Anglican Math

There's an old joke about three people being interviewed for a job as an accountant. The interviewer asks, “how much is two plus two?” The first confidently says, “four.” The second, not to be outdone, says, “four point zero.” The third says, “how much do you want it to be?”

I think the third is working for the Anglican Communion Office.

The Anglican Consultative Council is meeting in New Zealand as I write, and is in the process of considering the status of the proposed Anglican Covenant. In the opening presentation on the topic, the assembled Council were updated on what the various churches around the Anglican Communion have done with the Covenant to date. There are, they were told, three categories of response.

In category A there are nine churches. Eight were said to have adopted the Covenant.

Those in the so-called Category A that have approved the covenant are Ireland, Mexico, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Southern Cone of America, and the West Indies. In addition, according to the document, South East Asia adopted the covenant with an added preamble of its own and the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia has subscribed to the covenant’s first three sections but said it cannot adopt section 4, which outlines a process for resolving disputes.

That left the Scottish Episcopal Church all on its own as having “refused” to adopt the Covenant.

It's funny how you can add up churches' responses and come to eight approvals. Ireland didn't approve the Covenant; rather it “subscribed” it. Whatever they intended by “subscribe” wasn't entirely clear but it was clear that they didn't mean “adopt,” which is the verb actually in the text. As the Anglican Communion News Service put it at the time, “in the course of the Synod debate it was stressed that the word 'subscribe' in relation to the Covenant, rather than 'adopt', was important.”

Similarly, South East Asia chose a different verb, voting to “accede to” the Covenant, rather than to adopt it. And, as noted above, they did so in the context of a lengthy preamble which effectively amends the document unilaterally. So, which Covenant exactly did they accede to? Not the one on offer, evidently.

As for the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia approving the Covenant, that's not the impression one gets from the text of the motion they adopted in July, which stated that that church “is unable to adopt the proposed Anglican Covenant due to concerns about aspects of Section 4, but subscribes to Sections 1, 2, and 3 as currently drafted as a useful starting point for consideration of our Anglican understanding of the church.” The Anglican Communion News Service story that reported this turn of events depicted the resolution as “a final 'No.'”

So we have five “adopts,” one “subscribe, but definitely not adopt” one “accede to our own version” and one pretty definite “no” which somehow add up to eight “yeses”.

Anglican Math.

Category B is just as convoluted.

The Episcopal Church, which just last July “declined to take a position” on the Covenant, is depicted as having made a “partial decision,” which I suppose is meant to convey that they're in the process of adopting the Covenant and will certainly say Yes once they assume a position. At least as certainly as New Zealand has, at any rate. Similarly Australia and Canada, which have both sent the document to dioceses for study are in this category. And most bizarrely so, too, is the Church of England, whose dioceses have voted the Covenant down rather soundly. Korea and Melanesia have both expressed difficulties with section 4 of the Covenant, and are also counted as having made “partial decisions.” About the only Church that I can see that actually fits in this category is South Africa, which has in fact given preliminary approval to the Covenant, but needs to ratify that decision (or not) at its next Synod meeting. But then, a category of one isn't much of a category, not that it bothers the Anglican Communion Office.

Category C consists of just one Church, the Philippines. Their Council of Bishops has rejected the Covenant. But the Anglican Communion Office isn't quite certain what that means, exactly, and are seeking clarification.

Here's a hint: it means “no.”

I suppose if all this Anglican Math means that churches that say “no” are counted as having said “yes” and churches that say “maybe to something else” are also counted as saying “yes”, and churches that say “let us do a bit of due diligence before we answer” are counted as having made a “partial decision” (which, nudge, nudge, means “yes”) before long everyone will have adopted the Anglican Covenant without actually voting to do so. Except the Scottish Episcopal Church, who, like the cheese, will stand alone.

Taking stock ...and what's next?

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.

Yes or no? Or maybe?

Rumour has it that the legislative subcommittee working on resolutions regarding the Anglican Covenant at the Episcopal Church's General Convention is crafting a pair of resolutions. The first, apparently, would be a mom-and-apple-pie affirmation of their commitment to the Anglican Communion. Nothing wrong there.

The second is where this commitment intersects with the proposed Covenant. And here, according to my spies on the ground, is where things get a bit weird. Some would like to see a clear resolution adopting the Covenant, though I can't imagine many who actually believe that such a resolution would pass. Others would like a clear resolution declining to adopt the Covenant. So, a clear Yes, or a clear No.

The trouble, apparently, is that the legislative committee believes that a clear No won't fly in the House of Bishops. (The General Convention is a bicameral body, divided between Deputies – clergy and laity – and Bishops. And every resolution must be adopted by both.) And so, evidently, the solution being contemplated is that the second resolution be a motion to defer a decision. Tune in next time, in other words, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. Come back again in three years when we will be pleased to defer the decision again. Maybe then we'll have the courage to defer the decision for thirty years instead of three.

