BISHOP ALAN WILSON ON THE ANGLICAN COVENANT

Bishop Alan is Bishop of Buckingham in England. He blogs at Bishop Alan's Blog (Surprise!).

The article is from The Anglican Covenant: a Church Times guide, which also includes an annotated copy of the text of the covenant.

I tried to choose quotes from the article, but I couldn't decide what to leave out, because I think the article is splendid, so I decided to post the entire piece. Bishop Alan does not mince words, and I'm quite fond of direct speaking. And I do love his chocolate teapot as a metaphor for Part 4 the covenant.

A USEFUL COMPENDIUM, BUT LOSE THE CHOCOLATE TEAPOT

IN THE village where I began my ordained ministry lived two clans who had feuded, off and on, for 500 years. Local lore says that their young men were having a customary New Year punch-up down by the riverside, when their neighbours hit on the novelty, for the 1920s, of telephoning the police.

The brawl on the banks of the Thames was reaching positively Glaswegian proportions by the time the Keystone Cops from the city lurched into view in their shiny new paddy-wagon. At this point, both tribes laid aside their ancient quarrel for 20 minutes, dealt with the police, hurled their paddy-wagon into the lock, and then got back down to business. A copper’s lot is not a happy one.

If the Anglican Covenant is supposed to patch up the Anglican Communion after the culture wars over sexuality which gave rise to the Windsor report, it has probably already failed. Those whose consent would be necessary for it to achieve that purpose have said openly that they just don’t buy it. The paddywagon is in the lock, and it won’t be taking anyone off to the cells tonight. The thought may allay liberal fears as much as disappoint conservative aspirations.

This failure is probably a mercy, because seven years is a long time in politics — even church politics. Much has changed. As the dust settles on what some felt was sub-Christian bickering about sexuality, colonialism, and biblicism, perhaps a real opportunity is opening up to work out who we really are and what we stand for.

None of the contentious issues of 2003 has gone away, but the energy has drained away from fighting over them. Certainly, in the pews around here, people would sooner stick their heads in a food mixer than see the Anglican dog return to this particular vomit. The Christian faith is about following Jesus Christ, and loving God and neighbour, not having punch-ups by the riverside to feed the self-importance of our most zealous pharisees.

When all is said and done, Anglican Churches are no more than delivery systems for the Kingdom — expressions of discipleship. We did not become Anglicans to build an Anglican brand, but in order better to follow Jesus Christ. We are Anglicans to be Christians, not the other way around. Our ecclesiology, largely implicit, points to this fact by its very incompleteness.

THE first three sections of the Covenant clearly express a reformed Catholic view, based on Archbishop Fisher’s principle: “We have no doctrine of our own — we only possess the Catholic doctrine of the Catholic Church enshrined in the Catholic creeds, and those creeds we hold without addition or diminution.”

The procedural fourth section is a chocolate teapot. Do with it what you will, but do not expect it to hold boiling water. I would detach it from the useful stuff as quietly and as tactfully as possible. Lawyers say that this cannot be done, but I seriously question whether a civilisation capable of conquering space can really be that incapable.

The useful compendium in sections 1-3 could seriously help dioceses and deaneries to explore what being Christian means for them. It could unlock some fascinating questions that are all too seldom addressed.

What does it mean to be a Christian today? How far is an Anglican a member of a global society, and to what extent simply a Christian living out faith in a particular local culture? What kind of local inculturation for mission requires central regulation, and what kind do Churches have to trust other Churches to handle for themselves?

Just what does it mean to be Anglican? Does it involve membership of a global denomination?

The New Testament knows of local churches — small “c” — as part of the whole mystical body of Christ, the first-fruits of the whole human race redeemed: Church with a capital C. What room is there, in that scheme of things, for “denominations”, self-contained mini-Churches developed over the past 300 years, defining themselves over and against each other about particular dogmas?

Perhaps we are supposed to organise our life around deominations. Different as they are, they all use much the same grandiloquent biblical sound-bites to capture their unique selling points. How much authority should we invest in defining and defending the corporate brand?

THESE questions may lead to others. Homosexuality, the main bone of contention in 2003, was not even defined in a modern sense until the last century. There is nothing in any historic creed about it, and next to nothing in the Bible — possibly three or four verses, at a pinch. So how do we deal faithfully with new issues beyond the scope of our base formularies?

What part should bishops, synods, rules, and lawyers play in the Church? When people in the family fall out, do we tinker with the system, or address the problem itself? If we could not use effectively the instruments that we had, what chance is there that we will use new ones better?

What do we mean by church unity? How can legal engineering create unity, and how can it impede it? Is it about producing a single visible organisation in some ideal sense, or does it transcend particular organisations?

Is the Church, ultimately, a smooth-running spiritual society, or humanity as a whole, fully redeemed in Christ? If the latter is God’s purpose, the people you chuck out now come back in the end anyway; so you might as well learn how to live with them.

These are big questions. I hope that, as the Covenant goes out for discussion, lay people’s answers will be as carefully received as those of lawyers and ecclesiastical technocrats have been so far in this process. And if the ordinary people of God, the plebs sancta Dei, who came through the gay wars with their credibility far more intact than that of their bishops, should be allowed a voice, I hope our elders and betters will be listening.

Dr Alan Wilson is the Bishop of Buckingham

In the Study Guide, Bishop Gregory Cameron, amongst other contributors, makes the case in favor of the covenant. The full text of his article is available at Lesley's Blog.