Thoughts On The Draft Covenant

I first wrote the words below, with slight editing here, in the comments to Tobias Haller's post The Heterosectual Communion. Tobias' post is an excellent commentary on the statement at the Anglican Communion Institute on the Ridley-Cambridge Covenant Draft. Although my thoughts were first expressed in four different comments, they seem to hang together in a kind of coherent continuity, so I offer them here. Of course, Tobias answered each of my comments with his usual brilliance. I won't quote his responses here. If you'd like to read them, go to his post.

I read the Draft Covenant again. Part I seemed all right. In Part 2, I didn't like the tone of the evangelism section. It had a fundamentalist ring to it. "Repentance", "judgment". It did not sound like the Episcopal Church that I know, even the church in the conservative South.

Part 3 seemed heavily focused on bishops and primates, with a nod to clergy, and the laity nearly squeezed out of notice. In truth, I don't see the church I know signing on to this covenant with conviction.

I suppose those of us in TEC could continue our manner of evangelizing even if we signed on to the covenant, but what about the centralization of power in the primates and bishops? That section of Part 3 is quite disturbing to me. Certain primates and bishops already seem intoxicated by their sense of power, and we are asked to yield more to that small, mostly male group in the covenant. Clergy and laity are pretty much left out of consideration as having much of a voice. As I understand it, the text of the first three parts of the Draft is pretty well fixed.

The laity pay for the operations of the church, yet I get the sense from the Draft that we are to be quiet, give our money, and let the primates and bishops decide the weighty matters that will so much affect lay folks and priests. I'd think that the clergy might be concerned by the small role laid out for them in Part 3.

I understand that we are an episcopal church, and in many ways, I consider that a good and helpful way for a church to function. I see many advantages to that structure over a congregational structure. I accept that TEC is structured with bishops and dioceses, even as I see certain bishops in TEC making mischief and undermining their own church. I don't like it, but I accept it a consequence of our polity.

However, I'm not willing to cede control of TEC to bishops in other countries, for good or for ill. If the bonds of affection and the instruments of communion already in place are not enough to hold us together, then so be it. I'm not willing to give away more.

To speak plainly, I think the covenant is a cockamamie idea, and that we have already wasted far too much money, time, and attention on it that could better be spent elsewhere.

I had a thought. (Always a dangerous undertaking!) Suppose after 49 years of marriage, Grandpère said to me, "Sweetie, I know that we have been joined in the bonds of affection for 49 years, but now we need a covenant that says this, this, and this." If he asked me for a covenant now, wouldn't that be an indication that he believed that our relationship was somehow lacking? Wouldn't he be putting our relationship to the test? Suppose I said, "That is ridiculous and insulting. I won't do it. We've been married for 49 years! What on earth have we been about?" What then?

I know that all analogies fail at some point, but this one comes close to describing how I feel about the covenant in the Anglican Communion. It's setting conditions on an already established relationship.

As I see it, we are in communion if we share Communion at the table of the Lord. Those who choose to stay away from the table are those who are out of communion.