New pro-Covenant website

I was, in an odd sort of way, looking forward to a pro-Covenant group.

I thought, perhaps it would sharpen up debate. At least it might ensure a better informed debate.

kinda says it all, in a way

But no. The new 'Yes to the Covenant' group (all 3 of them to date) is as vague and vacuous as other defenders of the Covenant have been.

Once again, they don't tell us what the Covenant actually says - though at least they have the grace to link to the text.

Instead they work by insinuation and assertion.

In their strapline Serious about uniting Anglican worldwide, and why they think we should support the Covenant, they imply that they and they alone are concerned for the unity of the Communion. They're not.

They assert that there is no alternative. Of course there are always alternatives.

They assert that to reject the Covenant would tell those Provinces which have already signed that they are not needed. Nonsense. Provinces may quite properly come to different conclusions on the issue.

They ask one sensible question (albeit phrased tendentiously):

How can we really call Anglicanism a single global entity, when some Provinces subscribe to radical new doctrines which others cannot accept, and when Provinces set up new churches within each other’s territories? In 2008, divisions deepened when some bishops, and some whole Provinces, boycotted the Lambeth Conference.

But the question merely restates the starting point of the Windsor Report. It doesn't move us forwards. Though I assume they wish us to draw the conclusion that those who boycotted Lambeth 2008 are telling those Provinces of the Communion that did attend that they are not wanted.

What the site doesn't do is to engage in any serious way with arguments against the Covenant. How about, for starters,

1. How are the new structures envisaged in the Covenant to be accountable to the Provinces?
2. Legally members of the Anglican Church are those which are named in the Appendix to the Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council. What are the legal implications of a Covenant - and of Section 4 in particular - in relation to Anglican membership?
3. What are the ecumenical implications? Will all current agreements that are less than Communion-wide need to be re-negotiated?
4. How, if some Provinces sign, some don't and some can't, is the unity of the Communion helped by the Covenant?  
5. Are GAFCON or Global South Provinces all likely to sign the Covenant? 
6. How will introducing a combination of policing and sanctions strengthen the bonds of affection between Provinces?
7. How is objectivity or natural justice to be served if all the decision makers are inter-linked? Or, conversely, will the manner in which the Covenant is likely to re-shape Anglican politics serve the whole church or merely the international elite?
8. How will the Covenant reduce conflict - as opposed to providing new routes and arenas through which conflicts are fought, or storing up resentment in those places which, led by the Spirit, wish to try new faithful developments?
9. What will be the constitutional implications for the Church of England?
10. And, will someone please tell me, what will it cost?

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.

~~  ~~ 

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.

A newly Christian nation?

Liberia

From the New Dawn in Liberia

In the midst serious controversy over the religious foundation of Liberia, a group of Church leaders here are hearing [gearing] up to launch a campaign to solicit “one million signatures” from the Christian community to petition the House of Representatives to repeal a constitutional clause, which states that Liberia is a secular nation. 

The luncheon, which is slated for Saturday, 18 February, is expected to be held in the Old Providence Baptist Church on Ashmun Street, where the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1847 by 11 men, in conformity with Christian beliefs and principles.

That clause was however, amended along with other provisions of the constitution in Gbarnga, Bong County in 1985 by a special constitutional review committee chaired by the late Dr. Edward Binyan Keselley.

Well, there's a thought. What exactly would constitute a Christian State? Options include:

• The exclusion of non-Christians from government (e.g. Great Britain before 1828). 
• A State which sought to apply in public life principles drawn explicitly from the Bible. Of course, the question of which principles is a tricky one and would immediately become the substance of politics in such a State.  For example, would there be Christian banking in parallel and contrast to Islamic banking?
• Theocratic government, i.e. government by those whose qualification to govern is formal recognition by Christian churches.
• A State which privileged one particular Church over all others and wove it into the fabric of governance  (e.g. Britain now, however tenuous the threads have become). 
• Or, less precisely, a State which privileged Christianity in general over all others. For example the old Ottoman empire was, for long periods, largely tolerant of non-Muslim religions but subjected them to various disabilities, not least taxing them more heavily.

Of course, none of these options are compatible with democracy. Democracy has some roots in Christian theology but it's dominant motif has been the rejection of religious rule. Which perhaps puts the question the other way round: is it possible to be a Christian, to aver 'Jesus is Lord', in a democracy?

And Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights would certainly not be applicable:

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
2. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitation as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Guarding Christians in Iraq

Fair enough, from the complacent comfort of a white man in the UK, I can treat these issues a bit flippantly. But I know that these are key issues: one of the deep things dividing the Anglican Communion at the moment is divergent attitudes to the place of the Church in / against / over the State.

I think democracy and human rights are important. Whilst force is never absent from a State I believe it's a good thing to reduce violence to a minimum - and, on the whole, democracy and human rights together tend in that direction. 

Religious countries are liable to persecute members of minority religions because the simple presence of such people represents an existential threat to the State. That too is the basis of the violence of North Korea's atheism.

The New Dawn has also published a long article arguing against the proposals and the principles beneath them. Its introduction says,

The proponents of this idea say that the campaign to legalize gay marriage in the country has reinforced their resolve to launch the campaign. Others say this is not a Moslem country, but the Moslems are acting “frisky.”

This is a new development, and it seems to be gaining traction, as many professed Christians and anti-Moslem figures join the crusade.

Liberia has seen too much recent bloodshed and this proposal can only inflame tensions and cause minority groups anxiety and fear. 

Votes on the Covenant today

Initial post 18/2/12, amended 19/2/12


Information on today's Covenant votes so far says:

Salisbury voted against:

Bishops: For: 1 (Bishop Graham, Sherborne)' Against: 1 (Bishop Nicholas, Salisbury), Abstentions: 0
Clergy: For: 11, Against: 20, Abstentions: 2
Laity: For: 19, Against: 27, Abstentions: 0

Graham Kings' speech proposing adoption of the Covenant is here.

