"Informal conversation is the first resort, Route 1. If that fails, the next step is to consult the Archbishop of Canterbury. He then has a month either to resolve the problem by issuing pastoral guidance, or to refer it to three Assessors of his choice."

First presumption. That informal conversations are acknowledged to have occurred and to have been accurately and compassionately recorded.

Second presumption. That there are avenues of communication to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Those of us who have lived in "communication black holes" (that is, conversations never happened nor correspondence ever issued or received) will know that this proposed covenant would always have failed because they never could guarantee they could implement the process.

Any law or covenant is meaningless if there is neither the infrastructure nor the accountability to ensure its fair and reasonable implementation, and to hold to account any and all officers who would pervert the course of justice.

What lengths to go to, all because Gene Robinson was open enough to say, "I love Mark."

Its a huge mechanism to try to block and hold back honesty.

The Henrician approach of beheading all concerned is no longer available -- the only other option would be to embrace honesty. Embrace people, their faith stories and journies, and their

'faith green as aleaf.'

(RS Thomas)

This is precisely what the communion needs

See, Blair Mitchell, I believe the exact opposite. I believe the convenant represents the victory of fear over faith, of judgement over love, of intolerance over tolerance. In short, it shows to the world our failure as Christians. As I have said before, if we can't live by the simple precepts of the New Covenant given to us by God Himself, why do we think there is something better in a covenant of our own making? Is it that you feel God will abandon us if we disagree about certain things? Is it because you are uncomfortable with doubt? Is it because you need to see some sort of doctrinal purity? Is it because you feel some sort of lack of control? Is it because you are offended by people who believe differently than you? Why?

So it really doers come to keeping gays in the closet -- it won't work -- the Anglican Communion has been profoundly changed by honesty & no amount of centralization will ever make evil good or lies the truth.

It seems likely that by the time the WWAC decides how to expel churches (provinces), the ones who insisted on such a process will already be long gone in their own Anglican heritaged Global South Evangelical communion ("and no poofters!").

The short time lines for responses (which we must assume to mean responses desired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, precludes some provinces from deliberating the response through their normal polity. For example, a decision that might put this process into effect by the General Synod of the the Anglican Church of Canada, would not be "reconsidered" until the General Synod met in another three years. The response would have to come from the bishops, and the bishops would have to be prepared to step outside of the normal decision making process for the church. We should be uncomfortable that the process puts things into the hands of the bishops. From what I've seen there is much more reasoned reflection in the Consultative Council than there is in the either the Primates meeting or Lambeth, given the politics and egos that get flexed.

One's reaction to this would seem to be almost entirely driven by whether or not one believes the Anglican Communion worth holding together with something like its current membership.

If one thinks it is worth saving, then what one seeks is a compromise. Compromise is about saving face. The compromise in this document is this: conservatives get to say they are staying in because we now have a mechanism for disciplining wayward churches and liberals will stay in because they get a disciplinary mechanism so cumbersome that one cannot imagine it ever actually working.

Actually, I suspect the situation is, as I read elsewhere, that the crisis in the Anglican Communion is over because it seemed to be fueled by excitement in the media and that excitement is over. We are now old news.

No one cares except those of us who look forward to seeing if and how Akinola, Duncan, Minns, and their companions back away from the abyss.

BTW -- I was also going to mention the timing issue -- in TEC, the authority of the Metropolitan resides in the General Convention which meets every three years -- I suppose TEC would have to be expelled automatically if it could respond to an accusation in the time frame proposed. Assuming that those in authority would act sensibly won't wash -- if that were so, we wouldn't be talking about this!

Viewing our dilemma as concerning membership, we fall into the realignment traps already presuppositionally laid for us, and sharp teeth there indeed.

The controversy is as much about space or leeway as about membership, though con evo realignment folks do love to spin furiously on the unworthy membership thang - as if anybody were worthy of membership in Jesus mystically, really? Meanwhile, the main effect of realignment would be to narrow and eliminate the space for inquiry, particularly in difficult or unprecedented questions where a conservative Anglicanism had not already prepared a quick, pat, prefabricated faith answer. In this case: Queers back to the closets, or stay out of church life?

What else? Well, while we eliminate leeway for leisurely and complicated considerations of difficult questions - we rely on the YUCK factor - and church doctrines will have us all jumping back from handshakes with Yuck people like the queer folks, or women who ask too many surprise questions, or ...? What happened to worldwide Anglicanism; did IQ's sharply drop because of lead, mercury, or ODB's? When did our gospel get held hostage to this or that YUCK factor?

Interesting point about the lessening of hot button urgencies due to prolonged polarized high exposure. Some therapies use an exposure technique to help people deal with anxiety or those preformed knee-jerk fear behavior clusters we call phobias. In that light, we might maybe view our realignment campaign as an attempt to substitute a worldwide Anglican agoraphobia - Do not get caught (solemn juridical tones please) rubbing shoulders with queer folks, and other unsavories of modern life, like unchurched people who read too many books or journals - for the more limited and unsavory (and wimpy sounding, to con evo realignment ears?) admission, Right now we honestly are not all sure just what to think or feel or do about this hot button issue?

