Genuine marriages only

The Church of England's Communication office seems very keen on (heterosexual) weddings (see yesterday's post).

Under the strap line "Join in with us wherever you are!" (why the exclamation?) they have a YouTube marketing video basically telling potential customers, you can get married in any church you like, one way or another. Everyone welcome - baptised or not, church-goer or not, believer or not.

Is the CofE continuing to lose market share? Or is this just a distraction from the question of civil partnerships? Or is it a merely matter of needing the fees?

However the video doesn't mention the CofE's guidance on marriage of non-EEA people. The UKBA have been paranoid about sham marriages. Or, in the more diplomatic words of the Faculty Office,

Strictly speaking the law of marriage and the national immigration requirements are separate. However, there is a contemporary concern that some couples may be contracting marriage solely for immigrations reasons. (here, pdf)

For some time the CofE resisted pressure to conform to secular changes in marriage preliminaries.  They have now caved in no doubt following the successful prosecution of Rev Alex Brown for his part in a series of sham marriages. To rub in its victory the UKBA sent its own guidance note along with the Church's.

I don't deny sham marriages take place, and may be arranged by organised criminal gangs, and that they are are a crime to be prosecuted like any other. But I do think the matter has been blown out of proportion.  For example, the press release, in support of the need for such a change, says there were 155 arrests in relation to sham marriages - arrests, not convictions, and presumably more than one arrest per putative marriage, and with no time-scale given. 

I also know that genuine marriages, contracted by "those who wish to do so to enter into the honourable estate of holy matrimony, intending a permanent and lifelong union, for better for worse, till death do them part." are threatened and, I believe, have been blocked. The reason is that sham marriages are only one of the UKBA's target. 

The other target is those asylum seekers or other non-EEA nationals who wish to contract a valid marriage. Such a marriage is likely to strengthen in their a to remain in the UK. To assert or assume that such benefit is the only or primary reason for marriage for every one is as demeaning of the holy estate of matrimony as is sham marriage. It reflects the UKBA's culture of disbelief and disdain towards those it is trying to keep out.  

The Case Study in the Faculty Office's guidance, which is less a case study than a statement of dfficult decisions to be made, concludes:

If the relationship is a genuine one and the parties understand the nature and import of marriage, it would be disproportionate to refuse the licence. Although the overriding interest is to ensure  that the marriage is based on a genuine intention, such procedures can help to ensure that the position of the Church of England is not abused in a way which could cause it potential embarrassment or damage its position as a national institution privileged and obligated to carry out national duties.

It is the final clause which the Revd Alex Brown flouted.

And I don't see in any of the guidance notes how to appeal the refusal of a licence if the incumbent considers a couple's application to be genuinely founded.

Communications Director: mind the barbed wire

Colin Coward at Changing Attitude has blogged that the Church of England's next Communications Director had better be pure, heterosexual, never-sinned-and-repented, and probably male.

Should the presumptions behind William Fittall's approach to recruitment be tested I think they would at least border on illegal discrimination. But I also have no doubt that Fittall is a good officer whose views coincide with those of his superiors. The Equalities Act and the egalitarian valuation of people that motivated such legislation (however inadequate in many ways) is a real stumbling block to those whose world view and ecclesiology is engrained with irrelevant discriminatory attitudes.

Peter Crumpler

According the the Communication Office's web page the present Director of Communications, Peter Crumpler, was, for 20 years, "in communications with British Gas". Sometimes it can take that long to sort out a bill.

More on the Bernard Mizeki memorial

The Bernard Mizeki shrine

Two newspapers reported the attempt to hold a commemoration of Bernard Mizeki at his shrine last weekend. Over 15,000 people were kept away from the shrine itself and met in a nearby showground.

According to the Standard

“We have no complaints, the police were here to protect us,” Gandiya said.

“Our only complainant is about politicians in the background who did not want to see us at the shrine. My question is: Are these police the same police force we know or a rogue force, considering there is a heavy police presence at the shrine?

“Why is Norbert Kunonga commanding the police?

While NewsDay had,

Police details were posted about three kilometres from the shrine and barred Gandiya and his followers from going there.

Gandiya said his people were denied access to the Bernard Mizeki Shrine by the police who said they were working under instructions.

Bishop Chad Gandiya was evidently angry at Kunonga's continued accusations that Bishop Gandiya and the church he leads endorses homosexuality and denied he was meddling in politics (the stock question of journalists the world over).

