January 17, 2010
On July 24, 2008 I posted a piece on the authorship of the Serenity Prayer in which the distinguished Yale law Librarian Fred R. Shapiro questioned the common attribution of the Serenity Prayer to Reinhold Niebuhr. This is especially important in light of the fact that he is also editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. A subsequent conversation on the internet led someone to a 1936 Christian Student Newsletter attributing an almost identical prayer to Niebuhr. Shapiro, while not fully persuaded, altered his view and alerted the New York Times which had published his original findings. They eventually put a teaser on the front page and buried the kind-of, sort-of retraction (which is why I probably did not see it.)
Shapiro has set the record straight in the Yale Alumni Magazine (January/February 2010 p.58) and said “I will list the Serenity Prayer under Niebuhr’s name in the next edition of the Yale Book of Quotations.”
It’s still a great prayer. Just setting the record straight.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Violent Days
January 17, 2010
Wolf Hall, the Man-Booker prize winning novel of last year by Hilary Mantel, tells the story of Thomas Cromwell during Henry VIII’s first divorce and refusal to be subject to the Pope. One of the effects reading the book had on me was that I started taking violence for granted. Life was not cheap exactly, but death by illness, childbirth or execution was a close reality for most people of the day.
The reality of violence is confirmed again and again in Reformation history. Anyone who wanted to play a role (or who found themselves playing a role) in the affairs of state was vulnerable to imprisonment or burning at the stake depending on the whims of the day. Hilary Mantel, does a wonderful job with the bizarre footnote to history of the tale of the ‘Maid of Kent’, a strange and disturbed woman who seemed determined to ensure her own death at some level. The story is also told in MacCulloch’s biography of Thomas Cranmer and we get a sense of how he was constantly maneuvering between his own instincts to compassion and the demands of his position as he sought to satisfy Henry’s desires while keeping faith with both traditional religion and the winds of reform which enlivened him.
Cranmer was to die under Mary’s counter-reformation, the story of which has been told in Eamon Duffy’s Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor (Yale, 2009). Duffy argues, in effect, that Mary’s policy of burning reformers who would not recant was carefully managed to turn the behavior of the English back to traditional and Catholic religion, and further that it was working in the way it was meant to. Duffy is a revisionist historian in that he ahs reminded us of the coherence that many found in traditional religion including praying to the saints, the appreciation of relics and so on, --all targets of the reformers—were deeply engrained in the life and rhythms of most English. He captured this beautifully with his story of a parish priest in Morebath, Devon called Sir Christopher Trychay. The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village (Yale, 2001) won the Hawthornden Prize in 2002 and is the story of a parish priest who resisted the changes sought be one monarch after another as practices that were art one point illegal and the next moment encouraged by the powers that were affected his village. I am not as excited by the underlying argument that people really loves their traditional religion. My intuition is that like most English even today, just getting on with life is what is important and the winds of theological fashion are not terribly interesting unless they can make news or otherwise have some real effect on our life. Duffy is fascinating in The Stripping of the Atlars (Yale, 1999) about what can be learned from wills of the day. The decline in leaving money for masses to be prayed for the dead was more a loss of confidence than loss of desire on the part of the rich it seems.
All in all these were bloody and brutal days. I’m glad that we don’t have recourse to such sanctions in the debates of today.
January 17, 2010
Wolf Hall, the Man-Booker prize winning novel of last year by Hilary Mantel, tells the story of Thomas Cromwell during Henry VIII’s first divorce and refusal to be subject to the Pope. One of the effects reading the book had on me was that I started taking violence for granted. Life was not cheap exactly, but death by illness, childbirth or execution was a close reality for most people of the day.
The reality of violence is confirmed again and again in Reformation history. Anyone who wanted to play a role (or who found themselves playing a role) in the affairs of state was vulnerable to imprisonment or burning at the stake depending on the whims of the day. Hilary Mantel, does a wonderful job with the bizarre footnote to history of the tale of the ‘Maid of Kent’, a strange and disturbed woman who seemed determined to ensure her own death at some level. The story is also told in MacCulloch’s biography of Thomas Cranmer and we get a sense of how he was constantly maneuvering between his own instincts to compassion and the demands of his position as he sought to satisfy Henry’s desires while keeping faith with both traditional religion and the winds of reform which enlivened him.
