the mid-1980s ecumenical agreements and the changing shape of the Anglican Communion meant that in practice it could only make definitive doctrinal statements in concert (if not uniformly) with other churches and the rest of the Communion - see, for example, the statement on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry.

So to adopt the Covenant for the CofE would simply be to accept a new overlordship while continuing to pretend it is superior to it. It will make sure its officers are embedded in the operation of the Covenant so that nothing potentially embarrassing comes to the light of public debate. And thus it will ensure it still doesn't have to think about its ecclesiology - what principles - actually and ideally - underlie, predispose and can be used to judge the words, structures and action of the Church of England?

========================
Notes:
1. ‘... a clerk has no right in performing divine service to alter, omit, or add anything to the prescribed form, including the lessons to be read.’ Ecclesiastical Law, reprinted from Halsbury’s Laws of England, Third Edition, (London, Butterworth & Co., 1957)

2. "... the Upper House of the two Convocations, with the acquiescent cognisance of the Lower Houses, recommended, with only four dissentients, that the bishops should not, in their administration, feel bound to interfere with clergy whose deviations from the Book of Common Prayer were within the limits of the deviations which the Prayer Book Measure of 1928 would have sanctioned."  Church & State: Report of the Archbishops’ Commission on Relations between Church and State, 1935 (London, The Press and Publications Board of the Church Assembly, 1935) [The Cecil Report], p. 39.

3. In the first version of the Prayer Book (Versions of the Bible) Measure no other version of Scripture was to have been permitted.  But, on a steer from the Government, the Measure was redafted to permit any versions which Church Assembly (General Synod's precursor) might approve.  It became law in 1965.

4. The case (in fact a series of cases) was brought by a Rev. Williamson whose persistence led to him being formally barred from further action as a 'vexatious litigant' in 1997.  The nineteenth century had several examples of the same process: convinced litigants brought cases which only strengthened the causes they were arguing against.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_Service_Book

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.

Please vote against the Covenant


Links: Reasons to vote for/against the Covenant - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

How much will the Covenant Cost ~ The legal fiction at the heart of the Covenant ~ The coup has already occurred ~ The architect's manifesto ~ A response to the briefing paper for General Synod (GS 966) pdf.

No Anglican Covenant: Anglicans for Comprehensive Unity

What is the Covenant supposed to solve?

It will hardly come as a surprise to anyone reading this that I really don't like the Covenant.  More than that, I think it is profoundly misguided, a denial of so much that is precious in the Anglican tradition that we have inherited, and a pitiful response to the deep divisions of the Church.

There are always alternatives.
The most prominent alternative, the Jerusalem Declaration, will serve to bind together most conservative Evangelicals - at least while the enemy that threatens them (the values they see corrupting the western church and leading it out of the fold of Christians) is bigger than they are.

The great weakness of any confessional statement is that it must be either vague, so that large numbers can endorse it, or so exact that it convey the views of its authors' precisely, thus guaranteeing that relatively few people will sign up.  Hence the critique by Bishop John Rodgers in SPREAD that the Covenant is 'too weak for the orthodox and too strong for the revisionists'.

The normal way - these days, anyway, following western states' use of government by fear - is to sound the alarm.  The enemy is massing at the gates - defend the citadel!  Of course the enemy within is more dangerous than the enemy without so any confessional statement is simultaneously intended to unite and divide - a shibboleth by which to discriminate between people who would otherwise look just the same. (See: the fourth point of how to mount a coup).  Such statements last only as long as the threat is real.  Afterwards the statement is consigned to history and people get on as though it wasn't there apart, perhaps, from an occasional, formal, acknowledgement.  Or the statement is taken seriously, in which case people fight over the exact interpretation and take sides within its framework.  (The historical option - get sufficient agreement and use force to impose it on everyone else - is not really available to the Communion.)

Rodgers' choice of the Primates' Meeting, rather than the Standing Committee, as the implementing body has already been defeated.  And it now looks so divided as to be unable to take on this role if the task were thrust upon it.

But what problems is the Covenant supposed to solve (now, as opposed to when it was first conceived)?

First, the unity of the Communion.  Sadly, I think it's too late - and perhaps was always too late.  In fact it increasingly seems that pushing people to sign will be the last step in the de facto schism.  By going for a Covenant that was acceptable to a sufficient majority of the players in Global Anglicanism the Covenant Design Group has failed to bring enough of the Communion on board.