The troubles of the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe won't be over till Mugabe and his regime is gone. That isn't going to happen anytime soon. Mugabe controls the security apparatus, has the backing of the army and barely pays lip-service to Tsvangirai and the MDC.

Bernard Mizeki, Catechist & Martyr

Morning Prayer, Bernard Mizeki, Catechist & Martyr, 1896, 16 June

from ACNS

For the second year running, Anglicans in Zimbabwe have been forced to find another place to mark the memorial of African martyr Bernard Mizeki after being denied access to their official shrine.

Last year worshippers, who had travelled from all over the country, were driven away by the Zimbabwe Republic Police despite assurances from the government that they would not be disturbed or harassed.

Bishop of Harare, the Rt Revd Dr. Chad N. Gandiya called on members of the Anglican Communion to pray for the safety of the pilgrims who travel to the Marondera Show Ground this coming weekend.

“The love, courage and commitment of Bernard Mizeki to the Lord Jesus Christ and the Gospel he preached among the Mangwende people is an inspiration to us all as we suffer persecution,” he said.

“Like him our people continue to witness to God's love and grace regardless of arrests, ridicule and harassments. Celebrations this year are particularly meaningful because of what we are going through.”

....

In addition to praying, members of the Anglican Communion are asked to visit and 'like' the Facebook page I'm Standing with Zimbabwe's Anglicans to stand in solidarity with the Anglicans of Zimbabwe. The aim is to show Zimbabwe’s Anglicans that they are not alone in their suffering, that fellow brothers and sisters around the world are praying for their situation.

Just say NO

When the Covenant was first being discussed a bishop for whom I have considerable respect advised ignoring it. It will, he predicted, go away. It didn't.

Now I hear that some Church of England bishops think the same thing will happen if the Covenant is adopted, that it will just fade into disuse, another Anglican document of historical interest only. It won't.

I see also that some in the US think that sections 1-3 could be endorsed without section 4. Even if this was formally on the table, which it isn't, it would be no better that passing the whole thing. Sections 1-3 presume the enforcement mechanism of section 4.

The reason why the Covenant didn't go away and won't fade away and why sections 1-3 can't be disconnected from section 4 is one and the same:

• the Covenant creates a new entity, a centrally governed Anglican Church
• the Covenant creates new powers and 
• grants those powers (and others) to the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion and, critically,
• once a new entity is created and new powers placed in people's hands they will never be given up.

I am well aware that the Covenant says it won't change the internal workings of member churches but it will. The internal logic of the powers will drive it in this direction. Some provinces - the US and, I think, Canada, Australia and New Zealand at least - will almost certainly have to amend their constitution to the Covenant. Furthermore the Covenant is addressed to provinces: if dioceses or other units can act in ways the Covenant mechanisms would disapprove they will have to be brought in line - and in many places this would be a direct assault on the autonomy provinces have previously exercised.

The TEC opinion says, and I believe that to varying degrees this will apply to all provinces:

As developed further in this report, the SCCC is of the view that adoption of the current draft Anglican Covenant has the potential to change the constitutional and canonical framework of TEC, particularly with respect to the autonomy of our Church, and the constitutional authority of our General Convention, bishops and dioceses.

I am aware that the powers are phased as advisory. But they're not really. This is just a fiction to get the Covenant passed. 

I profoundly disagree with the substance of the Covenant, I abominate its initial motivation of expelling TEC and ACoC from the Communion, I deplore the manner in which it is being driven through, and I despair of the kind of Church that process and product embody and will engender.

And beneath all this I believe that the desire to put coercive force at the foundation of the Anglican Communion is wholly incompatible with a Christian faith founded on a death and a resurrection.

If you have a vote or a voice, just say NO.

Hello again

I see it was March when I last posted anything. I have drowned in work and other changes in my life. I'm coming up for air now because I'm on holiday - whether I can sustain posting again in the future we'll just have to see.

I'm not going to look back - I wiped 900 accumulated and unread RSS messages - but I do wish to continue to add my voice to the campaign against adoption of the Covenant.

Wakefield says NO

The Diocese of Wakefield has rejected the Covenant.

According to email reports (in advance of a formal statement) the vote was:

Laity 10 for, 23 against

Clergy 16 for, 17 against, 1 abstention

Bishops 2 for

A magnum to the house of laity in Wakefield!

