As noted in the preceding item, the Church Times has reported that the Covenant is to be used as litmus test of Anglicanism.
Now, the Daily Episcopalian asks a related question, The Anglican Covenant: Dar by other means?
Jim Naughton writes:
Is it possible that proposed Anglican Covenant is a means of achieving a modified version of the Dar es Salaam settlement proposed by the Primates of the Anglican Communion in 2007?
The communiqué released after that meeting proposed a “pastoral scheme”, which created a church within a church led by almost exactly the same bishops who signed the factually challenged document on diocesan autonomy released yesterday by the Anglican Communion Institute.
The ACI, with Fulcrum in the United Kingdom, were influential in creating the pastoral scheme and articulating the Camp Allen principles that were also endorsed by the Primates. The Dar settlement was almost unanimously rejected by the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops, (which, as Sally Johnson chancellor to Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Deputies, has demonstrated, did not have the constitutional authority to affirm it.) Despite its rejection, the leaders of the ACI continued to press for its provisions to be imposed on the Episcopal Church, even though the Dar settlement makes no provisions for this eventuality, and the Primates Meeting lacks the authority to force settlements on member Churches…
The Church Times reported:
Posted by Simon Sarmiento on Friday, 24 April 2009 at 9:21am BST | TrackBack…The Anglican Partner bishops have declared themselves to be loyal to the Episcopal Church and to the Anglican Communion. Their move can be seen as an alternative path to that taken by the Common Cause Anglicans in the United States, who last year established the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) under the deposed Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Rt Revd Bob Duncan.
None the less, their latest move to use the Covenant as a test of orthodoxy parallels moves by the ACNA last week. The Covenant has been criticised by conservatives in the past, and the first version of a communiqué issued by the GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) Primates in London last week appeared to be sceptical about the latest draft of the Covenant (the “Ridley draft”, News, 17 April): “While we support the concept of an Anglican Covenant . . . if those who have left the standards of the Bible are able to enter the Covenant with a good conscience, it seems to be of little use.”
This was later changed to: “We welcome the Ridley Cambridge Draft Covenant and call for principled response from the provinces.”
Interviewed at Heathrow on Thursday of last week, Bishop Duncan said that the Covenant would be debated at the ACNA provincial assembly in June. “We imagine that, while we as the Anglican Church in North Ameri-can ratify the Covenant, neither the US Church, when it meets three weeks later, nor the Church of Canada, when it has its next general synod, will be in any hurry to ratify it. The question will be for the Communion: ‘Who actually are the partners?’”
if those who have left the standards of the Bible are able to enter the Covenant with a good conscience, it seems to be of little use
I'm not surprised that line was changed. Talk about betraying their divisive agenda. Give it up and learn to live together with people, or have they burnt their own bridges on that?
Posted by: Tim on Friday, 24 April 2009 at 10:53am BST"those who have left the standards of the Bible"
Well, if these people would stop their hysterical fear of impending doom for a minute, and try to show even the slightest faith in the God they claim to fearfully follow, they would remember that we HAVE a New Covenant, given to us by God Himself. We keep that covenant when we obey the New Commandment: Love one another. Where is the love in all this? Some people don't even seem to know what the word means. In Nigeria, for instance, love seems to involve jail time. In the US, it appears to involve either what looks very much like arrogance and a strong sense of superiorty, or lies, schemery and misrepresentations. If we are unable or unwilling to keep a covenant given to us by God Himself, why would any of us think that one made by human beings is going to work? Seriously, they should spend their time trying to follow the New Covenant, instead of wasting time coming up with "covenants" that are just meant to give them some semblance of control ovewr other people's behaviour..
Posted by: Ford Elms on Friday, 24 April 2009 at 4:09pm BSTI couldn't agree more with what Ford Elms writes. I have to laugh sometimes how people get their bowels in an uproar over all of this. Do most of the people sitting in the pews each Sunday even know this stupidity is going on? It's all about power and control, decided by a "chosen few" (bishops full of themselves) who are just plain out of touch. All of it doesn't effect my faith in God one bit. Thankfully, I receive strength from receiving communion and worshiping in common with my fellow travelers in the Spirit - and this spurs me on to continue in the Spirit out there in the dark, cruel world.
Posted by: Jay Vos on Saturday, 25 April 2009 at 4:15pm BSTAnother tilt towards us seeing and hearing and understanding the draft covenant writing on the Realignment Bablyon walls. Boil it down from Radner and others: You are out, we are in. Or: We are replacing you as gold standard Anglicans.
If Canterbury falls for this strategy; and some unfortunate groundwork is already laid in Rowan William's remarks about splitting off diocese from province as a regular reconfiguration practice - then the USA IRD scheme has really been loosed on the global communion. How ironic that the neocons who could not find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq did manage to find them in conservative Anglicanisms, and mobilize them against all other Anglicans, to boot.
I still do not think that Rowan Williams will like being Primer Inter Pares in this new-fangled business; though Carey would be right at home, smiling. Nor will an exclusively rightwing Anglicanism play out smoothly in CoE as long as Establishment exists.
More Anglicanist than Canterbury, then, these grabby covenantists.
Posted by: drdanfee on Saturday, 25 April 2009 at 7:45pm BST"Neither fear nor pain, nor persecution, nor rebellious prelates, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Alleluia!
Christ is risen, Alleluia!
Posted by: Father Ron Smith on Saturday, 25 April 2009 at 8:32pm BSTConsidering the generally unflattering remarks made by the GAFCON fraternity about the historic place of Canterbury and the other Instruments of Unity in the Anglican mix, surely the ACC will see their ploy to toe the line with the Radner-influenced Covenant - at the expense of TEC and the A.C.of C. - as one more cynical attempt to outlaw liberated theology, based on Scripture, Tradition and Reason, from the Communion?
We all need to pray for the meeting of the ACC scheduled to take place in Jamaica during the first two weeks of May; that the Holy Spirit will guard the hearts and minds of the Chairperson, Bishop John Paterson, and all the participants in this important gathering, from 'all the wiles and assaults of the devil', so that our beloved Anglican Communion may survive the depradation of would-be schismatics and Gospel-deniers.
Posted by: Father Ron Smith on Sunday, 26 April 2009 at 3:34am BSTThe church of England cannot ratify it until Parliament have approved . as with the 1928 Prayer Book..it will not pass.
Posted by: Robert Ian Williams on Monday, 27 April 2009 at 7:02am BST"More Anglicanist than Canterbury, then, these grabby covenantists." - Posted by: drdanfee on Saturday, 25 April 2009 at 7:45pm BST
'Tis sad that the esteemed term 'Anglicanism' should in any way be said to represent those who are determined to high-jack the term, in their desparate ploy to distance themselves from what most of us understand to be the inclusive polity of the worldwide Communion.
Perhaps we will need to sit tight and wait for the determination of the Anglican Consultative Council Meeting, as to whether or not they have succeded in any significant measure. At this juncture in the history of Anglicanism, there is a greater need than ever to explore the nature of the 'semper reformanda' movement in the Church.