First, there was a
rather confused report on the “progress” of the Covenant process
in which the authors demonstrated difficulty counting and an apparent
inability to understand the word “no” as I have commented before.
Second, there was
apparently some conversation about the proposed Covenant.
But third, and quite
interestingly, I think, there
were no resolutions on the Covenant. So all the
ACC did with it was to receive a report on its status with very
questionable figures. But notwithstanding some comments about their
conversations on the Covenant, formally they said nothing.
(You
can see all the ACC resolutions here).
Given
that there were no resolutions on the Covenant, the ACC has thus made
no formal comment about its status or the direction of the project.
We have therefore no indication of an answer to the question raised
by the Church in Wales as to the status of the Covenant in the light
of the Church of England's decidedly negative vote in its diocesan
synods. (This rather bizarrely depicted as a “partial decision”
by the report to the ACC.) So the poor Church in Wales, and anyone
else waiting for the answer to the same question, is left in the
dark.
Nor
has the ACC chosen to suggest any criteria for when we might know if
the project is either a stunning success or dead in the water. In the
summer, after the Episcopal Church's General Convention, I reported
that there was talk about setting a deadline for adoption of the
Covenant, and specifying a minimum number of churches that should
adopt it for it to be in effect. Obviously, I was wrong.
In
a related move, the ACC has amended the fourth Mark of Mission, which
makes section 2.2.2 of the Covenant out of step, as I predicted
previously. Now that the fourth Mark of Mission has new language
incorporated into it (in lieu of introducing a sixth Mark of Mission)
the quotation in section 2.2.2.d is out of date. The only remedy, as
I noted before, is to go through the rather cumbersome process of
amending the Covenant, which really doesn't make sense unless and
until a critical mass of Churches adopt it.
But
given the ACC's silence on the questions surrounding the Covenant, we
are left wondering whether this is a project worth spending any time
on. Should we continue to study and deliberate on the proposed
Covenant, or simply walk away and find a better project, such as the
Continuing Indaba process, which the ACC endorsed in a resolution?
I
conclude from the ACC's silence on the Covenant that it is moving on
from the project. If it's not important enough for the ACC to comment
on officially, then it's lost its significance for the Communion. I
think it can be shelved.
The
ACC took a brief glance at the Covenant as it sank unceremoniously beneath the waves of Auckland Harbour, but made no efforts to stage a
rescue.