Williams, abbreviated

Mr Catolick

You just might like to listen to this clip on Mr Catolick's blog.

It appears to be Rowan Williams talking recently about the Covenant and recorded in an echoing church. It certainly seems to have been edited - I can't image that Williams would really say or think that 'it's going to solve all our problems' - but it's not clear how much editing has been done. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that the original contained considerably more caveats and cautions.

As it is Rowan talks about the Covenant as a 'constitution', with 'punishments and sanctions'. Some of us have been saying this for some time but as a bad thing.

But I would like to see (or at least hear) the original before putting too much weight on it.

===========
Added later from email correspondence: 

It is from the speech to the General Synod in November, with the ‘nots’ removed!  

All the same, it makes a point.

Disestablishment?

A British Humanist Society press release (Feb 28) pointed to the clash between the Church and the State over gay marriage as a reason for disestablishment.

‘The Church is established in England and so it is constitutionally part of the state. While it retains that status, and while it runs a third of our state-funded schools, and for as long as it has seats as of right for its Bishops in our parliament, its own internal policies are significant to the rest of society. If Dr Williams wishes to protect freedom for his Church, including freedom from any future possible interference from the state in the Church’s policies which oppose democratically made equality laws, he should be working with others, including humanists, for disestablishment.’

The National Secular Society made the same point later. This is, of course, a hook for the BHS & NSS to repeat a proposal it has long made. And pretty well whenever there is public tension between the Anglican Church and the government over policy the same solution is proposed.

But just because this is a repeated point made by usual suspects does not make it trivial and it should not simply be dismissed.

As a point of fact disestablishment won't stop interference by the state in the affairs of any church where there are public policy considerations. Nor would (or should) the CofE stop trying to influence public policy simply because its legal status had changed. But this also is secondary.

The Church's desire 
Since the 1850s a remarkably consistent programme has been pursued by the leadership of the Church. It has been largely successful, though it's not yet finished.

The programme has been:

• To ensure that control over the church's affairs is wholly in the hands of the church leadership. The matters of particular concern (once called the 'spiritual' aspects of governance) are: doctrine, worship and the discipline of clergy.  

But, critically and at the same time:

• Not to lose the privileges of Establishment; and, at least as important,
• not to lose the money gifted to the Church by the state since Queen Anne's day (disendowment). 

Bishop Charles Blomfield

The Church's success
In 1832-33 Bishop Blomfield (London) was part of  committee which agreed to dissolve the Doctor's Commons and make the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (then being set up) the final court of appeal on doctrinal matters. It was almost incidental; doctrine cases were perceived to have died out. By the 1850s doctrine cases had sprung back into life and Blomfield now deeply regretted his earlier decision and tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to place the legal adjudication of doctrine into the hands of the senior clergy.

Over a long period and many issues powers were ceded to the church : the re-establishment of Convocation, the trial of Bishop King, the creation of Church Assembly, the 'deposited' prayer books, General Synod, 1974 Worship and Doctrine Measure. And, of course, much more; all of it fought over within the church and much of it fought between church and state.

Despite the bumpy road the trajectory has been consistent: patriate powers of governance to the church and avoid disestablishment and disendowment.

The key outstanding issue is the appointment of bishops. No matter how much rope is given to the church if bishops are still part of the legislature the government will ever quite let go of the reins.

The Church's problem
No-one likes to lose privileges, though they are fewer than they used to be. They include reserved seats in the House of Lords and thus membership of the legislature. I suspect, however, that the vital privilege, the one which would be fought most fiercely, is closeness to the monarch.

The money may be significant - between a quarter and a third of all the Church's central assets may be at risk. No-one knows how much, and there would have to be court proceedings to find out (expensive, but worth it because of the amount concerned). Though there could be a deal with the state - after all, consider on the other side how much of the nation's physical heritage is maintained out of the purses of current and historic worshippers.

I suspect that disestablishment would cause another, more fundamental shift. It would finally consummate the process of changing the church which began in 1828 with the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. From that moment on membership of the Church of England was voluntary.