Cranmer was to die under Mary’s counter-reformation, the story of which has been told in Eamon Duffy’s Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor (Yale, 2009). Duffy argues, in effect, that Mary’s policy of burning reformers who would not recant was carefully managed to turn the behavior of the English back to traditional and Catholic religion, and further that it was working in the way it was meant to. Duffy is a revisionist historian in that he ahs reminded us of the coherence that many found in traditional religion including praying to the saints, the appreciation of relics and so on, --all targets of the reformers—were deeply engrained in the life and rhythms of most English. He captured this beautifully with his story of a parish priest in Morebath, Devon called Sir Christopher Trychay. The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village (Yale, 2001) won the Hawthornden Prize in 2002 and is the story of a parish priest who resisted the changes sought be one monarch after another as practices that were art one point illegal and the next moment encouraged by the powers that were affected his village. I am not as excited by the underlying argument that people really loves their traditional religion. My intuition is that like most English even today, just getting on with life is what is important and the winds of theological fashion are not terribly interesting unless they can make news or otherwise have some real effect on our life. Duffy is fascinating in The Stripping of the Atlars (Yale, 1999) about what can be learned from wills of the day. The decline in leaving money for masses to be prayed for the dead was more a loss of confidence than loss of desire on the part of the rich it seems.
All in all these were bloody and brutal days. I’m glad that we don’t have recourse to such sanctions in the debates of today.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Clerical Beards
January 14, 2010
I was talking about beards with a friend recently and shared that I had one for most of my allegedly adult life until 1993. I told him that I had always sworn that I would shave it off when I was old enough to be taken seriously without it. Without missing a beat, he told me that I had better hurry and grow it back. To go bearded or not is of no real consequence today but Diarmaid MacCulloch in his encyclopedic biography of Thomas Cranmer (Yale, 1996) shares that clerical beards were areal statement during the English Reformation. Early portraits of Cranmer show him clean-shaven in what some saw as the ‘traditional’ style. With the death of Henry VIII, Cranmer began to grow his beard and grow it long in the style of the evangelicals or the reformers. Later Bishop Hooper would make it a condition of his accepting the See of Gloucester that he not have to shave off his long beard. It was a party statement rather as a Roman collar is for some clerics today, or a blue cassock in days gone by.
As I think about it I suppose there is still some sense in which a beard might suggest something of the ‘counter–culture’ about the man who sports one. What the work of Eamon Duffy makes clear in his recasting of the way in which we tell the story of the English Reformation is that there is no really straight line from Rome to Reform and that much of what we know has the ‘spin’ of history along with it rather in the way in which Kings and Chronicles cover much the same ground from differing perspectives or the Deuteronomist differs with traditional views about the establishment of the Monarchy for Israel. Some of our current Anglican conflicts are a continuing consequence of English willingness to ‘muddle through’ rather than determine decisively whether to be Catholic or Reformed. Much of the battle in North America about who are the true bearers of the Anglican ‘brand’ is being fought as a public relations issue with theology as the excuse. I wonder which side should be sporting the beards.
I was talking about beards with a friend recently and shared that I had one for most of my allegedly adult life until 1993. I told him that I had always sworn that I would shave it off when I was old enough to be taken seriously without it. Without missing a beat, he told me that I had better hurry and grow it back. To go bearded or not is of no real consequence today but Diarmaid MacCulloch in his encyclopedic biography of Thomas Cranmer (Yale, 1996) shares that clerical beards were areal statement during the English Reformation. Early portraits of Cranmer show him clean-shaven in what some saw as the ‘traditional’ style. With the death of Henry VIII, Cranmer began to grow his beard and grow it long in the style of the evangelicals or the reformers. Later Bishop Hooper would make it a condition of his accepting the See of Gloucester that he not have to shave off his long beard. It was a party statement rather as a Roman collar is for some clerics today, or a blue cassock in days gone by.
