Final version of Anglican Covenant announced

[angli_fan]

[from Thinking Anglicans]

The final version of the Anglican Communion Covenant has been released and sent to the member Churches of the Anglican Communion.

(The full text of the Anglican Communion Covenant can be found at:
www.aco.org/commission/covenant/final/text.cfm)

The Archbishop of Canterbury has this evening issued a message to go with it:

(A video version of the ABC's message can be found here:
www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2686)

After several years of work, the proposed covenant for the Anglican Communion has now reached its final form and is being distributed to the provinces for discussion, and I hope it will be adopted by as many provinces as possible.

It’s quite important in this process to remember what the Covenant is and what it isn’t, what it’s meant to achieve, and what it’s not going to achieve. It’s not going to solve all our problems, it’s not going to be a constitution, and it’s certainly not going to be a penal code for punishing people who don’t comply. But what it does represent is this: in recent years in the Anglican family, we’ve discovered that our relations with each other as local churches have often been strained, that we haven’t learned to trust one another as perhaps we should, that we really need to build relationships, and we need to have a sense that we are responsible to one another and responsible for each other. In other words, what we need is something that will help us know where we stand together, and help us also intensify our fellowship and our trust.

The covenant text sets out the basis on which the Anglican family works and prays and lives and hopes. The bulk of the text identifies what we hold in common, the ground on which we stand as Anglicans. It’s about the gift we’ve been given as a Church and the gift we’ve been given specifically as the Anglican Communion. All those things we give thanks for, we affirm together, and we resolve together to safeguard and to honour.

The last bit of the Covenant text is the one thats perhaps been the most controversial, because that’s where we spell out what happens if relationships fail or break down. It doesn’t set out, as I’ve already said, a procedure for punishments and sanctions. It does try and sort out how we will discern the nature of our disagreement, how important is it? How divisive does it have to be? Is it a Communion breaking issue that’s in question - or is it something we can learn to live with? And so in these sections of the covenant what we’re trying to do is simply to give a practical, sensible and Christian way of dealing with our conflicts, recognising that they’re always going to be there.

So what happens next? This Covenant is being sent to all the member Churches of the Anglican Communion. Each church will, within its own processes, decide how to handle it, and by the next meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in three years time we hope that many provinces will already have said yes to this and adopted it into their own understanding and identity. Clearly the process won’t all be over by then, but we’re hoping to see some enthusiasm, some general adoption of the principles. We hope to see a new kind of relationship emerging. We hope to see people agreeing to these ways of resolving our conflicts.

Beyond that, what’s going to happen? It’s hard to say as yet, but the Covenant text itself does make it clear that at some point it’ll be open to other bodies, other Ecclesial bodies as they’re called, other Churches and communities to adopt this Covenant, and be considered for incorporation into the Anglican Communion. Meanwhile, it’s open to anybody that wishes to affirm the principles of the Covenant - to say that this is what they wish to live with.

So in the next few years we expect to see quite a bit of activity around this. We hope, as I’ve said, that many provinces will feel able to adopt this. We hope that many other bodies will affirm the vision that’s set out here, and that in the long run this will actually help us to become more of a communion - more responsible for each other, presenting to the world a face of mutual understanding, patience, charity and gratitude for one another. In other words, we hope and pray that the Covenant for the Anglican Communion will be a truly effective tool for witness and mission in our world.

www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/004132.html

[stilger]

Hello,


For someone who is new to this church... What exactly is the goal of this Covenant, and what is the likelihood of all our churches signing on?

[angli_fan]

Dec 18, 2009 18:04:12 GMT -5 stilger said:

For someone who is new to this church... What exactly is the goal of this Covenant, and what is the likelihood of all our churches signing on?

Sorry for the delay in responding.

As I understand it(and my understanding of the covenant is definitely limited), its primary goal is to prevent future conflict within the Anglican Communion by stopping individual churches from making important changes without the approval of the whole organization(for example, ordaining openly homosexual clergy in the US, or allowing lay presidency at the Eucharist in Australia, or ordaining women priests in England; to cite recent examples). The Covenant will establish a central authority w/in the Communion, with the power to declare who is "in" and who is "out".

Since the Anglican Communion has never been anything more or less than a voluntary association of churches organizationally descended from the Church of England, this does not seem to me to be a very good idea.

As far as the likelihood of "all our churches signing on", I confess I have not studied the final document closely enough to hazard a guess. In my opinion, however, TEC is highly unlikely to sign on to anything that will give foreign prelates actual authority over our own church policy. The same will probably hold true for a number of other national churches.

Pax;

angli_fan

[stilger]

So then the goal of the covenant is to create a greater sense of unity within the Communion? So that people think of themselves as "Anglicans" first and members of the Church of England, Episcopalian, Church of Nigeria, etc second? While having the member Churches maintain the majority of their autonomy?

As an unbaptized congregant of the Church for all of four months I'm not sure I have the experience to comment with any credibility but I like the concept of the worldwide church showing a unified front.

That said the Church's stand on civil liberties is one of the reasons I am joining (The history and traditions, reasoned approach to theology, and beautiful liturgy being the others). The positions of our African brothers does somewhat frighten me. I don't think I would want to give them a say in anything having to do the Episcopal Church.

I attend St. Wilfrid's in the Diocese of Los Angeles, the cause of the current storm so to speak. The Rector last Sunday spent the sermon warning us the times were going to get harder for the Church before they get better. While I fully support Mary Glasspool, I find I like the idea of the Anglican Communion and would not like to see the Episcopal Church thrown out of it.

It's a complex issue, I hope they find a compromise that all sides can live with. I'd like to see some version of that Covenant signed.

Sorry for babbling.