Naturally con evo realignment believers will likely always be first to make up their minds, since from all indicators so far in our campaign they do not sustain doubt, uncertainty, cognitive-emotional dissonance, or ambiguity too well, for too long? And such folks certainly are not coping well with the fact that they work with or live next door to, modern queer folks, or avid unchurched reading folks, or ...?

The Anglican Communion needs this appalling bit of quasi-curial crap like Paris Hilton needs more empty fame.

This Covenant is an outrageous blasphemy. It is nothing less that the triumph of law over grace.

This so-called Covenant, as re-written, is still simply unacceptable to many of us American Episcopalians.

JN

You comment that others have suggested "Actually, I suspect the situation is, as I read elsewhere, that the crisis in the Anglican Communion is over because it seemed to be fueled by excitement in the media and that excitement is over. We are now old news."

The souls that have been abusing and vilifying target groups would advocate such a position. They are the same sort who ride media storms about pedophilia cases from boarding schools, abuse of staff at theological colleges, or compensation for mistreatment of (potential) employees by a church body.

After the storm, they are then back in the business of aiding and abetting pedophiles, vilifying and inciting hatred to target groups, harassing and tormenting victims in their workplaces and parishes.

The death threats against Davis have not stopped. The slandering of "evil" souls and harassment attempts to remove such "infections" from parishes, local communities, schools and even (non-church) workplaces continues.

No, the crisis is not over. And it's biblical.

Amos 6:1-7 "Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria, you notable men of the foremost nation, to whom the people of Israel come! … You put off the evil day and bring near a reign of terror. You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves. You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments. You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph. Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end."

Zephaniah 1:2 "At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent, who are like wine left on its dregs, who think, ‘The LORD will do nothing, either good or bad.’"

See also Isaiah 30:11-22 or Proverbs 1:29-33 "Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD, since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.”"

My sole hope for GOOD coming out of this, is that in putting down on paper the (appalling) alternative, this process is actually creater greater APPRECIATION for the defacto (dejure, only to the point of The Quad and the ACC Constitution) system that's served us so well for so long!

What precisely makes this covenant idea something we need? What makes it necessary to have a double-standard for full communion: one set of standards for Anglicans amongst themselves and one set (the Quadrilateral) for all other Christian churches with which individual provinces enter into full communion?

Is it the assumption that all who are in communion with Canterbury are automatically in full communion with each other? We've long since been told by Nigeria and others that this is no longer the case anyway, and, apparently, the only way it would be again is if all Anglican Communion provinces did whatever Nigeria said as regards sexual ethics. So the underlying assumption of automatic, full communion amongst Anglicans in the Communion is out anyway, and effectively imposing the will of some on all - whether by covenant or other means - is just not the way to fix things.

If we have to renegotiate how Anglican provinces in communion with Canterbury enter into and maintain full communion with each other, let's just do that and get beyond all this nonsense. This in-or-out, with-us-or-against-us business as regards the Anglican Communion is just unnecessary and distracting.

Ford Elms:

Two thousand years of Christianity demonstrate the truth that Christians cannot abide by the faith alone.

Why should a mechanism that can identify and coalesce human dispute, distill it and channel it towards resolution, threaten a true faith?

"Why should a mechanism that can identify and coalesce human dispute, distill it and channel it towards resolution, threaten a true faith?"

Because it will not be such a mechanism. Our Church has traditionally had numerous different groups, the differences between which have been so great as to make it appear we have many different "Anglicanisms". We Anglo-catholics don't have much in common with the Evangelicals, after all. Yet we have stayed together. Indeed, many of us didn't even realize till recently that there was all that much difference between us. This "mechanism" will merely allow one group, the loudest and most strident, which just now happens to be the Evangelicals, to force their will on everybody else. In a century, it may well be the Anglo-catholics who have the upper hand again, and then they'll (?we'll?) be the ones to enforce our will. This is just a quest for some kind of doctrinal purity, some concrete way people can prove that everyone is obeying the Law. But the Gospel isn't about obedience to Laws of any kind. Why is some sort of officially prescribed doctrinal purity a good thing?

"a mechanism that can identify and coalesce human dispute, distill it and channel it towards resolution"

If only the Covenant Design Group had provided us with such a document.

Instead, they gave us this billy club for the faux orthodox to drive all dissenters from the Communion - which was what they wanted all along.

Although it pains me, I have written out my own Covenant for the Anglican Communion, in a way that makes it clear than a Church outside the Covenant is not outside the Anglican Communion, though there is a process to remove a Church or remove itself.

I'm not sure that even this would be acceptable and it wouldn't do anything beyond what a good conversation would do.

http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/02/covenant-for-anglican-communion.html