As I think about it I suppose there is still some sense in which a beard might suggest something of the ‘counter–culture’ about the man who sports one. What the work of Eamon Duffy makes clear in his recasting of the way in which we tell the story of the English Reformation is that there is no really straight line from Rome to Reform and that much of what we know has the ‘spin’ of history along with it rather in the way in which Kings and Chronicles cover much the same ground from differing perspectives or the Deuteronomist differs with traditional views about the establishment of the Monarchy for Israel. Some of our current Anglican conflicts are a continuing consequence of English willingness to ‘muddle through’ rather than determine decisively whether to be Catholic or Reformed. Much of the battle in North America about who are the true bearers of the Anglican ‘brand’ is being fought as a public relations issue with theology as the excuse. I wonder which side should be sporting the beards.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Reformation and Covenant
January 12, 2010
I’ve started using the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion as the starting point for a series of talks in our GIFT (Growing In Faith Together) program. One thought that has persisted as I have been reading in preparation for that series is that Anglican statements or formularies were offered as needed as is the case with the six articles, the ten articles, the Bishops’ Book, the forty two articles and so on. They were doctrinal statements designed to articulate the beliefs of the English Church as they navigated between the twin shoals of Reform, both Lutheran and Swiss, on one hand and the Papacy and the Romish beleifs and claims to power with the traditional religious practice which supported it. At best these formularies were intended to be as inclusive of as many English Christians as possible. In this sense the proposed Anglican Covenant could be seen as one more effort, called for by the tensions of the times, to articulate some common understandings and be a basis for some kind of discipline well within Anglican Tradition and History.
The problems I have with it are not the effort or the idea that the proposed ‘agreement’ is not ‘Anglican’. First, it does not address the tensions in belief but is more juridical about how to deal with those tensions. In this sense it is set to function more as English law did during the reformation rather than as the Articles of Religion functioned. Certainly there were various laws that enforced a kind of discipline around the articles. All clergy were obligated to subscribe to them, for example. But while the articles were a basis for ecclesiastic discipline, they were not the means of that discipline. The Covenant is trying to address serious issues of belief about homosexuality on one hand. (Is it sinful practice by definition? Or is there such a thing as homosexual orientation that is fundamental and to be accepted as such?) On the other hand there are questions about the role and purpose of scripture within Anglicanism and whether such novelties as the idea that there is such a thing as a homosexual person (rather than a person committing immoral acts) are ‘contrary to the plain meaning of scripture’. The Articles would have addressed such thorny issues. The Covenant tries to find a way to stay together without taking such issues head on.
And that is my second objection to the current proposals. They are, without addressing the underlying issues trying to rule such discussions ‘out of order’ without really addressing the cultural, intellectual and imaginative worlds that are inhabited in differing ways in differing places throughout Anglicanism. (A non binding vote by Bishops all gathered in one place as the basis for what is becoming something that seems to have the level of Anglican Doctrine seems to be a pretty flimsy basis for either persuasive conversation or a move toward a more doctrine centered discipline for a communion that is increasingly referred to as a ‘Church’ in semi official pronouncements. That, in effect, is trying to offer a specifically English legal solution to an international and relational problem.
I’ve started using the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion as the starting point for a series of talks in our GIFT (Growing In Faith Together) program. One thought that has persisted as I have been reading in preparation for that series is that Anglican statements or formularies were offered as needed as is the case with the six articles, the ten articles, the Bishops’ Book, the forty two articles and so on. They were doctrinal statements designed to articulate the beliefs of the English Church as they navigated between the twin shoals of Reform, both Lutheran and Swiss, on one hand and the Papacy and the Romish beleifs and claims to power with the traditional religious practice which supported it. At best these formularies were intended to be as inclusive of as many English Christians as possible. In this sense the proposed Anglican Covenant could be seen as one more effort, called for by the tensions of the times, to articulate some common understandings and be a basis for some kind of discipline well within Anglican Tradition and History.