Portsmouth voted against 

Bishops: For: 1
Clergy: For: 12, Against: 17
Laity: For: 13, Against: 17, Abstentions: 2

Rochester voted against (figures not yet confirmed)

Bishops: For: 1
Clergy: For: 8, Against: 30
Laity: For: 14, Against: 26, Abstentions: 7

Leicester voted against

Bishops: For: 2, Against: 0, Abstentions: 0
Clergy: For: 15, Against: 21, Abstentions: 3 

Laity: For: 21, Against: 14, Abstentions: 4 

Thus it fell in the house of clergy.

By my reckoning that makes 5 Dioceses for and 10 against. Given 44 Dioceses this means 12 more Diocese (of the 29 yet to vote) need to reject the Covenant if it is to fail. This is a good day for opponents but there is a long way to go yet.

Further updates when there's further information.

Also added 19/2/12
From Archbishop Cranmer

The Anglican Covenant was the ‘Tory’ mechanism by which the Anglican Communion might be held together over differences on the issues of gender and sexuality, with the incorporation/adoption/imposition of a bit of papalism to deal with ‘scandalous and ungodly behaviour’ – a move quite contrary to Anglican ecclesiology. Yet the Covenant is being trounced in diocese after diocese as the Whiggish hordes defend their historic liberties.

And from Father Jonathan,

It seems the Anglican Communion Covenant is losing momentum. Arguments in favor are becoming increasingly shrill and unreasonable. Its popularity in dioceses (in various national churches) is quite low. Given General Synod’s rebuke to Archbishops Williams and Sentamu over women bishops, it would seem not even an appeal to the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury will be able to sway the Church of England.

Facts, not judgment, please

The Right Reverend Trevor Willmott, Bishop of Dover 

The Right Reverend Trevor Willmott, Bishop of Dover, has been quoted by  Anglican Down Under (Peter Carroll) and Preludium (Mark Harris) make points for and against the Covenant respectively.

Neither mentions that the Bishop is factually incorrect. He is quoted as saying,

Contrary to what some might argue, it [the Covenant] does not, in my judgment, create new structures or new authorities.

In fact, first, the proposed Covenant explicitly requires new structures:

(4.2.9) Each Church undertakes to put into place such mechanisms, agencies or institutions, consistent with its own Constitution and Canons, as can undertake to oversee the maintenance of the affirmations and commitments of the Covenant in the life of that Church, and to relate to the Instruments of Communion on matters pertinent to the Covenant.

These new 'mechanisms' will, of course, require a Communion-wide co-ordinating mechanism. They are necessary because the Covenant require much greater mutual scrutiny. The process will inevitably constrain decision making inside provinces.

Second, I agree that the Covenant does not create new authorities, but only so long as you hold a narrow understanding of the term.

However the Covenant would give existing authorities significant new powers. The simple existence of these new powers, even before they are exercised, will change the nature of the authorities concerned. For example,

(4.2.2) The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, responsible to the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting, shall monitor the functioning of the Covenant in the life of the Anglican Communion on behalf of the Instruments. In this regard, the Standing Committee shall be supported by such other committees or commissions as may be mandated to assist in carrying out this function and to advise it on questions relating to the Covenant.

Thus the Standing Committee adds to its current, extensive roles that of 'monitoring' the Communion. The relationship between the Standing Committee and the Provinces is thereby modified. When combined with the mechanisms of 4.2.9, the Standing Committee moves from being the civil service of the Communion to being its overseer.

The 'Instruments of the Communion' (the Primates' Meeting, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Archbishop of Canterbury) would also be accorded new powers. In 4.2.5, acting on the recommendation of the Standing Committee, they may implement interim sanctions against a member province. I.e.

 (4.2.5) ... relational consequences which may specify a provisional limitation of participation in, or suspension from, that Instrument until the completion of the process set out below.

In 4.2.6 & 7 this process moves from 'provisional' to final:

(4.2.7) On the basis of the advice received, the Standing Committee shall make recommendations as to relational consequences which flow from an action incompatible with the Covenant. These recommendations may be addressed to the Churches of the Anglican Communion or to the Instruments of the Communion and address the extent to which the decision of any covenanting Church impairs or limits the communion between that Church and the other Churches of the Communion, and the practical consequences of such impairment or limitation. Each Church or each Instrument shall determine whether or not to accept such recommendations.

OK - now let go, and then grab someone else's wrist

In effect the Standing Committee judges the case and the Instruments of the Communion are joined with the judgement. The Standing Committee then hands over to the Instruments of the Communion the execution of the judgement.

The Covenant schema uses the existing authorities of the Communion: in that sense they are not new. But I would argue that the changes are so fundamental to relationships within and across the Communion that this amounts to re-constituting the authorities. In that sense the Covenant will create new authorities vested with powers that currently do not exist.

I dare say the Bishop is a busy man and was ill-advised. But to argue for such fundamental change without understanding the text and minimising the extent of the practical and conceptual changes to the Communion that the Covenant, if adopted, would usher in is, at the very best, careless.

The detail matters because it is the detail that will be implemented, not any individual's judgment.

Paradox of God and City

1) What if the city is antithetic to God?
This was the thesis of Jacques Ellul's The Meaning of the City (1970). 

Jacques Ellul

It's a couple of years since I read the book so I'm not going to tackle the detail now. But I have repeatedly come back to the idea as a (or the) starting point for contextual theological reflection.

The city, it seems to me, is the continuous embodiment of hubris - the realisation of the assertion that humanity is wholly self-sufficient and has no need of God.

Cities themselves are spinning tops. They stay upright solely by the energy of their own momentum. They are always about to collapse and the fear or anticipation of collapse keeps them spinning. Water, food, power, waste disposal, social order, communications, transportation - indeed every aspect of urban life - are always about to decay and collapse (we are all just three meals from anarchy). Yet, mostly, they don't.

