Where we stand now on the Covenant

On the Modern Church site Jean Mayland has summarised where matters are now with the Covenant.

In essence, those who haven't yet declared are likely to wait till after the ACC meeting in November in New Zealand.

Jean Mayland staffing the MCU stall at
the last Lambeth Conference

It's unlikely but just possible that a province or two might make an announcement just before the meeting to try to influence the discussion.

On past experience the press conferences, releases and information that will emerge from the meeting will tell us very little. We'll need the usual combination of leaks and Kremlinology to guess at the content of what is said, never mind its implications.

This is no way to govern a membership organization; but perhaps that's the flaw in my logic.

An Archbishop for our times

Modern Church's annual conference will be at High Leigh

By whose authority? An interfaith look at women and religious authority

Modern Church has set out its shopping list for the next Archbishop of Canterbury.  They want:

an archbishop who will

• articulate and defend the Church's unity in diversity;

• respond to controversies by seeking consensus without being unduly influenced by the prospect of schism or demands for quick resolutions;

• consider each proposal for change on its merits, without any presupposition against innovation;

• see it as his role not to tell the faithful what to believe but to encourage the ongoing processes of enquiry; and

• be willing to hear the voice of God speaking through the moral and spiritual concerns of ordinary Christians and non-Christians.

Inevitably we look backwards when we want to address the future. This submission asserts a 'classic Anglicanism' - embracing diversity, enabling change, supporting learning and the celebration of new insights, responding positively to the insights of secular society. It seeks an Archbishop who embodies and would promote this vision of which Modern Church is a guardian.

I too would love to see such a person. In fact, when Rowan Williams' name was announced in 2003 I was delighted because I believed we did indeed have such a person. That naivety soon faded.

I guess I now see things in a harder way than Modern Church. Indeed, the term 'Classic Anglicanism' suggests it has already passed away, stuffed and mounted in some display cabinet. It has echoes of 1970s corporatism, a presupposition of agreement if only there were goodwill enough, a suggestion that if we give uncertainty and ambiguity their proper place no-one will want to draw lines in the sand.

In a harder world responding positively to secular society means (or could mean) taking on a more strident tone, more individualistic self-assertion and a more calculating approach to relationships, discarding the notion that the state is good (debilitating for a state church), the commodification of anything and the costing of everything.

Archbishop Tait,
for no particular reason

The next Archbishop should be:

• a technocrat who understands the changing impact of new communications technology and an historian who will not lose tradition
• a prophet who will side with the poorest globally and locally
• a woman who will stand up to bullies and choose her fights carefully
• a theologian who will talk plain common sense and a media operator who will never say anything to give hostages to fortune 
• a team player and a figurehead contra mundum
• a devout hard-liner and a liberal and generous soul

But I'm pretty sure whoever we get will not be up to it. It's a really stupid job. It should be split up into at least 5 separate jobs. (Some earlier thoughts on dividing the role in relation to the Communion.)

So that's what I want, what I really, really want: a different sort of ABC altogether.

Changing MCU

Can I draw your attention to the latest MCU press release (here) which was picked up by episcopallife online and Episcopal Café.



Pluralist responded with some thoughtful comments which I have replied to here.

The fact is that ecclesiastical turmoil occurs on several dimensions simultaneously. For instance:

• Internal church politics are being re-written: the conservative demand for structural change forces all the structures to change, either in opposition to the conservatives or in the attempt to accommodate them.
• The articulation of faith changes. Partisan groups write their own credal statements as ways of binding their members to them and of distinguishing their group from all others. In turn these statements then become demands: everyone else should agree with them or, from weakness, unless everyone else agrees to them then we're off. Each of these formulations is, by definition, partial and each modifies the reading of more traditional creeds.
• The church is drifting every further from the university. Ecclesiastical theology is impoverished and narrowed even as academic theology is rich and diverse. This is a particular problem for the MCU and other groups which seek to bridge the gap.
• Ecumenism and inter-faith work pulls away from a hard credal kernal; internal conflict sends people scurrying back to a centre. And this dynamic makes the voices of those who reach out to others less certain as their relationship with their sponsoring bodies becomes more tenuous.
• Not to mention globalisation, post-colonialism and new forms of imperialism, global communications and global warming. Or the restructuring of global finance.

In the middle of all this small organizations like MCU have to make shift as best we may. We cannot resolve any of the bigger problems but we do contain many of the tensions they create. We are looking to the future, to plan next steps and immediate priorities.

I guess this is the way the group has worked at its best for the last 110 years. Perhaps the toughest is already behind us.

Nobody said it would be dull.