The problems I have with it are not the effort or the idea that the proposed ‘agreement’ is not ‘Anglican’. First, it does not address the tensions in belief but is more juridical about how to deal with those tensions. In this sense it is set to function more as English law did during the reformation rather than as the Articles of Religion functioned. Certainly there were various laws that enforced a kind of discipline around the articles. All clergy were obligated to subscribe to them, for example. But while the articles were a basis for ecclesiastic discipline, they were not the means of that discipline. The Covenant is trying to address serious issues of belief about homosexuality on one hand. (Is it sinful practice by definition? Or is there such a thing as homosexual orientation that is fundamental and to be accepted as such?) On the other hand there are questions about the role and purpose of scripture within Anglicanism and whether such novelties as the idea that there is such a thing as a homosexual person (rather than a person committing immoral acts) are ‘contrary to the plain meaning of scripture’. The Articles would have addressed such thorny issues. The Covenant tries to find a way to stay together without taking such issues head on.
And that is my second objection to the current proposals. They are, without addressing the underlying issues trying to rule such discussions ‘out of order’ without really addressing the cultural, intellectual and imaginative worlds that are inhabited in differing ways in differing places throughout Anglicanism. (A non binding vote by Bishops all gathered in one place as the basis for what is becoming something that seems to have the level of Anglican Doctrine seems to be a pretty flimsy basis for either persuasive conversation or a move toward a more doctrine centered discipline for a communion that is increasingly referred to as a ‘Church’ in semi official pronouncements. That, in effect, is trying to offer a specifically English legal solution to an international and relational problem.
Friday, January 8, 2010
House Church
January 8, 2010
Lisa Miller writes in Newsweek (January 11, 2010 p.31) about research by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life saying that 7% of Americans “attend worship in someone’s home”. While it is clear that there is no single model that constitutes a ‘house church’ or that leads people to say that they “worship on someone’s home” 7% of Americans represent a significant move away from institutional religion. One of the experts Ms. Miller consults is Robert Putnam of the Harvard Kennedy School. He sees this in terms of the smart marketing of religion in a world where ‘one size fits all’ has no appeal.
I’m of two minds about this trend. On one hand it makes perfect sense to me. I have been wondering whether the national decline across denominations and theologies in Sunday or weekend ‘average Sunday attendance (ASA) is more permanent than temporary and whether a variety of worshipping communities within a parish might not be more clearly important in the future than it has been up until now. This is an extension of ‘small or covenant group ministries in which those covenant groups become more self consciously ‘church’ for their participants. It is within such a vision that I could live with the currently controversial idea of ‘lay presidency of at the Eucharist’. Regular or even occasional Sunday worship would become more a ‘gathering of the clans’ within a parish or perhaps region (rather in the way that multi parish ‘benefices’ in England will offer worship for the whole benefice in one service on an occasional basis.)
What makes me less enthusiastic however is the idea that such churches can easily become closed and comfortable, attracting only the like-minded and so achieving a measure of unity over against others. As much as I dislike and even resist the idea of the ‘Anglican Covenant’ as it is currently being proposed, I am not necessarily against the idea of some clarity of understanding as to how we might negotiate changes in religious practice and the power structures that go along with particular sets of practice without the bloodshed (metaphorical or otherwise) of the English Reformation. I’m not opposed to coming to some kind of ‘settlement’ that includes as many people as possible. I resist the current proposals because they have come about in response to TEC consecrating on openly gay bishop living with a partner, and are designed (whatever anyone claims) to ensure some kind of future for Anglicanism in which the possibility of recognizing gay and lesbian people as full member so the church (which means recognizing the reality of the idea of ‘orientation’) is ruled out as the price of unity. Current proposals are an attempt (which may well succeed) to re-write the rules after the fact and to try and get the toothpaste back in the tube. I am not opposed in principle to some ways in which groups small (house churches) or large (independent provinces of the Anglican Communion) commit to living by some common standards.
Lisa Miller writes in Newsweek (January 11, 2010 p.31) about research by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life saying that 7% of Americans “attend worship in someone’s home”. While it is clear that there is no single model that constitutes a ‘house church’ or that leads people to say that they “worship on someone’s home” 7% of Americans represent a significant move away from institutional religion. One of the experts Ms. Miller consults is Robert Putnam of the Harvard Kennedy School. He sees this in terms of the smart marketing of religion in a world where ‘one size fits all’ has no appeal.