So, for those of the old order left holding the baby when disestablishment came, this would be their problem:

• A Church without proximity to the monarch would be forced to change its present culture of constitutional monarchy - and its emphasis on the monarchical (by contrast with the state). Its engrained aristocratic structures and instincts, its culture of deference, would creak and tear at the seams.
• Any loss of money would be significant (the impact of the Church Commissioners' disastrous decisions in the 1980s is still being felt). It would have the symbolic impact of becoming a poor church and the real impact of reminding the laity that they are the paymasters.
• The process of disestablishment would strip the church back to its bones. Those of its working presuppositions which are merely historic, those which have no justification in faith or function, would be exposed to a highly sceptical gaze.  
• Another step may follow: the voluntary nature of the church would be realised, the laity might wish to lead the way, a different kind of church may emerge. But this may just be day-dreaming.

Since the Suppression of the Clergy Act, 1533, the Church of England has been the state church. What could it be if it wasn't?

Saxbee on the Covenant

Bishop John Saxbee, retired

And on Lesley's blog John Saxbee's speech against the Covenant - Video here.

Why do we need another covenant?

Shamelessly ripped off from Eruptions at the foot of the volcano

 “The Windsor Report,” he said. “It's just a report. When did it become like The Bible? The Covenant. Why do we need another covenant? We have the Baptismal Covenant. We have the creeds. What else do we need?”

Archbishop Martin Barahona, Bishop of El Salvador, Primate emeritus of Iglesia Anglicana de la Region Central de America

Pray for the Church in Zimbabwe

From the website of the Diocese of Harare:

My dear Chad

This is simply a short message to let you know of our continuing prayers, and our shared thanksgiving that the Bernard Mizeki celebrations were so deeply blessed by God, despite the tough circumstances. We prayed in chapel this morning for all of you and for the police and security forces in Zimbabwe, that justice would be done in all things.

We give thanks in every remembrance of you. God bless you and all your colleagues and your people.

With love in Christ

+Rowan

=============
Beneath all the bitterness and anger of schism is the deeper sorrow of being cut off from mutual prayer. The Church in Zimbabwe faces its troubles on its own but not alone.

Any chance of a fair debate?

I had been preparing a post in praise of soft power in the church.

The 'soft' power I have in mind is opposed to coercive power: education, discourse and debate as opposed to command and enforcement.

But the post became stuck and just seemed naive. Soft power is still power: how can anyone ensure it is used well? Is coercive power needed to guarantee that soft power is not misused? What checks and balances are possible? (Curiously checks and balances seem easier to describe and implement for coercive power.)

The recent press release from the No Anglican Covenant Campaign - Call for fair process and honest debate - illustrates the problem.

It's not just that NACC has been sidelined. It's that debate as a whole has been sidelined:

November 2010 — When the Church of England debated the Anglican Covenant, official materials prepared for General Synod members made no reference to the concerns of critics or to the case against the Covenant. This was in marked contrast to what happened in 2007, when the House of Bishops agreed that an additional briefing document presenting opposing arguments should be circulated to all General Synod members in advance of the debate. 

(Note: I had some part in the 2007 paper. In fact this was a last minute concession and we were not allowed to submit a paper on the recently published Draft Covenant, but only on the principle of a Covenant and on the paper Towards An Anglican Covenant which was already redundant by then.)

November 2010 — When Modern Church and Inclusive Church placed advertisements critical of the proposed Covenant in the church press, and when the No Anglican Covenant Coalition was launched, Covenant sceptics were criticized by senior church officials for going public and "campaigning" instead of remaining silent.

December 2010 — When the draft Covenant was formally referred to English dioceses, the referral document provided a random list of quotations from the last General Synod debate, with pro‐and anti‐Covenant remarks mixed up together, followed by a purely pro‐Covenant presentation.

January 2011 — A request by Covenant opponents to the Business Committee of General Synod to circulate material setting out the case against the Covenant was rejected.

February 2011 — The Anglican Communion Office issued an official study guide and list of questions and answers for international use that neither provide a balanced look at the issues nor fairly represent the views of those critical of the Covenant.

And yet: power is needed in any structure - it's what makes the thing go.

So how can the leadership of the Communion be brought to book for their wilful misuse of power? At the moment they can't. Blog posts may annoy them and campaigns may provoke an inappropriate put-down but neither is more than a momentary annoyance.

And the Covenant will make things worse. It is designed to create new central powers and to grant the Communion coercive powers against its members under certain circumstances (to be 'effective and forceful').

Furthermore the lesson for those in power is that this form of soft power works. The Covenant will be achieved without any need for people in the pews or in clerical collars to worry their heads about it.

It is a self-reinforcing process. If keeping all but a tiny minority out of the loop leads to substantive change and more powers accrue to those inside the loop then, doing it again will only give the few even more powers, and again ...

