Federation Is Not Enough

In the Guardian, Bishop Graham Kings of Salisbury says federation is not enough and the Anglican Communion must have a covenant.

Desmond Tutu has often talked of the crucial support of the Anglican communion when he was under pressure from the apartheid regime. Robert Runcie, the archbishop of Canterbury at the time, commented that it signalled to the regime, "Touch Tutu, and you touch the whole Anglican communion." Tutu was not isolated.

David Gitari experienced similar worldwide solidarity following an assassination attempt. During the night of 22 April 1989, thugs attacked his house in the foothills of Mount Kenya. He managed to climb to the roof and raise the alarm. Neighbours came running. The thugs ran away. Gitari had taken a courageous stand on issues of local, national and international justice.

At the nearby college in Kabare, where I was teaching theology, the phone rang with the news and I drove to the bishop's house. Soon the Anglican communion office in London had alerted people across the world for the need for prayer and the government in Nairobi knew that Gitari was not isolated.

Bishop King uses these examples of the Anglican Communion standing together in support of those under threat to suggest that federation is not enough. We must have a covenant to "intensify" our relationships.

In his accounts of Anglicans protecting their brothers under threat, he even calls the group who offered protection the Anglican communion. If we were a communion back then, why do we need a covenant to be the Anglican communion now?

Bishop Kings adds:

Who cares? God does: for communion mirrors the love of the trinity better than a loose federation – the federation of the holy trinity?

I guess God didn't care before now. You have to give their due to the folks, especially bishops, who know the mind of God.