"The Archbishop added that 'all communion, at its best, is limited and, at its worst, impaired,' pointing out that various forms of limited or impaired communion already existed within the Communion; for example, not all the Anglican Churches that were members of the Anglican Communion attended the Lambeth Conference, the Primates' Meeting or meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council."
- Church of Ireland Gazette -

And some elements of the Anglican Communion have already excised themselves from the Communion by their schismatic activities in North America. These are the very elements that are now asking the Church of England to recognize their valid membership of the Communion!

These elements then, and their associates in GAFCON who dissociated themselves from Lambeth, the Primates' Conference and the ACC; are they expecting to be part of the Second Tier Element of the Communion? This would be the only way in which the prophetic Provinces of the Communion would be able to live with their homophobia and misogyny in any sort of re-alignment of the Communion.

The so-called 'Jerusalem Statement' issued by the truants from Lambeth and Canterbury surely could not be considered to form the basis of a proposed new Covenantal relationship within the Anglican Communion - whose precepts from the beginning have been founded on 'Scripture, Tradition and (Sweet) Reason'. Any 'First Tier' Status must surely belong to Provinces which were present at Lambeth.

The Covenant is not a 'way forward'. It is a way backward from the bonds of affection and communion which we, the Anglican Communion, presently enjoy. The noisey cry for its creation and ratification comes from those who wish to destroy and not to preserve. When will the good Archbishop and his episcopal brothers & sisters realise this and STOP thinking of it as an interim holding position? It is nothing of the sort. It is not the best we can do for now. It may well be the worst thing we could do for decades!

Here we have it: No two tiers, no one tier, No Anglican Covenant at all thanks to Lionel Deimel of the steadfast and loyal Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (listen to one who knows).

Lionel Deimel, HERO, click HERE,¨No Anglican Covenant¨
http://blog.deimel.org/2009/08/no-anglican-covenant.htm

" I am, however, ready to suggest that Episcopalians and other moderate and progressive Anglicans must begin now a campaign against any Anglican covenant, lest our churches approve whatever comes along out of simple but misguided Anglican civility."
- Lionel Deimel -

I think that Lionel has latched onto the intrinsic 'weakness' of normal western Anglican communion relationships dependent on trust. This should not be so, but when we have the likes of Akinola, Orombi, and Venables in charge of certain 'sola scriptura' provinces - not to mention the non-provincial back-room voice of the Archbishop of Sydney - the words 'trust' and 'koinonia' seem to have lost their value within the Communion. The text of the 'Jerusalem Communique' should have warned Canterbury and the rest of us of that fact.

No covenant could ever hope to knit together the disparate provincial Churches, whose theological contexts are so differently defended - even, in some cases, to the point of schism - and where missional aims are so very different. With the Third World obsession with puritanical exclusivism while the rest of us want to get on with the work of proclaiming the Good News to all people - regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or social standing - there is little hope of common agreement to a confessional closed covenantal relationship which ignores the realities of a relentlessly loving God whose Son came to save the whole world - not just the 'holy' part of it.

If trust no longer works, no amount of Covenant promotion can ever replace what has been lost.