Or, more accurately, cities are continuously collapsing and dying. And it is the real, immediate possibility that they will fall over, combined with the personal and organisational interests of those who continuously risk being impoverished, which keeps everyone running round and round to keep the top spinning.

And everywhere is city. The countryside is shaped by the needs of the city. Remaining wildernesses are defined as 'remote' by relation to the city. It may be possible to retreat from the city but it's not possible to leave it.

2) How do I pursue a liberal theology from this starting point?

The Dome of the Rock overlooking Jerusalem

In the spectrum of Christian attitudes I am cheerfully of the liberal tendency. I'm not going to read Ellul's book (or any other, I guess) and suddenly decry the world, the flesh and the devil, declare we're all going to hell in a handcart, or proclaim repent and be saved. (Not even if I knew what any of these looked like in practice.)

But if I take seriously the thesis that the city is antithetic to God, then neither am I going to endorse providence or Leibniz' 'all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds', though I might debate the matter over a pint with Pangloss.

Ellul struggled with what, for him, was the paradox of Jerusalem. God made this city his own. God adopted the city knowing it to have been born in defiance of God. I don't remember whether Ellul extrapolated this relationship to all cities but I'm inclined to do so.

For me, paradox is a key term. Holding incompatible opposites together is a methodological nightmare but it seems to me necessary. As Christians, as churches, we are in-and-against the world around us.

God is, I assert, cause, continuation and conclusion, word and audience, transcendent and imminent, judge and broken, the resolution of all paradoxes. However, until the resolution when none of it will matter any more, paradoxes remain normal.

Therefore paradoxes will have to be a presupposition of contextual theology. But that doesn't tell me anything about their content nor how to deploy paradox in a manner which isn't simply self-serving.

Comments, observations very welcome. I'm just beginning on this road.

No Anglican Covenant Coalition ~ new Patron

The Revd Dr Lesley Crawley, Moderator of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, and Dr Lionel Deimel, the Coalition’s Episcopal Church Convenor, have announced the appointment of Professor Marilyn McCord Adams as a Patron of the Coalition.

Professor McCord Adams joins Bishops John Saxbee and Peter Selby, and Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch whose appointments were announced previously.

“Professor McCord Adams’s experience in both the Episcopal Church and the Church of England gives her a much broader understanding of the workings of the Anglican Communion,” said Deimel. “Coming on the heels of the decisive synod votes in Derby and Gloucester, it is an exciting time for the No Anglican Covenant Coalition.”

“The proposed Anglican Covenant was conceived in moral indignation and pursued with disciplinary intent,” according to Professor McCord Adams. “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.”

McCord Adams is Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. From 2004 to 2009, she was RegiusProfessor of Divinity at Oxford University and Residentiary Canon at Christ Church, Oxford.

She also served as a member of the Church of England General Synod at the time when the Anglican Covenant was being developed. She has written two books on the religious understanding of evil, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God, and Christ and Horrors: the Coherence of Christology. Her most recent book, Some Later Medieval Theories of the Eucharist: Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome, Duns Scotus, and William Ockham, was published by Oxford University Press in 2010.

Anglican Refugee and Migrant Network

A press release from the Anglican Communion News Service (ACNS) intrigued me because of the work I do. I've not heard of the Anglican Refugee and Migrant Network and so I did a bit of ferreting round the Anglican communion site to find out more - necessary because there is no link to it in the 'Networks' section of the site, and the website's own search engine is very selective. 

The history:

The network was first set up in 1984 at ACC6. The previous year the Primates' Meeting had called for greater attention to refugee issues across the Communion. Provinces were asked to set up contact people, to promote education, a Day of Observance, and involve dioceses and parishes. It would also 'determine and eliminate root causes' of forced migration. It seems not to have achieved much though a consultation was held in Zimbabwe in 1985.

In May 1992, meeting in Amman, Jordan, the Anglican Refugee and Migrant Network called on Anglican Churches throughout the world to use their influence with their respective national governments to eradicate conditions creating refugees. At the subsequent ACC9 meeting this formed part of the background to a resolution concerning Palestinian deportees:

Resolved, that this Joint Meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion and the Anglican Consultative Council calls on the Israeli Government to comply immediately with United Nations Resolution 799, returning Palestinian deportees to their homes in the West Bank and Gaza;

In 1998, at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the network was re-established by the Archbishop of South Australia, Ian George. It then aimed to be

... a forum for the exchange of information, ideas and encouragement to Anglicans around the world who are supporting refugees and advocating for their better treatment. (ACNS  2527)

The principle of non-refoulment

ACC12 (2002) received a report from the network which, while thankful that most provinces had a contact person, also noted that it had not met since 1992.

In 2009 ACC14 welcomed its re-establishment (again) and that the Province of Hong Kong hosted it. (Proposal, .pdf, from which some of this history is taken.)

In March 2011 the notes of the Standing Committee of the ACC included the paragraph,

The Anglican Refugee and Migrant Network has a new co-ordinator the Revd Catherine Graham who will be located in Hong Kong, the Province that is a significant supporter of the network. Canon Kearon said he believed that networks that had such support from a Province were often the ones that were most active and productive. “I think that’s the model for the way forward, Provinces adopting networks,” he said.

Process, not product, was clearly the most important thing to note. However, now, in February 2012 under the odd description of Anglicanism's 'newest network', ACNS 5035 reports

A letter sent to nearly 800 diocesan bishops by the Revd Terrie Robinson, in her role as Anglican Communion’s Networks’ Co-ordinator, introduced ARMN’s new co-ordinator, the Revd Catherine Graham, and asked them to share with her insights and information from their dioceses about issues of refugees or migration.

Revd Robinson is looking for statistics, which could be overwhelming if a large number reply and not much use if only a small number do. UNHCR Global Trends (.pdf) is probably a better source.

