GAFCON REJECTS ANGLICAN COVENANT

Those of you who follow the story probably know by now that on the very day that General Synod of the Church of England voted in favor of the Anglican Covenant, GAFCON, a group whom the covenant was designed to placate and keep within the fold of the Anglican Communion, announced their rejection of the document.

"While we acknowledge that the efforts to heal our brokenness through the introduction of an Anglican Covenant were well intentioned, we have come to the conclusion the current text is fatally flawed and so support for this initiative is no longer appropriate," the council said in a statement.

No Anglican Covenant Coalition put out a statement:

"We believe that this covenant is ill-conceived. In response to the reputed 'crisis' in the Communion, drafters of the covenant have favoured coercion over the hard work of reconciliation. The covenant seeks to narrow the range of acceptable belief within Anglicanism and to prevent further development of Anglican thought. Rather than bringing peace to the Communion, we predict that the covenant text itself could become the cause of future bickering and that its centralised dispute-resolution mechanisms could beget interminable quarrels and resentments."

If you would like to join the effort against the adoption of the Anglican Covenant, check out the website of NACC. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the "JOIN US" button. You can also visit the Facebook and Twitter sites of the coalition.

On GAFCON's announcement, Ekklesia quotes Giles Fraser:

"This just proves how ineffectual it is going to be ... it won't keep us together," Giles Fraser, Canon at London's St Paul's Cathedral, and president of Inclusive Church which opposes the Covenant, told Reuters. "All the archbishop's hard work in getting it through and using up one of his lives, seems rather pointless."

Ekklesia offers further background information on the covenant and details of the voting in General Synod.

UPDATE: From the Church Times:

AT LEAST ten Primates from the Global South are now expected to boycott the Primates’ Meeting in Dublin in January.

In a statement released on Wednesday, five African Primates, members of the GAFCON Primates’ Council, confirmed that they would not attend the two-yearly meeting. In addition, it is understood that the Primate of South-East Asia, Dr John Chew; the Primate in Jerusalem & the Middle East, Dr Mouneer Anis; and the Primate of the Indian Ocean, the Most Revd Ian Ernest, will not go to Dublin.

Furthermore it is expected that two new Primates, Presiding Bishop Tito Zavala, Primate of the Southern Cone, and the Most Revd Onesphore Rwage, Primate of Rwanda, will also boycott the meeting.

What's the point of the Anglican Covenant if the Anglican Communion is already breaking up?

H/T to Nicholas Knisely at The Lead.

And you really should read Paul Bagshaw at Not the Same Stream.

Given that GAFCON have turned their backs on the Covenant, why pursue it further?

Why that would be because, as the Windsor Report stated,

...a common Anglican Covenant which would make explicit and forceful the loyalty and bonds of affection which govern the relationships between the churches of the Communion.

Read the rest. Paul's post is excellent.