An Anglican Covenant

The Draft Anglican Covenant looks like a vanilla version of Anglicanism, but one must observe carefully what it does not say along with what it does say. Most glaring, in my opinion, is the lack of any truly catholic ecumenical perspective; there is no view either toward reunion with Anglicans of the continuing churches or with the great catholic communions of Rome and Orthodoxy.

Would it be too much to hope for some statement, however bland, in favor of maintaining the apostolic ministry of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons in apostolic succession? While the Anglican Communion is certainly split on the issue of homosexuality, it is equally split on the issue of ordination of women. The Windsor Report accepts the ordination of women as a fact of life within Anglicanism and this "covenant" by failing to mention the issue at all does the same thing. I thought that Women's ordination was still being tested and that, hard as it might be to imagine it, the final verdict on the question might still be, "No". A covenant such as this implies the tacit acceptance of WO, and this is out of the question for Anglo-Catholics, Biblically based Evangelicals, and even broad-church Anglicans who yearn for unity with the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.

So much for what it doesn't say; now for what it does say: By emphasizing the 39 Articles, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and the limitation of the sacraments to two only, the covenant alies itself with a certain brand of Anglicanism that seems to be going out of its way to affirm itself as Protestant and not Catholic. I thought that in the light of ARCIC we had moved beyond this. My question is, "Are these touchstones necessary?" Again, the effect is to make Anglo-Catholics extremely uncomfortable.

I am not entirely convinced that the Anglican Communion needs a covenant at all, especially since the purpose seems to be to define who is "in" and who is "out". In any case, this one may unintentionally put people or groups "out" that might better remain "in". A covenant such as this is a dangerous thing. In any case, the people working on it would do well to examine the Affirmation of St. Louis, which is another attempt to define who is truly Anglican and who is not. The effect of the Affirmation of St. Louis was to leave its adherents outside the official Anglican Communion. That was not its intention.

Finally, does the draft covenant actually exclude the people it is intending to exclude? It says that where there are disputes the matters should be submitted to the Primates Meeting, and the Primates will offer guidance and direction. There is no language in the covenant that would compel churches to accept the admonition of the Primates, nor is there any clear language on how a church would be declared to be outside of the covenant relationship. If an unrepentant ECA is to be excluded from the Anglican Communion by this covenant, I would say it won't work.

The Anglican Communion would be better off without a covenant and would be much better off without this one.

C. David Burt