She is also looking for 

any information you are able to give concerning the church’s mission and ministry among, or on behalf of migrants, internally displaced people and refugees. This work might cover a broad range, for example, helping congregations to become aware of global situations giving rise to the displacement of people and the gospel imperative to respond to those in need; providing pastoral care and opportunities for worship for new arrivals; offering practical support.

which I reckon is excellent. Anything gets my vote that might help people see migrants as real people who are worthy of assistance and who, in my experience, are often very capable themselves but facing adverse circumstances created by the host country. 

The Network’s objectives are:

• To share information, ideas and experience, and to provide affirmation and mutual support for front-line programme-workers and programme-managers working with refugees and migrants on behalf of the Anglican Church through the creation of an active informal network.
• To provide, when appropriate, practice-based information and briefing to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primates, other Anglican Church leaders, and the Anglican Observer to the UN, to inform and strengthen their prophetic, advocacy and pastoral work on behalf of refugees and migrants;
• To promote awareness, concern and commitment to action within dioceses and parishes, to the benefit of local refugees and migrants;
• To encourage and collaborate with the wider ecumenical family and other faiths in promoting active ministry to refugees and migrants;
• To help tackle the root causes contributing to the creation of refugees and migrants through advocacy;
• To network with other institutions working on behalf of refugees and migrants; and,
• To develop and share theological reflection on the causes, issues and consequences relating to refugees and migrants.

Tackling root causes is a big task. But for a thought provoking reflection on a world without borders by Bridget Anderson, Senior Research Fellow at COMPAS at the University of Oxford, I recommend:

City of Saints

I've just tripped over, in the Google way, a puff for a building development in Grahamstown, South Africa.

With its elegant English heritage and beautifully preserved architecture, Grahamstown is one of the best-preserved Victorian colonial towns in the world. It is also the City of Saints, a diocese of the Anglican Church in South Africa and home to many faiths, whose church spires and buildings of worship define the skyline. But Grahamstown is better known as a centre of education, arts and culture, the host of the popular annual National Arts Festival and home to some of the country’s finest institutions of learning, including Rhodes University, St Andrews College, The Diocesan School for Girls, Graeme College and Kingswood College.

What I especially liked was the conjunction of  '... the City of Saints, a diocese of the Anglican Church in South Africa and home to many faiths, whose church spires and buildings of worship define the skyline.'

Could such a place be really possible - Saints, Anglicans, and many faiths all enjoying the South African sun together?

Perhaps only in a sales brochure. Though the housing development is called Lindisfarne so, perhaps, anything's possible.

Three points for the Covenant

I was party to some correspondence a little while ago which suggested that the official line to promote the Covenant had three strands:

1. The Covenant will introduce regulation where there is currently little regulation
2. The Covenant initiates a mechanism for building relationships and communication allowing the Churches of the Anglican Communion to stay in communion both nationally and internationally
3. There remains room for local freedom with connectedness to the whole

local freedom will remain

The third of these is not an argument for the Covenant. It is merely an assertion that this Covenant will not be as prescriptive or as constricting as some critics suggest. It implicitly cedes the point that the Covenant will constrain local freedom - probably to a significant degree - only not too much. 

There has been no discussion of subsidiarity in the whole Covenant process, despite it being significant in the Windsor Report. As a result 'local freedom' is vague to the point of vacuous. 

I read the Covenant as suggesting that Provinces will indeed be able to do anything they wish - unless and until someone objects (or 'raises a question'). Consequently, to ensure that there is capacity to raise a question, there will need to be a whole new skein of mutual monitoring. Each Province will have freedom - but CCTV will be installed in every governing body and monitored by the Anglican Communion Office. 

(4.2.9) Each Church undertakes to put into place such mechanisms, agencies or institutions, consistent with its own Constitution and Canons, as can undertake to oversee the maintenance of the affirmations and commitments of the Covenant in the life of that Church, and to relate to the Instruments of Communion on matters pertinent to the Covenant.

Whatever 'autonomy' means, this is not it.

Consecrating Gene Robinson
bishop of New Hampshire

The first and second arguments rest on a particular way of seeing the disputes which have divided the Communion. 

The narrative goes something like this: 

The North American Churches, TEC especially but the Canadian Church too, have erred and strayed from the path of orthodoxy for a long time. Consecrating Gene Robinson simply put the tin lid on it. The defence of 'we followed our own canonical procedures' only makes matters worse. If the rules result in circumstances where 'the devil has clearly entered the church' then the whole church is structured demonically.

Or, less graphically, the American Churches have not listened to the deeply held concerns of the rest of the Communion. And, right now, there is nothing anyone else can do about it.

Price £1.95 or $3.07

If this is the narrative then the response is relatively straight forward: create the power to do something about it - and then do it. Specifically eject TEC and ACoC from the Communion unless and until they repent their decisions and turn from their erroneous ways. 

The first part of the plan is the most difficult. It entails persuading enough of the Communion to give up their autonomy and to cede these powers to a central authority. They must discard inherited patterns of working together voluntarily and replacing them with 'regulation', enforceable rules. 

The Communion will thus cease to be a company of pilgrims walking together in their distinctive localities in the common service of Christ. It will instead become a single Church with one government, one set of rules, one order.

Once this is done, once the rules are in place and power centralized, the task of expulsion should be simple. For the prosecutors the case is already adjudged and proven; all that remains is for sentence to be effected.

But what will we lose? The narrow focus on the expulsion of TEC and ACoC, which predates the consecration of Gene Robinson, has distorted our vision. The difficult task of walking together alongside those with whom we disagree has been discarded in favour of a draconian and simplistic solution: excise the offender. The carefully nurtured history of autonomous churches co-operating will be replaced by an authoritarian Church regulating. And, at the heart of the programme, world-wide Anglicanism would lose TEC and ACoC.