I’m of two minds about this trend. On one hand it makes perfect sense to me. I have been wondering whether the national decline across denominations and theologies in Sunday or weekend ‘average Sunday attendance (ASA) is more permanent than temporary and whether a variety of worshipping communities within a parish might not be more clearly important in the future than it has been up until now. This is an extension of ‘small or covenant group ministries in which those covenant groups become more self consciously ‘church’ for their participants. It is within such a vision that I could live with the currently controversial idea of ‘lay presidency of at the Eucharist’. Regular or even occasional Sunday worship would become more a ‘gathering of the clans’ within a parish or perhaps region (rather in the way that multi parish ‘benefices’ in England will offer worship for the whole benefice in one service on an occasional basis.)
What makes me less enthusiastic however is the idea that such churches can easily become closed and comfortable, attracting only the like-minded and so achieving a measure of unity over against others. As much as I dislike and even resist the idea of the ‘Anglican Covenant’ as it is currently being proposed, I am not necessarily against the idea of some clarity of understanding as to how we might negotiate changes in religious practice and the power structures that go along with particular sets of practice without the bloodshed (metaphorical or otherwise) of the English Reformation. I’m not opposed to coming to some kind of ‘settlement’ that includes as many people as possible. I resist the current proposals because they have come about in response to TEC consecrating on openly gay bishop living with a partner, and are designed (whatever anyone claims) to ensure some kind of future for Anglicanism in which the possibility of recognizing gay and lesbian people as full member so the church (which means recognizing the reality of the idea of ‘orientation’) is ruled out as the price of unity. Current proposals are an attempt (which may well succeed) to re-write the rules after the fact and to try and get the toothpaste back in the tube. I am not opposed in principle to some ways in which groups small (house churches) or large (independent provinces of the Anglican Communion) commit to living by some common standards.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Reform and Renewal
January 5, 2010
A book club selection called Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, winner of the 2009 Man-Booker Prize, has sent me back to reading histories of the English Reformation. Over Christmas I have taken in Diarmaid MacCulloch’s masterful biography of Thomas Cranmer, and Eamon Duffy’s paradigm shifting work called Stripping of the Altars, along with his ‘follow up’ books, The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village and Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor.
All of these offerings could be described as ‘revisionist’ in one way or another. Mantel makes a hero of Thomas Cromwell over against the ‘man for all seasons’, Thomas More, as Henry VIII sought his first divorce in hopes of a male heir. MacCulloch offers a positive assessment of Cranmer, sometimes criticized for expedience over principle, casting him more as (to use the terminology currently in vogue but not in the book) an ‘ethical pragmatist’. Duffy shows that the religion of Catholic England was quite vibrant and remained so throughout the period of reformation is spite of the reformers and then Marian, and then Elizabethan changes in policy.
I’ll have more to say about these books in future posts but for now, I am struck by how fundamentally messy was the English Reformation and how the same tensions and issues of power and control seem to be afflicting Anglicans today. I plan to use the Thirty Nine Articles as an expression of the Elizabethan Settlement and as the basis for some wide ranging reflections on Reform and Renewal in GIFT presentations through the spring.
A book club selection called Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, winner of the 2009 Man-Booker Prize, has sent me back to reading histories of the English Reformation. Over Christmas I have taken in Diarmaid MacCulloch’s masterful biography of Thomas Cranmer, and Eamon Duffy’s paradigm shifting work called Stripping of the Altars, along with his ‘follow up’ books, The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village and Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor.
All of these offerings could be described as ‘revisionist’ in one way or another. Mantel makes a hero of Thomas Cromwell over against the ‘man for all seasons’, Thomas More, as Henry VIII sought his first divorce in hopes of a male heir. MacCulloch offers a positive assessment of Cranmer, sometimes criticized for expedience over principle, casting him more as (to use the terminology currently in vogue but not in the book) an ‘ethical pragmatist’. Duffy shows that the religion of Catholic England was quite vibrant and remained so throughout the period of reformation is spite of the reformers and then Marian, and then Elizabethan changes in policy.