What is lost is perfectly evident to those outside the loop: the effective engagement of the membership.

Each time we go round the loop those on the inside identify themselves more strongly as knowing what's best for the Church, as actually being the Church, to the ever greater exclusion of those outside. Criticism (never mind a campaign) is not merely annoying, it is disloyal. No-one need listen to disloyalty.

Nor will this culture remain within the elite circles of the Communion's central command. In the hierarchy of the Church each successive ring will follow the centre's lead, learn its lessons, and shape itself to fit the circle above.

My response is to seek a more open and honest discussion on the nature and proper exercise of power in the church. It is to call for a church in which every member is valued. But what I fear is more likely is that those at the centre of the Communion are in fact creating a highly unstable and potentially dysfunctional structure wholly inadequate to the needs of an interconnected world.

As facebook and twitter enable some to bring down governments the leadership of the Communion has built up a bunker mentality. It cannot be to the good.

See also: my recent blog posts Players and audience, a look at the pitiful official Study Guide, Q&A, C-, and a paper from 2007 Bouncing the Covenant through the Anglican Communion (.pdf) which identified the strategy of avoiding any serious debate.

An African theme

I have returned to posting occasional pieces on the Anglican Church in Africa, and especially in the Central African Province - mostly culled from news reports.

Since Anglican Information disbanded, this blog has become much more narrowly fixated on the Anglican Covenant and the structures of the Communion. These are important issues and will no doubt continue to predominate.

But it is too easy to put the blinkers on and see matters wholly from a Church of England, or even white-western, perspective and to forget that things can look very different from other parts of the world.

Priorities are different in Zimbabwe compared to London. Lake Malawi is a very different from the diocese of Oxford. It's time I lifted up my eyes again and looked further afield.

Troubles in lake Malawi

At the consecration of Bishop Francis Kaulanda

The Diocese of Lake Malawi continues to be an troubled place.

Zodiak Malawi reports that the Bishop, Francis Kaulanda, has once again suspended again Father Dennis Kayamba.  He has been suspended twice before. On this occasion he is accused of refusing to report for duties to an assigned station at Wimbe in Kasungu.

However Dennis Kayamba has effectively counter-sued. He has lodged an paper with the District labour office demanding his dues from the Diocese covering the period 2003 to 2011.

Kayamba was suspended in 2003 on allegations that he joined a 'Forward in faith Movement' and misappropriating funds at St Annes Hospital.

In 2006 he was a prosecution witness alleging that Fr Rodney Hunter had been poisoned by his cook, Leonard Mondoma.  (In December 2010 a court found that Canon Rodney Hunter had in fact been poisoned though it acquitted Leonard Mondoma.) (Added later: see comment below for correction) 

In 2007 Kayamba was suspended for granting an interview to a Nation Newspaper reporter as part of his opposition to the appointment of Nick Henderson as Bishop.

Bishop Kalunda's appointed had been challenged in court.

The objections, which allegedly included an affidavit with 150 signatures, claimed that Kaulanda had “failed to account properly for money meant for church projects which he was supervising as archdeacon of Nkhotakota between 2000 and 2001.” 

A BBC 'from our own correspondent' account of the consecration of its new Bishop is here. (July 2010)

Non-partisan in Zambia

Bishop William Muchombo with worshippers in Zambia

Zambia is facing elections in 2011. The Church is trying to tread a careful line of encouraging debate - but debate that is neither partisan nor acrimonious.

Bishop Muchombo said,

“The clergy are free to speak on any issue concerning the running of the country but what we advise against is being partisan at any time,” he said.

Recently, some outspoken Anglican clergy have been quoted in sections of the media denouncing the Government and speaking on lines bordering on partisan inclination.

From the Times of Zambia

The church (not just in Zambia) has always had to have a careful relationship to the state - not least because churches are state-like structures which have within them an inherent threat to the sovereignty of any secular state.

The Anglican Church has been on the side of the ruling power ever since Henry VIII enforced the submission of the clergy and the church had to make the best of a bad thing.

On the other hand the expression of Christianity and its implications is inherently political or it's vacuous - yet stepping from Christian generalizations to endorsing specific policies or parties is always hazardous. Supporting the government in the name of being non-partisan is not necessarily any better than taking sides against the government.

Let us hope that the Church in Zambia can find the right balance.