Furthermore this is the immoral logic of fighting a war in the name of peace: we will end up deliberately creating schism in the name of unity.

In summary:

1. The Covenant will introduce regulation where there is currently little regulation. Yes. It will. But is it justifiable? Is it wise? Why should we lose the diverse Anglicanism we have inherited to replace it with a new, centrally governed Church? How will regulation and enforcement stop faithful people exploring new avenues of the expression of faith?
2. The Covenant initiates a mechanism for building relationships and communication allowing the Churches of the Anglican Communion to stay in communion both nationally and internationally. This is disingenuous as we already have such mechanisms. The question is: are the terms of the new mechanism any better than those we currently enjoy? And what will happen once TEC and ACoC are expelled? Will relationships be better, or will every member have in the back of their mind the question: who will they come for next?
3. There remains room for local freedom with connectedness to the whole.  Yes, some, how much? How will any one part of the global, unified, regulated Church be able to respond to new insights which the Spirit is revealing? How will we be sure we will not have to go at the pace of the most conservative and the most intransigent? How will the prophetic voice be heard?

What if the Covenant vote is close?

Canterbury voted for the Covenant on Saturday, as was to be expected.
Update: Bishops: 1, 0, 0; Clergy: 26, 14, 0; Laity: 39, 13 (For, Against, Abstained)'

However this leaves the balance at the moment at 6 Dioceses against the Covenant and 5 for it.

The worst possible outcome for the proposers of the Covenant would be a large-scale defeat. But the most difficult outcome for everyone will be a closely balanced vote.

If a bare majority of Dioceses vote in favour the proponents will claim it as a sufficient victory. Nonetheless there will be stiff opposition in General Synod on the not unreasonable grounds that so fundamental a change should not be pushed through with such uncertain support.

After all the reference of the question to the Dioceses is to elicit opinion across the country on matters of significance more extensively than is done through the elected representatives alone. It is part of the process of reception of change (which, admittedly, the Covenant ignores).

Conversely, if a bare majority of Dioceses vote against then opponents will declare they have won.

But I doubt the proponents will give up so easily. I would expect some  last ditch manoeuvring - or playing fast and loose with the constitution - to attempt to push the Covenant through General Synod despite the vote. A lot of reputations are on the line. A lot of work done at the international level could come to a grinding and confusing halt if England doesn't join.

Though it would still be open to other Provinces to adopt the Covenant and leave England (and a number of Provinces) out. Perhaps the Global South Provinces will sign up en bloc and claim control of the mechanisms the Covenant creates.

Or, maybe, the Communion carries on much as it is now for, say, another five years when the matter can be reintroduced to Synod.

It would still be open to the officers of the ACO to work as though England was part of the Covenant - after all, they have not yet made public how the Communion will work differently should the Covenant be generally adopted.

Two more against the Covenant

The gossip today is that both Derby and Gloucester Dioceses have voted against the Covenant.

That would make it 4 for, 6 against. It's still early days but it's clearly not going to be a walk-over for fans of the Covenant.

More news as it becomes clear.

Added later: 


Figures from Derby:

Bishops:  For 0; Against 1. (I don't know if that was Alastair Redfern, the Diocesan.)
Clergy:    For 1; Against 21; Abstained 2
Laity:       For 2; Against 24; Abstained 1

Bishop of Salisbury talks sense

Nick Holtam on his
consecration as Bishop of Salisbury

Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall at the next meeting of the House of Bishops?

Nick Holtam, Bishop of Salisbury, has been interviewed by Ruth Gledhill in the Times (behind the paywall).

He says,

"If the Anglican Covenant had been in existence, would we have had women priests? And I think the answer is no, because we would have had to take a much more cautious approach. Although its architects say it is not designed to exclude I can't but read it without concluding that it is intended to exclude groups and specifically the Episcopal Church and the Canadian Church and parts of the Church of England."

Nor does he think it is his role, as the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks is his, to 'sublimate' his views to the views of the Church:

"Part of responsible leadership is having the vision, the sight, to see that's where I want to go."

he told the Times.

Oh, and by the way, he believes there is 'no distinction between heterosexual and homosexual unions.'

No wonder the Archbishops didn't want him when the Diocese of Southwark was being considered.

"This pernicious proposal of a Covenant"

Press Release:

COALITION ANNOUNCES PROFESSOR DIARMAID MacCULLOCH AS PATRON

 The Revd. Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch 

LONDON – The Revd Dr Lesley Crawley, Moderator of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, has announced the appointment of Oxford University Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, DD, as a Patron of the  coalition.

Professor MacCulloch joins the Rt Revd Dr John Saxbee and the Rt Rev Dr Peter Selby, who were appointed last June.

“I’m thrilled that Professor MacCulloch has agreed to accept this appointment,” said Crawley. “As one of the acknowledged experts in the English Reformation, he has a very clear understanding of how the centralization of authority in the proposed Anglican Covenant is at odds with fundamental Anglican ecclesiology.”

“Anglicanism was born in the Reformation’s rejection of an unwarranted and unhistorical over-centralization of ecclesiastical authority,” according to Professor MacCulloch. “This pernicious proposal of a Covenant (an unhappy choice of name if you know anything about our Church’s history) ignores the Anglican Communion’s past, and seeks to gridlock the Anglican present at the cost of a truly Anglican future.”

MacCulloch is Professor of the History of the Church, and Fellow of St Cross College, in the University of Oxford. He is also a Fellow of the British Academy and co-edits the Journal of Ecclesiastical History. He has written several books on Christian history and the English Reformation, including the award winning Thomas Cranmer: A Life and The Reformation: A History. His most recent book, A History of Christianity: the First Three Thousand Years, won the 2011 Cundill Prize. He devised and presented the BBC television series based on that work.

MacCulloch received a knighthood earlier this year for his services to scholarship.

