Ten (not really very good) Reasons Why the Proposed Anglican Covenant is a Bad Idea

Lacking anything more useful to do, I’ve been looking through the ‘Ten Reasons Why the Proposed Anglican Covenant Is a Bad Idea’ posted on the Comprehensive Unity blog.

Why bother? Because, if it is to stand any chance of success, the Covenant process needs clarity of thought. Looking through the Ten Reasons, however, one finds confusion and, indeed, a certain lack of logic.

Reason 1, for example, begins by stating that,

The proposed Anglican Covenant would transform a vibrant, cooperative, fellowship of churches into a contentious, centralized aggregation of churches designed to reduce diversity and initiative.

Every time I read this — and there have been several — I wonder how anyone could describe the present Communion as “a vibrant, cooperative, fellowship”. I honestly can’t see that. And apparently neither can whoever wrote this document, since under Reason 9 we read,

The proposed Anglican Covenant .... is advanced in an atmosphere of anger, fear, and distrust ...

So which is it? The answer would seem to be that it depends on what point you’re trying to make: one here against the Covenant or one later against Covenant advocates.

Reason 2, meanwhile, rests on a massive ‘beg the question’:

Under the Covenant, churches will be inhibited from undertaking new evangelical or mission initiatives for fear of offending other Communion churches and becoming embroiled in the disciplinary mechanisms set up by the Covenant.

Of course, it could be said one region’s ‘evangelical initiative’ is another’s departure from the ‘evangel’ itself, but isn’t that the whole issue the Covenant is set up to address?

Reason 3 is an assertion based, apparently, on special pleading regarding a particular understanding of management:

In an era in which power and authority are being distributed in many organizations in order to achieve greater efficiency, responsiveness, and accountability, what has been proposed for the Communion seems out of step with current thinking regarding large organizations.

This sounds fine, but if authority is ‘distributed’, could a diocese not depart from its province? This is not what one is hearing advocated currently in TEC. The point may (or may not) be valid, but its application needs to be more tightly defined.

Reason 4 is another of those statements which makes one wonder if one has not been living in a parallel ‘Communion universe’ for the past decade:

[The Covenant’s] immediate effect is to create divisions.

Like there aren’t any at the moment? The point continues:

Churches that cannot or will not adopt the Covenant automatically become second-class members of the Communion.

Well, yes, but won’t that be because of those divisions which have brought about the need for the Covenant in the first place?

Reason 5 might actually have some substance:

The proposed Covenant is dangerously vague.

Surely, however, another possible response, rather than rejecting the Covenant, is to suggest ways to tighten up the vague bits? The challenge may be valid, but the solution does not automatically follow.

Reason 6 is just piece of theological silliness, relying on a blatant tu quoque argument:

The proposed Covenant runs counter to the gospel imperative of not judging others. It is all too easy for Communion churches to complain about the sins of their sister churches while ignoring or diverting attention from their own failures to live out the Gospel.

If churches within the Communion are truly failing to live out the Gospel, the answer is not to let everyone else do it as well!

Reason 7 relies on another special pleading which has run throughout this whole dispute:

The proposed Covenant encourages premature ending of debate.

What we know, of course, is that the only ending of the debate which will not be rejected as ‘premature’ by those who want to keep it going is an acceptance of homosexual practice. This is actually made clear in what follows:

[The Communion] has too quickly concluded that “homosexual practice” is “incompatible with Scripture” and that adopting the Covenant is “the only way forward,” neither of which is either intuitively obvious or universally agreed upon.

Fine — but do those opposing the Covenant in this way really accept that it could, after debate, be universally agreed upon? If not, let them be honest and say so.

Reason 8 seems invoke phrasing from the Windsor Report of 2004, where it was envisaged that the Covenant would “make explicit and forceful the loyalty and bonds of affection” holding together the Communion. However, it turns on a re-interpretation of ‘forceful’ to mean ‘using force and coercion’, which is not at all the same thing;

The notion that we need to make “forceful” the “bonds of affection” is fundamentally flawed. If we need force and coercion to maintain relationships between Communion churches, there is no true affection, and the very foundation of the proposed Covenant is fraudulent.

Reason 9 again relies on giving a particular word a desired ‘spin’:

The proposed “Covenant” seems more like a treaty, contract, or instrument of surrender than a covenant. In the ecclesiastical context, a covenant is usually thought of as an agreement undertaken in joy and in an atmosphere of trust—baptismal and marriage covenants come to mind.

One is tempted to point to the example of Suzerainty Treaties, which had parallels with the biblical Covenant between God and Israel. These were not exactly ‘undertaken in joy and an atmosphere of trust’. More importantly, however, it is the existing lack of joy and trust which has brought about the need for the Covenant — and which, as has already been observed, point 9 actually recognizes:

The proposed Anglican Covenant .... is advanced in an atmosphere of anger, fear, and distrust, and with the threat of dire consequences if it is not adopted.

That is regrettable, but not having a Covenant is not going to change matters.

And finally Reason 10 reveals the objections themselves to be somewhat disingenuous:

The Anglican Communion would be better served by remaining a single-tier fellowship of churches, allowing disaffected members to leave if they must ...

So in fact the objection to the Covenant is not that some Anglicans will “become second-class members of the Communion” (Reason 4). Indeed the idea of ‘business as usual’ causing some people to leave the Communion is regarded as entirely acceptable — so long as it is the ‘right’ people who leave (those who are “threatening to walk away”).

Thus, ultimately, what the objectors to the Covenant want is exactly what those in favour of the Covenant also clearly want: a Communion to their own liking.

And there is nothing wrong with wanting that. But if even those objecting to the Covenant don’t seem to recognize the truth of their own position, what hope is there for real dialogue and real understanding?

John Richardson
18 December 2010

PS: Sitting here a day later, I'm actually quite sorry to have had to write this piece No one really likes criticism and no one should enjoy dishing it out. But I couldn't look at these ten 'reasons' without reacting to the perception that they lack, well, 'reason'. Illogicality and self-contradiction is something to be avoided, whatever the field you're writing in. If the author can go back and come up with some alternatives, maybe I'd think again.

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