This is described as a civil war cannon and
 a toy that really works and is safe.
 The perfect illustration

Second, to provide the framework for future disputes.  Sadly the Covenant procedures will almost certainly only work for little disputes or issues exclusively between two parties. And they could probably be resolved in any framework.

Or they will work to exclude TEC and Canada - and then everyone will take fright because they could be next. They will move quickly to dismantle the Covenant - it will prove to have been a disastrous one-shell cannon.

The Covenant framework will not be adequate to any significant dispute.  It's back-to-front: what happens is that administrative structures & agreements work because people agree to make them work.  In normal times conflicts flow through, and are contained by, the channels of the pre-existing system: people and systems are in continual dialogue.  In abnormal (though not uncommon) times disputes overflow the system and leave it in pieces.  Then people coming together, pick up the pieces and rebuild. The cycle starts over again: systems cannot be imposed without assent.

Third: as one more step in a long-term programme to reform the Communion by centralising and reducing the differences between provinces.  This goal might well be met, in part at least, by the process to arrive at a Covenant as much as by the document itself.  In the course of debate, it seems to me, the previously normative idea that the Communion was a federal structure with central consultative bodies seems to have been replaced by the normative idea that the Communion is a single entity whose centre needs to be strengthened because its component parts are too fissiparous.

Some possible alternatives

First, the diverging Communion.  Reality-defying projects have their place and can create wonderful things.  But often they just crash.  I would now go for recognising the reality of division and seek to keep as many people as linked together as possible by multiple informal networks - of liturgists, historians, mothers' union, mission societies, even train-spotters - to keep communication channels open despite formal division.  I would try to keep as many parish-parish, diocese-diocese, mission society links as strong as possible for as long as possible. I would offer small no-strings grants to foster them.  I would encourage them to publicise their work.  But I would not try to control them. When the dust settles we will need those continuing friendships and conversations to build the new Anglicanism.

Second: conflict resolution.  Perhaps the task is to rebuild the communion from the base up - and on the presuppositions that it is a voluntary association, that all are faithful followers of Christ, that each member will offer hospitality to any other - no matter how alien the expression of faith may seem.

I would also offer skilled, experienced people who can lead non-binding arbitration to help resolve small disputes and those between two-parties.  In other words, to encourage Christians not to go to court, but to come to a resolution between themselves: a resolution they are responsible for (i.e. not determined by some other body).  Non-binding arbitration gives people choices without sanctions.

Third: I would strengthen the links between provinces and the central bodies of the Communion and also the direct links between provinces (the formal expression of the informal networks in my first point).  I would stress that the role of the central bodies is to facilitate and broker relationships, to provide financial, technical and educative aid.  There is no lack of energy and initiative in the provinces, dioceses and parishes: let the centre support the exchange of information and wisdom such that the whole Communion benefits.

Location-specific networks?
But, to be fair, this is a western, IT-informed vision.  I'm not sure that it'll sell in Nigeria or Burma or Japan.  I'm not sure it will work well in areas of Africa with minimal and expensive internet access.

I can see too that it rests on a presumption of people's inherent goodness.  It will certainly have to be tough enough to cope with human evil but the primary safeguard is that networks and arbitration are voluntary: anyone can walk away without ceasing to be part of the wider church.

If it is to work it will have to be fundamentally people-focused. Technology should be secondary and appropriate to the people involved: mobile phones in central Africa, super-fast broadband in New York and Tokyo and old-fashioned pen and paper anywhere.

To be people-focused is also to take into account the disparity of wealth and poverty. Networks should be fostered in ways that will enable people to live out their faith in shared ways, not burden them with costs and duties that distract from the primary tasks of discipleship.

I dare say my vision will be nonsense to many but, on the other hand, I can see how very, very few are enthused by the Covenant.

How to mount a successful coup in Anglicanism

Frances and John Colenso, from an earlier conflict

This is drawn from some work I've done looking at doctrinal conflict in the nineteenth century. It may be a basic primer on how to mount a reformation in the church:

Theological disputes periodically rack the Anglican Church. They have focused, for example, on the meaning of baptism, critical approaches to scripture, the significance of vestments, the limits of intercommunion, the ordination of women. 