Doll and Covenant

Peter Doll, Canon Librarian at Norwich Cathedral, has written a paper supportive of the Covenant. It can be found here (pdf) and Jonathan Clatworthy has written a response to it.

The Archbishop and his guardian angel?

The paper is too long and too general to have attracted notice in the normal way of things. But,  at the express request of the Archbishop of Canterbury, it has been sent to all Church of England bishops. This is why it needs a response.

Sadly this would reinforce the criticism that the Archbishop has been partisan in acting against TEC and the perception that the Covenant is a significant part of his antagonism.

Nothing new. So I will add a moan I've made several times before. Doll says,

Also, a word of caution. I don’t offer a detailed apologia or critique of the terms of the Covenant. I’m more interested in its overall implications for the way we live out our lives in Christ. 

All too often this seems to be the position of those who want the Communion to adopt the Covenant. Never mind the detail, never mind the actual words, the Covenant is A Good Thing. Vote Now!

But, if the Covenant ever is agreed, it is the actual words, the detail and the way its detail will be interpreted and applied, which will be critical.

So why have those promoting the Covenant not set out this detail? Why have they not engaged with critics who wish to address the detail?

I could speculate that this is a deliberate tactic. Perhaps it is recognised that the consequence of debating the detail will be that voters find all kinds of reasons for saying no or wanting changes. Therefore, if there is to be any chance of getting the Covenant adopted, proponents had better keep their arguments bland and general.

Or, perhaps, avoiding detail reflects an ecclesiology. Perhaps the church is conceived as subsisting in its leadership, with the remainder of its members as mere dependants. In such a church then not only is it unnecessary for leaders inform the rest of the reasoning behind their decisions but, worse still, explanation might an act of condescension that could endanger the concept of hierarchy itself by suggesting that leaders should account to the led. Heaven forfend.

We're all interested in the way we, as faithful Anglican Christians, live out out our lives in Christ. But we don't need a Covenant to control how we do it.

Other comment: Eruptions at the foot of the volcano, Episcopal Cafe, Lionel Deimel, Tobias Haller

The Archbishop's message for Holocaust Memorial Day

‘Holocaust Memorial Day brings back to our minds the appalling consequences of a situation where people don’t speak for the neighbour and don’t speak for the stranger; where people are only concerned about their own security, their own comfort zones.’

Time to be a grown up church

Diarmaid MacCulloch, 

Professor of the History of the Church, 

in the Theology Faculty, 

St Cross College, Oxford

Compulsory celibacy is wrong and damaging for all clergy – straight or gay

Not everyone called to the priesthood is also called to celibacy

So says Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch in The Guardian. (Further Guardian comment here.)

It's not rocket science - as my continually exasperated Latin teacher used reiterate. It's just common sense.  All our understanding of humanity, spiritual guidance, pastoral care and psychology, our understanding of groups and politics says the same thing: a falsehood at its heart corrupts everything.

This particular falsehood - that there are no gay clergy in the Church of England and, if there should be any, then they're all celibate - is so blatantly untrue as to be obvious to anyone. 

Perhaps the Church of England is so used to living with internal contradiction, wilful blindness and avoidance of what's right in front of its face that it can maintain this duplicity without batting an eyelid.

But I would much rather have a grown-up church. One that takes sin seriously in all its forms: sexual, relationship, financial, political and otherwise. One that recognises human frailty not only in our visible failings but also in our inordinate desires to be in the right and to bend other people to our conception of what they ought to believe and do. And I'd hope for a church too that looks for, even evokes, the maturity which comes from the continual process of understanding, forgiveness and acceptance of both self and others. 

I believe that we are both loved and judged by God. Love is a capacity which, however inadequately, humanity shares with God though it can sometimes seem to be in short supply. But, sadly, we are often all too keen to take the task of judging other people off God's shoulders. Any organization needs rules: but if it is to thrive than it must remember that rules are made for people, not people for the rules.

On the other hand, I never did learn Latin.

So who leaked the Jeffrey John papers?

Martin Reynolds

Martin Reynolds has a different and authentic sounding analysis of the Jeffrey John affair - or rather the way the story was leaked, spun and misconstrued.  See the comments section of the Thinking Anglicans report of press coverage.

In Colin Coward's view

It seems clear that it was a conservative member of the Southwark CNC, hostile to the candidacy of a gay priest and a man married to a divorcee, who revealed that Jeffrey John and Nicholas Holtam were on the shortlist in an attempt to sabotage the appointment of either.

No names there, then.

And Coward's conclusion seems incontrovertable:

Changing Attitude’s view [is] that senior officials in the Church are attempting to prevent any progress that might result in a change in attitude and practice in the church. They are blocking appointments, inhibiting discussion, overruling General Synod’s right to determine policy and ensuring slow to no progress in reviewing House of Bishops’ policy.

In this catalogue the legal opinion on the appointment of gay bishops is a key document. But a legal opinion is only an opinion. Those acting in the capacity of trustees must take seriously such advice as they are given. They are also entitled to seek another opinion, were they so minded.

But until any such opinion is tested in the courts it remains only advice. It may be persuasive but it is not definitive.

Civil Partnerships in the Church of England?

From Inclusive Church:

A limited survey by the LGB&T Anglican Coalition has already revealed that almost 100 Church of England churches would want to explore registering their buildings to offer Civil Partnerships if the Church of England would allow it.

All here.

Covenant, conflict and procedural questions

This post argues, first, that the absence of detail means it is impossible to see just how the conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms of the proposed Anglican Covenant will work, or who has what power within its processes.