Modern Church against the Covenant

Jonathan Clatworthy

Jonathan Clatworthy of Modern Church has produced resources to support those in the Dioceses who want to argue 'Vote No to the Covenant'.

There is a long paper The Case against the Covenant

There are 10 reasons to vote against, with a brief explanation of the background

and there is a 3-point summary.

All papers are in Word or pdf format.


These are the three points:

We’d lose freedom

The CofE would surrender its right to decide for itself how best to serve the people of England: it would have to limit itself to what was acceptable in all countries and cultures. 

It’s hugely over-centralised

Under the guise of recommendation, the 15-person Standing Committee would have great new powers: if the Standing Committee went against decisions of our PCCs & Synods, the CofE could be excluded from the Communion’s main bodies.  

New developments would be shackled

Changes such as remarriage in church after divorce, and women’s ordination, might never have happened with this Covenant in place: our Church would lose its ability to develop and to respond to new situations or fresh insights, and could find itself forced to exclude ideas and people it wanted to include. 

Thank you for all your help - more needed

There is another article in the Newcastle Chronicle today about Leonie and Stacey.

Leonie said she was lured into coming to the UK in 2008 with promises of a better life. But when she arrived she was forced into prostitution.

The UK Border Agency and Immigration Tribunals turned down her application to stay in the UK. Now we are campaigning to ask the Home Secretary to use her discretionary powers to allow Leonie to remain.

The response to the campaign has been wonderful:

Campaign organiser Chris Carroll, from the Brunswick Methodist Church in Newcastle city centre, said: “The response has been fantastic.

“We’ve just posted another 100 letters to the Home Secretary to ask her for compassion with more being sent every day.

If you would also like to help letters and petition forms are available here.

Thank you - every voice counts.

New Archbishop for Central Africa

Archbishop Albert Chama

ACNS and Episcopal News Service

Not a surprise, perhaps, but Albert Chama, Bishop of the Diocese of Northern Zambia, has been elected Archbishop of the Province of Central Africa.

Although officially Dean of the Province, Chama has previously described himself as the 'Acting' Archbishop.  He has been seen as a protégé of the previous Archbishop Bernard Malango.

Chama attended the Primates' Meeting in Dublin in his role as Dean, thus dissociating himself from the GAFCON absentees despite his earlier attendance at last year's Global South Encounter.

The Province has a troubled and divided history. The Church in Malawi is not a happy place - and Chama has history in relation to that unhappiness.


The Anglican Church in Zimbabwe is still subject to systematic harassment and violence:

It is believed the violence against the clergymen is being orchestrated by the controversial faction of the Anglican Church led by Dr. Nolbert Kunonga, an ardent ZANU PF supporter.

On Monday, the Right Reverend Chad Gandiya, who is the current Bishop of Harare, told SW Radio Africa: “One of my fellow bishops was approached by two people who told him that they had come to kill him and that the mission is to kill all the Anglican bishops; and that is why I said we are an endangered species because from that conversation with my colleagues we are all to be killed.”

“All he was told was this had something to do with the church and that we were stumbling blocks to Dr. Kunonga’s ambition of running the whole Anglican church in Zimbabwe,” Gandiya said.

Just days after the threats a member of the mainstream church headed by Gandiya was brutally murdered last week.

“People came at night on a Friday. They raped her, they cut her mouth and genitals, and pierced various parts of her body,” Gandiya explained, “we were told it is something to do with the fact she belonged to our church, and so that leaves us to speculate.”  The Zimbawean 22 Feb.

A loud voice against the Covenant

From yesterday's Anglicans Online editorial:

The world is becoming nimbler, fleeter, more connected, and more volatile. Structures are being rethought and certainties are crumbling. There will always be bonds and boundaries, but they will be perforce more elastic and more transparent. The rigid structures that have characterised church governance and legislation will change as a result. How can they not?

The very looseness of the Anglican Communion (at least until the Tedious Years of the Anglican Covenant Discussion) is what will give it strength to move with relative ease in this new world. The gentle, unlegislated bonds of affection and the tolerance for variances of custom, behaviour, churchmanship, hymns, divorce, prayer books and the like are far more aligned with the way we live now. The old-speak of the proposed Covenant hearkens back to a world that is passing away, one of rigidity, structure, and complex mechanisms of governance.

 Exactly.

AO has always, they say, sat above the politics of the Communion to provide a service to all. On this, though, they have come off the fence and decided to oppose the Covenant.