Each conflict has been historically distinctive however they shared certain common characteristics.

First, conflict is normal
Conflict is normal in every church.  Differences between faithful christians have deep historic roots and are reflected in almost every aspect of the expression and embodiment of faith. Underlying differences are complex, extensive, often buried in people's everyday attitudes and may reflect incommensurable differences at the level of basic spiritual or philosophical presuppositions. 

The present conflict is about large things. It is about the post-modern church, simultaneously dividing into smaller units and drawing together in globalised world.  It is about the legacy of calvinist, anglo-catholic and latitutdinarian conflict recast in contemporary terms. It is the exporting of the US Episcopal Church's divided and unhappy history across the globe, and about where the centre of the Anglican world really lies and should lie.  It is about the nature of a global Communion in a post-colonial world.

But all of this would remain confined to long books and academic conferences. Therefore,

Second, select your focal point
Because of this complexity, the occasion of conflict is often a relatively small matter, perhaps the actions or teaching of a particular individual. Conflicts take the form of synecdoche in which small matters encapsulate and represent much greater underlying differences.

Homosexuality is a synecdoche for the big things in conflict.  It was deliberately chosen (at least in the UK) as a battle ground because it united conservatives, and especially evangelical conservatives, who had been deeply divided over the ordination of women.  It is an emblematic issue of the US's culture wars.


Therefore whatever the occasion and focus of the conflict, the underlying issue is always greater. Almost anything can become a focal point of conflict - nothing is minor or adiaphora when the identity of the Church is at stake.

Third, challenge authority
Churches rest on authority: the authorities (scripture, traditions, the formularies, law) are made real by those people who are granted authority to interpret, apply and judge the authorities (clergy, bishops, biblical scholars, theologians, historians, lawyers and also - in their own lives - individual believers) .


All such authority is subject to challenge as normal, it doesn't take a conflict.  Church conflicts are the ordering of underlying conflicts around a focal point in order to mount a systematic challenge to the established authorities.

Therefore: a struggle about a matter of Christian belief or practice quickly becomes a struggle for the soul of the church and, equally quickly, a struggle to gain the right to determine how the church decides. 

Fourth, never ignore inertia.

However, most church members do not engage in conflict. 

Consequently leaders of the contending groups have to work hard to keep their supporters on side and engaged in battle. They do so by increasingly strident rhetoric. They declare the conflict vital to the authenticity of the Church as a whole while denying the possibility of middle ground or conciliation. The focal point of conflict becomes a shibboleth: a test by which to divide friends from enemies amongst people who would otherwise be indistinguishable. 

Underlying tensions embedded in the church are highlighted. Shared discipleship and good working relationships are minimised. Big guns (bishops, experts, court cases) are lined up on both sides.  Disputes quickly become critical conflicts of self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating seriousness. 

On the other hand, those seeking a resolution to conflict have the majority with them although, for the most part, the majority remain silent, dispersed and disengaged.  The longer the conflict goes on the harder it is to keep sufficient numbers fighting.

Fifth, change the structures
Those seeking to resolve the crisis perceive that they cannot find a way forwards by dealing with the occasion of conflict head-on. There are seldom clear-cut resolutions of the focal point of the conflict. Because the issues are too great and inherently intractable those driving the conflict and those seeking a resolution may find common cause in moving sideways and shifting the ground of debate onto organizational change. 


This has the immediate effect of transposing the conflict into new terms, away from its ostensible focus and onto the ultimate goal: the right and power to determine how the church makes decisions. The Covenant says nothing about sexuality.


Organizational change embodies shifts in ecclesial power.


The alternative is schism.  Although the Communion in general and the Church of England in particular likes to think of itself as having a single continuous and unitary history there have in fact been many departures, separations and schisms.  In a schism ecclesial power is placed in a new jurisdiction; if it is large enough it will also trigger a re-evaluation of the allocation of power within the parent body.

In conclusion,
In the end, no group wins an unalloyed victory.  The very process of the conflict changes all sides.


On the other hand the church we have now - in all its aspects - is a result of past conflicts.  Dire predictions seldom come to pass and consequential changes are seldom planned or anticipated.


All church conflicts have been waged in the name of truth, authenticity, righteousness and real people have been really hurt.


And still it's worth standing up for what you believe: this is the way the church lives.