Nonetheless it is clear that certain structural aspects of the process will work against the Covenant's stated goal of Anglican unity.
A summary of the conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms of the proposed Anglican Covenant is here.

~~~~~~~~

Conflict prevention and conflict resolution are procedures, processes by which politics is channelled away from violence and towards mutual listening, sufficient trust and effective co-operation. Such processes are not simple nor mechanical. The subject is taught in universities and fat manuals have been written on the topic. But you might not think that in reading the Covenant.

(1) Where's the detail?
The main preliminary problem with the procedures of the Covenant is that all we have is an outline sketch. We need a lot more of the picture to be painted in before it will be possible to see exactly how it is expected to work - and just where power lies in the process.

There are good tactical reasons why more details of procedures have not yet been made public - and I am assuming work has been started on the matter:

First, it might make people less willing to vote in favour of the Covenant. The detail set out in the Appendix to the St Andrew's draft was heavily criticised. The process has not gone away, though it has been modified, but hiding it leaves the impression that it is not important.

Second, once a process is outlined it would be possible to cost it (at least to the detail provided). Those promoting the Covenant have consistently sought to avoid any discussion of cost and who would pay. See my earlier speculation; I haven't seen any other discussion of costs, let alone a better informed approach.

This silence may be tactical, it may be indicative of a high level of anxiety that the Covenant will not get sufficient endorsement, it may be dishonourable. Either way such silence reflects the fairly low regard that the Anglican Communion Office, as managing the process of adopting the Covenant, has for those who will vote on the matter. They are to be urged and cajoled, but not informed.

In the absence of such detail people are being asked to vote for pig in a poke.


(2) A confusion of roles
Unless power is to be granted to Canon lawyers, and the fiction that lawyers stand above the fray is sustained, then there is no source of independent scrutiny of either issue or process.

A basic reason is that, unlike secular politics, church structures implicitly assume that we are all basically on the same side, that the natural state of Christian affairs is harmony, and that sufficient prayer, reflection, spiritual maturity and talking will eventually lead all members into Godly agreement.

It is nonsense, of course. Divisions across Christendom and within any Church may be as deep, as fundamental and as bitter as any political division. The worst rows are within families.

The Church of England's General Synod was
deliberately designed to avoid the oppositional
politics, and seating, of parliamentary politics.

Churches might be much better served by learning from democratic secular politics how to build decision making structures on the basic presupposition of disagreement and disharmony (within as much as between parties). The quality of decision making may be no better in secular politics but enemies generally stay in the room for fear of descent into ungoverned violence.

But churches' presupposition of harmony gives no room for structured dissent nor for the separation and  balance of powers.

Instead churches create a kind of one-party state with a unicameral government. The Anglican Consultative Council is not separate from the Primates who are not separate from the Lambeth Conference. The Standing Committee is drawn from the ACC and the Primates. The Archbishop of Canterbury is pivotal to every instrument of Communion and thus to all its sub-groups, conferences, committees, working parties and ad hoc enquiries. No-one is outside the loop, no group may effectively hold another to account, and no-one has power to ensure procedural or natural justice.

So, once again, it's all politics. The Covenant restructures the ring in which the politics take place and in two new and key ways. First, it makes much more of the politics global by bringing so much more of the life of each province under the scrutiny of every other province. Second, it creates the capacity to expel a member from the ring.

(3) Short time-scales
Doctrinal debates have historically taken decades or longer to resolve themselves. The various rounds of discussion, consultation and conciliation envisaged in the Covenant will probably take years; this may not be enough.

The very presence of a structured process (even if its details have yet to be worked out) is potentially very damaging to communion.

As each step is taken and the final full stop is approached it will become harder and harder to keep talking. Public pressure through both traditional and new media will intensify. Shared ground between the parties, the mass of people who would prefer any settlement to the experience of division, and alternative routes out of the impasse will all be squeezed out of the equation. The process will itself generate pressure for a definitive answer.

Even if no timeline is set at the start, demands for deadlines will quickly spring up. It will be ever harder to invent delaying tactics, even when this is the wisest thing to do. When the train is already running down its track it will be a brave driver who can park it in a siding till the worst of the storm is over.

(4) Presumption of single offender
The text of the Covenant seems to assume that a single province, or perhaps provinces separately, will be the offender against who 'relational consequences' may be deployed:

The Standing Committee may request a Church to defer a controversial action. If a Church declines to defer such action, .... (4.2.5)

This is most improbable. Issues that divide provinces from one another also run through the middle of provinces. A complaint by one province against another may be met by a countervailing complaint. Provinces are likely to pile into the fray on both sides of the question. The result will not be the tidy application of a conflict resolution process but a free-for-all (conducted, of course, in a seemly, Anglican manner).

The underlying image of this process is the excision of heresy from the church by legal action. As with the prosecution of Bishop King, for example, the process is to choose the most egregious offender and to seek to expel the person, their doctrine and practices from the Church. Once a court had pronounced judgment all those who shared the views of the condemned man would be given a choice: change opinions or allegiance. Either way heresy and heretics would be identified and forced out of the Church.

Divided in worship

It doesn't work, of course. Successful prosecutions change no-one's mind and very few allegiances. Unsuccessful prosecutions may and do (from the perspective of the promoters) back-fire spectacularly: the issue they sought to expunge from the church may thus be given unchallengeable legal assent.

Similarly, if the dreams of Archbishop Drexel Gomez and others come to pass and the provinces of North America are excluded from the Communion, it would not mean that the evils of accommodation to post-modernism would be excluded from the Communion.

To the contrary: predominantly liberal provinces may well side with the North Americans. But no province is peopled entirely by liberals. Conservatives within liberal provinces may be very angry about such an alignment and they may well seek to join conservatives in other provinces. Those not clearly associated with liberal or conservative factions will find themselves lost and looking for a home.

