THE COVENANT AS ALBATROSS

A statue of the Ancient Mariner, with the albatross around his neck, at Watchet, Somerset. The statue was unveiled in September 2003 as a tribute to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Andrew Gerns at The Lead posted the letter of Archbishop Rowan Williams to the Primates of the Anglican Communion.

The letter begins nicely in the spirit of the season of Lent, as the archbishop expresses his hope that we draw nearer to "the reality of Christs's love". Then he moves on to remind the Primates and the rest of us of Christians throughout the world who suffer from real and costly persecution for their faith, in such places as Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and Jerusalem. (Real persecution, as opposed to faux persecution, to which certain Christians in the US and England continue to lay claim, even as they go about the practice of their faith unimpeded and unthreatened.)

The Archbishop then names the places in the world which have experienced large-scale natural disasters, such as Christchurch, New Zealand, Haiti, Pakistan, and Japan and commends to our attention those who suffer and those who aid the suffering, reminding us that churches in the Anglican community are a healing presence.

These events also remind us of the importance of our worldwide fellowship. Whatever the wounds in that fellowship – and they are still deep in many ways – there should be no doubt of the willingness of all in our Communion to stand together in prayer and solidarity when confronted by attacks on the gospel and its witnesses, or by human suffering and loss.

How very good and true thus far.

The unanimous judgement of those who were present was that the Meeting should not see itself as a ‘supreme court’, with canonical powers, but that it should nevertheless be profoundly and regularly concerned with looking for ways of securing unity and building relationships of trust.

Still good that the Primates do not view the Primates' Meeting as the 'supreme court'of the Anglican Communion. Nor do many of the rest of us view the gathering of the Primates as the 'supreme' authority in the Communion, although there are those in our midst who would like to see such authority vested in the Primates' Meeting.

And then:

But it is also important to recognise that the Primates made no change to their existing commitments to both the Covenant process and the moratoria requests. The purpose of the Dublin meeting was, as I have said, not to offer fresh solutions but to clarify what we believed about our shared purpose and identity as a Primates’ Meeting. I think that this clarity was achieved, and achieved in an atmosphere of very demanding and searching conversation, which intensified our sense of commitment to each other and the Communion.

In the letter, the Archbishop takes the high road until he addresses the moratoria and Anglican Covenant. Then he descends to a "putting facts on the ground" strategy. Is it possible that the commitment to the moratoria requests as stated by the Archbishop was not unanimous amongst the Primates? And his words on the Covanant suggest an attempt to convince us all that the Anglican Covenant is all but a fait accompli, when the commitment to the Covenant process should not be mistaken for a commitment to the Anglican Covenant itself, for that commitment is yet to be determined. We already know that a good many of the Primates who were not present at the meeting have stated that they will not adopt the Covenant.

Archbishop Rowan continues to make the adoption of the Covenant the defining issue of his term as Primus inter Pares of the Anglican Communion, which I believe is a great mistake. I see the Covenant as the Archbishop of Canterbury's albatross which he hung around his own neck and the tale of which, in one form or another, he will continue to tell time and time again.