I’ll have more to say about these books in future posts but for now, I am struck by how fundamentally messy was the English Reformation and how the same tensions and issues of power and control seem to be afflicting Anglicans today. I plan to use the Thirty Nine Articles as an expression of the Elizabethan Settlement and as the basis for some wide ranging reflections on Reform and Renewal in GIFT presentations through the spring.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
The Anglican Covenant
December 23, 2009
So we have our Christmas present from the Archbishop of Canterbury: a revised fourth section of the proposed Anglican Covenant. Here is what Rowan Williams has to say about it:
"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 last bit of the Covenant text is the one that's 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."
And here is what it actually says:
Section Four: Our Covenanted Life Together
4. Each Church affirms the following principles and procedures, and, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself to their implementation.
4.1 Adoption of the Covenant
(4.1.1) Each Church adopting this Covenant affirms that it enters into the Covenant as a commitment to relationship in submission to God. Each Church freely offers this commitment to other Churches in order to live more fully into the ecclesial communion and interdependence which is foundational to the Churches of the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion is a fellowship, within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, of national or regional Churches, in which each recognises in the others the bonds of a common loyalty to Christ expressed through a common faith and order, a shared inheritance in worship, life and mission, and a readiness to live in an interdependent life.
(4.1.2) In adopting the Covenant for itself, each Church recognises in the preceding sections a statement of faith, mission and interdependence of life which is consistent with its own life and with the doctrine and practice of the Christian faith as it has received them. It recognises these elements as foundational for the life of the Anglican Communion and therefore for the relationships among the covenanting Churches.
(4.1.3) Such mutual commitment does not represent submission to any external ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Nothing in this Covenant of itself shall be deemed to alter any provision of the Constitution and Canons of any Church of the Communion, or to limit its autonomy of governance. The Covenant does not grant to any one Church or any agency of the Communion control or direction over any Church of the Anglican Communion.
(4.1.4) Every Church of the Anglican Communion, as recognised in accordance with the Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council, is invited to enter into this Covenant according to its own constitutional procedures.
(4.1.5) The Instruments of Communion may invite other Churches to adopt the Covenant using the same procedures as set out by the Anglican Consultative Council for the amendment of its schedule of membership. Adoption of this Covenant does not confer any right of recognition by, or membership of, the Instruments of Communion, which shall be decided by those Instruments themselves.
(4.1.6) This Covenant becomes active for a Church when that Church adopts the Covenant through the procedures of its own Constitution and Canons.
4.2 The Maintenance of the Covenant and Dispute Resolution
(4.2.1) The Covenant operates to express the common commitments and mutual accountability which hold each Church in the relationship of communion one with another. Recognition of, and fidelity to, this Covenant, enable mutual recognition and communion. Participation in the Covenant implies a recognition by each Church of those elements which must be maintained in its own life and for which it is accountable to the Churches with which it is in Communion in order to sustain the relationship expressed in this Covenant.
(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.
(4.2.3) When questions arise relating to the meaning of the Covenant, or about the compatibility of an action by a covenanting Church with the Covenant, it is the duty of each covenanting Church to seek to live out the commitments of Section 3.2. Such questions may be raised by a Church itself, another covenanting Church or the Instruments of Communion.
(4.2.4) Where a shared mind has not been reached the matter shall be referred to the Standing Committee. The Standing Committee shall make every effort to facilitate agreement, and may take advice from such bodies as it deems appropriate to determine a view on the nature of the matter at question and those relational consequences which may result. Where appropriate, the Standing Committee shall refer the question to both the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting for advice.
(4.2.5) The Standing Committee may request a Church to defer a controversial action. If a Church declines to defer such action, the Standing Committee may recommend to any Instrument of Communion 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.
(4.2.6) On the basis of advice received from the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting, the Standing Committee may make a declaration that an action or decision is or would be “incompatible with the Covenant”.
(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.
(4.2.8) Participation in the decision making of the Standing Committee or of the Instruments of Communion in respect to section 4.2 shall be limited to those members of the Instruments of Communion who are representatives of those churches who have adopted the Covenant, or who are still in the process of adoption.