In this scenario the attempt to exclude malefactors from the Communion will threaten the whole house: precisely the outcome the Covenant was supposed to avoid.

Or the Covenant processes could find that the North American provinces have no case to answer. In which case those who sought their exclusion would have established determinatively that the consecration of partnered gay bishops is within the range of Anglican belief and practice. In that case the conservatives would be forced to choose whether or not to leave.

Either way there will be no winners.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A summary of the conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms of the proposed Anglican Covenant is here.

Jeffrey John story largely speculation?

Jim Naughton at Episcopal Cafe has a different story to Sunday's headlines.

I admit, I'm disappointed. I had thought that legal action might force the Church to revise its practice. But I also wish to keep the record straight, so to speak.

Jeffrey John

Naughton cites Andrew Brown's (Correction: Sam Brown's) article in The Guardian. Though this hedges its bets (with a very cautious opening paragraph and, later, 'News of John's apparent decision to challenge his employers') nonetheless it does seem to rest on the presumption that John is preparing to sue.

In The Independent Jerome Taylor goes over the same ground, pointing out that no-one is happy. Neither conservatives nor liberals like the compromise the Church is trying to pursue. The Archbishop of Canterbury and other leaders know its a precarious position to try to hold and would not want put it at the top of the agenda by a law suit.

But some liberals believe now is precisely the time for them to force the issue. "We are determined to campaign for full equality right now," says Colin Coward, director of Changing Attitude, the most prolific, pro-gay lobby within the Church. "There is no sense of urgency among Church leaders. But the Church is sick, it needs to be fixed right away."

The Independent also has a leader article:

The office of a bishop is weighty in the Church. Charged with acting as a focus of unity and with upholding doctrine, the post is supposed to be prayerfully accepted rather than actively sought, which is why reports that the Dean of St Albans may sue the Church of England for discrimination over its refusal to make him a bishop will have shocked the Anglican hierarchy to its core.

Well, possibly, maybe not. But the leader does point out the contradiction of being a state church whilst also trying to avoid the application of the state's legislation. Now disestablishment really would shock the hierarchy.

Naughton's piece has a quote from a different Andrew Brown article in The Guardian to the one cited above. This sets out why John cannot win.

Last year the Church of England published a legal opinion that makes it quite clear that it believes it is legal to discriminate against John, not because he is gay, since he is also celibate, but because he is not in the least bit ashamed of being gay. That is what sticks in the craw of the conservative evangelicals who oppose him. They have moved on from supposing that it is absolutely wrong to be gay. They now believe that it is OK to be gay providing that you are very unhappy about it.

Guardian journalist, Andrew Brown

... the real point is found in the apparently balanced statements of disagreement. "It is clear that a significant number of Anglicans, on grounds of strongly held religious conviction, believe that a Christian leader should not entire into a civil partnership, even if celibate … it is equally clear that many other Anglicans believe it is appropriate that clergy who are gay by orientation entire into civil partnerships." [from the legal opinion on the appointment of gay bishops, para. 26.]

This formulation gives the game away. It is only conservative evangelical opinion which is described as "strongly held religious conviction". The liberals merely "believe it is appropriate", with the implication that their beliefs on this are not religious at all.

This kind of nonsense was dealt with decades ago where women priests were concerned. What needs saying, loud and clear, is that the case for liberalism here is every bit as religious, and as theologically informed, as the case for the conservatives.

Exactly. Liberals are too nice and that is mistaken for a lack of strength of conviction, a lack of passion, and insufficient willingness to clarify fudges. 

Zimbabwe: further harassment

Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri.
Chihuri was once convicted of corruption,
though this was overturned on appeal.

Two letters of complaint by Bishop Chad Gandiya have been published in the Zimbabwean press. Both are addressed to the Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri about the way the Church has been treated by the police.

In The Zimbabwean the bishop details:

• Our joint retreat with clergy from the Diocese of Manicaland from the 2nd - 6th January 2012 at Peterhouse was stopped by the police who told us to disperse because we did not have police clearance to hold the retreat (The laws of the land do not require us to seek police clearance to gather for worship) 
• Today the 13th January 2012, clergy wives of our diocese were due to start their retreat at the Jamaica Inn not far from Harare along the Mutare Road. They have been informed this morning by the lady running the Centre that they can no longer have their retreat there.She claims that she was visited by members of the CIO last night who instructed her to cancel our women's booking.

The Association of Zimbabwean Journalists have posted a different letter:

• 17th December 2011 at St. Bernard’s School in Nyatsambo Village, Mhondoro. I had gone there for a Confirmation Service. The local police had been informed about this Church Service even though it is not a requirement that we do this. Over three hundred people turned up for the Church Service and we confirmed 116 people. After the service two local policemen based at Mamina approached me and asked me, the local priest and our Church Wardens to go to Mamina Police Station because their “boss” wanted to ask some questions about our Service.

On this occasion Bishop Gandiya, his wife and the local churchwardens were kept by the police most of the day, though not arrested. 

He concludes:

The Zimbabwean Constitution allows for freedom of religion. Why are we being harassed like this? Are we second class citizens in the land of our birth? Like any other citizen of this country we expect equal protection by the law enforcement agents of our Republic.

Tensions in Malawi

From George Conger, first published in the Church of England Newspaper, under the headline Arab Spring coming to Malawi?:

Bishop James Tengatenga

The senior Anglican bishop of Malawi, the Rt. Rev. James Tengatenga, has denounced the government of President Bingu wa Mutharika as being out of touch and set on serving its own needs rather than those of the people.

....

In his address, Bishop Tengatenga called upon Malawians to be patient, but also warned that this patience should be predicated on the government accepting its responsibilities to repair the “malfunctioning system” of governance.

“As we enter another New Year on our long journey of waiting for the coming of our Lord, I urge you to be your best and wait with a purpose,” the bishop said, but “any person should be waiting with a purpose and that nobody should cheat another that things in our country are okay when the opposite is true."

This is not the first time the Bishop has expressed his views on the government and its leaders: Malawi Voice, May 2011.

He is also Chair of the Anglican Consultative Council, a role which may help protect him as a high profile critic of his government.