As we enter the lazy
days of Summer, and people are distracted by a sporting event in the
British capital, whose name I won't mention for fear of winning a
gold medal for copyright infringement, perhaps it's time to take
stock of where the Anglican Covenant process is. In a few months, the
Anglican Consultative Council will be meeting in New Zealand, and
there is to be report on the “progress” of Covenant adoption.
According to the No
Anglican Covenant Coalition website, five Churches have definitively
adopted the Covenant: Mexico, the West Indies, Burma, Papua New
Guinea and the Southern Cone. Meanwhile, three Churches have pretty
definitively rejected the Covenant: Scotland, Aotearoa New Zealand
and Polynesia, and the Philippines. I say “pretty definitively”
because the Philippines haven't actually had a vote on the Covenant,
to my knowledge. Rather, it is the House of Bishops that has rejected
the Covenant in that Church.
Three Churches are said
to have reported some progress along the way to adopting the
Covenant. The Province of Southern Africa has adopted it
provisionally on first reading and expects to ratify that decision at
its next General Synod meeting in 2013. The Church in Wales has
indicated that it is willing to adopt the Covenant, but first wants
clarification about its status given the uncertainty in the Church of
England. And Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Japan) has agreed to soldier on in
spite of a recommendation to the contrary from its House of Bishops'
Theological Committee.
Finally there are four
Churches whose positions on the Covenant reflect a great deal of
uncertainty. South East Asia has chosen to “accede to” (not
“adopt”) the Covenant, and in so doing issued a rather detailed
statement explaining what they thought the Covenant and its adoption
by others means. The Church of Ireland has “subscribed” (not
“adopted”) the Covenant, without explaining what that means,
though it's clear that “subscribe” means something different from
“adopt”. The Episcopal Church has simply decided not to decide,
at least not just now. And the Church of England has had the dioceses
reject consideration of the Covenant by the General Synod, in spite
of a particularly aggressive hard-sell campaign.
So, five Yeses, three
Nos, three Maybes and four Unclear. And next year we may hear from
Australia, Canada and Southern Africa, perhaps among others. That's
still less than half the Churches of the Anglican Communion, which
hardly suggests much enthusiasm for the project.
So, barring any further
action between now and November, that's the state of affairs that the
Anglican Consultative Council will be presented with. What should
they do next?
There is some talk that
a proposal will be brought forward in November to have the Anglican
Consultative Council specify a minimum number of adopting Churches as
a threshold for the Covenant to become active, as well as a deadline
by which that must happen. Presumably if the threshold is not met by
the deadline, then the whole project will simply be binned.
About a year ago, I
suggested that there ought to have been just these sorts of
provisions in the proposed Covenant text. And so I agree
fundamentally with the proposal to do so now, even if it is not
actually included in the text itself. After all, at some point in the
future someone is going to have to declare the Covenant project an
unmitigated success (which would be pretty obvious, anyway) or
conclude that we have flogged this dead horse long enough. And I
suppose that since the criteria by which such a determination should
be made weren't included in the proposed Covenant text, it's better
for the Anglican Consultative Council to agree to a threshold and a
deadline than simply to have the Archbishop of Canterbury wake up one
morning and announce he's decided it's over.
That said, however, it
would be well for the Council to be aware that in determining go/no
go criteria they would be in effect amending the Covenant, which we
had all been told rather forcefully is unamendable at this stage.
Section 4.1.6 states that “this Covenant becomes active for a
Church when that Church adopts the Covenant through the procedures of
its own Constitution and Canons.” Thus, the Covenant is already
active for five Churches. Amending it, or adopting an agreement that
the Covenant will be nullified, thus opens the door to the
possibility that the Anglican Consultative Council will be
overturning decisions of the five current covenanting Churches, and
of any others who adopt the Covenant between now and the deadline. At
least with respect to any further covenanting Churches, they will be
adopting the Covenant in the certain knowledge that their action will
be provisional. The first five, however, adopted the Covenant in good
faith, presumably without the possibility of its nullification in
mind. Thus the adoption of a threshold and deadline would amount to
an intrusion upon the autonomy of five churches.
The other option, of
course, would be to amend the Covenant formally using the procedures
of section 4.4.2 to insert a threshold and deadline into section
4.1.6. For now that the Covenant is active it is, contrary to
previous suggestions, amendable according to the procedures it
contains. Amending it according to those procedures would be a
cumbersome process, of course, but it would at least respect both the
integrity of the Covenant and the autonomous decisions of the
Churches that have already adopted it. Doing it properly would also
demonstrate the Anglican Consultative Council's commitment to and
respect for the Covenant project as depicted, even if it would be the
first such demonstration by an Instrument of Communion. But I don't
imagine that's likely to happen.
Instead, watch for the
adoption of a threshold and deadline by the ACC in November. With
those in place, the Covenant can simply be left to die of neglect
without need for further study or debate or voting. Then we could all
get on with building the Communion by engaging in mission together.