(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.
4.3 Withdrawing from the Covenant
(4.3.1) Any covenanting Church may decide to withdraw from the Covenant. Although such withdrawal does not imply an automatic withdrawal from the Instruments of Communion or a repudiation of its Anglican character, it may raise a question relating to the meaning of the Covenant, and of compatibility with the principles incorporated within it, and trigger the provisions set out in section 4.2 above.
4.4 The Covenant Text and its amendment
(4.4.1) The Covenant consists of the text set out in this document in the Preamble, Sections One to Four and the Declaration. The Introduction to the Covenant Text, which shall always be annexed to the Covenant text, is not part of the Covenant, but shall be accorded authority in understanding the purpose of the Covenant.
(4.4.2) Any covenanting Church or Instrument of Communion may submit a proposal to amend the Covenant to the Instruments of Communion through the Standing Committee. The Standing Committee shall send the proposal to the Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates’ Meeting, the covenanting Churches and any other body as it may consider appropriate for advice. The Standing Committee shall make a recommendation on the proposal in the light of advice offered, and submit the proposal with any revisions to the covenanting Churches. The amendment is operative when ratified by three quarters of such Churches. The Standing Committee shall adopt a procedure for promulgation of the amendment.
Things to note.
Check out 4.1.5. This will allow groups such as the breakaway North American Province to sign the covenant and seek recognition by ‘the instruments of unity’.
There is every likelihood that the Covenant reception process will prove quite divisive, but it will be difficult to make it go away even if a majority of provinces want it to.
4.2.2 ‘The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, accountable to the ACC and the Primates Meeting’ becomes a powerful body rather than a servant of the larger groups. They can declare actions taken by provinces as “incompatible with the covenant”.
I suspect that this whole effort will exacerbate division in the communion, not only between provinces (and other ‘groups’) that sign over against those that don’t, but within provinces between those who think this is a good thing and those who do not. It is clear that the Standing Committee would ask us to ‘exercise gracious restraint’ with regard to consecrating any openly gay bishops (until when..?) I wonder if they would also challenge the bishops of Uganda regarding their support for the idea that homosexuality is a learned behavior which should be discouraged through draconian punishment. Does that strain the ‘bonds of affection’ enough to be a communion breaking action?
So we have our Christmas present from the Archbishop of Canterbury: a revised fourth section of the proposed Anglican Covenant. Here is what Rowan Williams has to say about it:
"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 last bit of the Covenant text is the one that's 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."
And here is what it actually says:
Section Four: Our Covenanted Life Together
4. Each Church affirms the following principles and procedures, and, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself to their implementation.
4.1 Adoption of the Covenant
(4.1.1) Each Church adopting this Covenant affirms that it enters into the Covenant as a commitment to relationship in submission to God. Each Church freely offers this commitment to other Churches in order to live more fully into the ecclesial communion and interdependence which is foundational to the Churches of the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion is a fellowship, within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, of national or regional Churches, in which each recognises in the others the bonds of a common loyalty to Christ expressed through a common faith and order, a shared inheritance in worship, life and mission, and a readiness to live in an interdependent life.
(4.1.2) In adopting the Covenant for itself, each Church recognises in the preceding sections a statement of faith, mission and interdependence of life which is consistent with its own life and with the doctrine and practice of the Christian faith as it has received them. It recognises these elements as foundational for the life of the Anglican Communion and therefore for the relationships among the covenanting Churches.
(4.1.3) Such mutual commitment does not represent submission to any external ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Nothing in this Covenant of itself shall be deemed to alter any provision of the Constitution and Canons of any Church of the Communion, or to limit its autonomy of governance. The Covenant does not grant to any one Church or any agency of the Communion control or direction over any Church of the Anglican Communion.
(4.1.4) Every Church of the Anglican Communion, as recognised in accordance with the Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council, is invited to enter into this Covenant according to its own constitutional procedures.
(4.1.5) The Instruments of Communion may invite other Churches to adopt the Covenant using the same procedures as set out by the Anglican Consultative Council for the amendment of its schedule of membership. Adoption of this Covenant does not confer any right of recognition by, or membership of, the Instruments of Communion, which shall be decided by those Instruments themselves.
(4.1.6) This Covenant becomes active for a Church when that Church adopts the Covenant through the procedures of its own Constitution and Canons.
4.2 The Maintenance of the Covenant and Dispute Resolution
(4.2.1) The Covenant operates to express the common commitments and mutual accountability which hold each Church in the relationship of communion one with another. Recognition of, and fidelity to, this Covenant, enable mutual recognition and communion. Participation in the Covenant implies a recognition by each Church of those elements which must be maintained in its own life and for which it is accountable to the Churches with which it is in Communion in order to sustain the relationship expressed in this Covenant.
(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.
(4.2.3) When questions arise relating to the meaning of the Covenant, or about the compatibility of an action by a covenanting Church with the Covenant, it is the duty of each covenanting Church to seek to live out the commitments of Section 3.2. Such questions may be raised by a Church itself, another covenanting Church or the Instruments of Communion.
(4.2.4) Where a shared mind has not been reached the matter shall be referred to the Standing Committee. The Standing Committee shall make every effort to facilitate agreement, and may take advice from such bodies as it deems appropriate to determine a view on the nature of the matter at question and those relational consequences which may result. Where appropriate, the Standing Committee shall refer the question to both the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting for advice.
(4.2.5) The Standing Committee may request a Church to defer a controversial action. If a Church declines to defer such action, the Standing Committee may recommend to any Instrument of Communion 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.
(4.2.6) On the basis of advice received from the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting, the Standing Committee may make a declaration that an action or decision is or would be “incompatible with the Covenant”.
(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.
(4.2.8) Participation in the decision making of the Standing Committee or of the Instruments of Communion in respect to section 4.2 shall be limited to those members of the Instruments of Communion who are representatives of those churches who have adopted the Covenant, or who are still in the process of adoption.
(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.
4.3 Withdrawing from the Covenant
(4.3.1) Any covenanting Church may decide to withdraw from the Covenant. Although such withdrawal does not imply an automatic withdrawal from the Instruments of Communion or a repudiation of its Anglican character, it may raise a question relating to the meaning of the Covenant, and of compatibility with the principles incorporated within it, and trigger the provisions set out in section 4.2 above.
4.4 The Covenant Text and its amendment
(4.4.1) The Covenant consists of the text set out in this document in the Preamble, Sections One to Four and the Declaration. The Introduction to the Covenant Text, which shall always be annexed to the Covenant text, is not part of the Covenant, but shall be accorded authority in understanding the purpose of the Covenant.
(4.4.2) Any covenanting Church or Instrument of Communion may submit a proposal to amend the Covenant to the Instruments of Communion through the Standing Committee. The Standing Committee shall send the proposal to the Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates’ Meeting, the covenanting Churches and any other body as it may consider appropriate for advice. The Standing Committee shall make a recommendation on the proposal in the light of advice offered, and submit the proposal with any revisions to the covenanting Churches. The amendment is operative when ratified by three quarters of such Churches. The Standing Committee shall adopt a procedure for promulgation of the amendment.
Things to note.
Check out 4.1.5. This will allow groups such as the breakaway North American Province to sign the covenant and seek recognition by ‘the instruments of unity’.
There is every likelihood that the Covenant reception process will prove quite divisive, but it will be difficult to make it go away even if a majority of provinces want it to.
4.2.2 ‘The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, accountable to the ACC and the Primates Meeting’ becomes a powerful body rather than a servant of the larger groups. They can declare actions taken by provinces as “incompatible with the covenant”.
I suspect that this whole effort will exacerbate division in the communion, not only between provinces (and other ‘groups’) that sign over against those that don’t, but within provinces between those who think this is a good thing and those who do not. It is clear that the Standing Committee would ask us to ‘exercise gracious restraint’ with regard to consecrating any openly gay bishops (until when..?) I wonder if they would also challenge the bishops of Uganda regarding their support for the idea that homosexuality is a learned behavior which should be discouraged through draconian punishment. Does that strain the ‘bonds of affection’ enough to be a communion breaking action?
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