Frankly, there is no need for a resolution to defer the decision. They could accomplish that with no need for debate or legislative time on the agenda simply by not putting forward any resolution at all. So what's this all about?

It's about not wanting to be seen to be the bad guy, that's what it's about. The Covenant was designed to give the wider Communion a way of sending the Episcopal Church to the naughty corner, and ever since the Windsor Report, which first proposed a Covenant, chastised the American Church for its actions in consecrating an openly gay bishop, that Church has been tiptoeing around the Communion trying not to sound half as naughty as it is being depicted as being by its critics. And, of course, saying No to the Communion would be interpreted by those same critics as just another bit of evidence of its naughtiness.

The trouble with such tiptoeing is that it comes at the cost of dishonesty. Yes, the Episcopal Church can tell everyone it's deferring its decision, but everyone will know that it's just a sign that the Episcopal Church wants to have it both ways: to avoid saying No without saying Yes. Because there's no chance the Episcopal Church will say Yes. Why say No when we can say Later? Except no-one is seriously going to be fooled by this. No-one is going to believe that the Episcopal Church might say Yes when Later arrives.

Why say No when saying Later long enough will let the Covenant die a natural death?

Or why not simply be honest?

Here's my suggestion: The General Convention should go ahead with the proposed first resolution, affirming its commitment to the Anglican Communion. I believe that this resolution will be adopted more or less unanimously by both houses. Because I believe the Episcopal Church truly is committed to the Communion.

But what comes next should be two resolutions: one to say Yes, and one to say No. If the Yes fails (which it will), the No should be put forward. And if the Deputies have the courage to say No clearly, it will be up to the Bishops to decide what to do. If they don't say No, the effect will be a definite Probably Not without actually saying No. But at least everyone will know where the General Convention stands, even if it isn't willing to say so clearly.

In either case, now is the acceptable hour. It's time for the General Convention to tell the Anglican World whether it has the courage of its convictions. Yes or No. We don't want to be tuning in next time to find out.

Effects of not adopting the Covenant

The Canadian Church's Council of General Synod (CoGS) has said that a “key message” that it wants to send to the next meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) is that it doesn't yet understand what the “relational consequences” would be for a Church that does not adopt the proposed Anglican Covenant.

With all due respect to CoGS, on which I have served, it seems to me that the real key message here is that the members of CoGS haven't adequately studied the proposed Covenant or the report that CoGS received a year ago from the Governance Working Group on the legal and Constitutional ramifications of the proposed Covenant.

Where to begin?

For starters, “relational consequences”, though not clearly defined, apply only to Churches that have adopted the proposed Covenant, and that only at the end of a process of dispute resolution. Relational consequences have been depicted by opponents as a punishment, and by supporters of the Covenant as nothing more than the natural outcome of a Church persisting in doing something that it has been told is “not compatible with the Covenant.” Rather like a ticket is nothing more than the natural outcome of driving over the speed limit.

So whatever relational consequences are, they cannot apply to a Church that does not adopt the proposed Covenant.

The Governance Working Group said as much in its report to CoGS, which I would suggest the members re-read to refresh their collective memory.

There might, I suppose, be some political consequences in rejecting the proposed Covenant, but that's not the same as relational consequences. And it's hard to see what political consequences would ensue, given that the Church of England has already decided that it doesn't want to sign up to the Covenant. And Ireland, contrary to what the Anglican Journal reports was stated by the Anglican Communion Working Group, has waffled on its support for the Covenant. It deliberately did not adopt the Covenant, but rather “subscribed” to it. Whatever that means.

Personally, I think the key message to the ACC should be that the proposed Covenant was a well-intentioned attempt to deal with the tensions in the Anglican Communion, but it's dead in the water and it's time to move on to something better.

And CoGS needs to do its homework.

What next?

Last week the process of diocesan consultation on the proposed Anglican Covenant in the Church of England reached a definitive conclusion. With six dioceses still to vote, a majority had already rejected the proposed Covenant. (As of this writing, 40 of 44 dioceses have now voted, with 15 voting in favour of the Covenant and 25 against.) The question the dioceses faced was, procedurally at any rate, whether they wanted the General Synod to consider a motion to adopt the proposed Covenant.

The reason the dioceses were even asked this question is that the proposed Act of Synod adopting the Covenant was deemed to be “Article 8” business, that is that it had to do with “a scheme for … a permanent and substantial change of relationship between the Church of England and another Christian body, being a body a substantial number of whose members reside in Great Britain.” The rules with respect to the reference to the dioceses required that a majority of the dioceses (i.e., at least 23 of the 44 dioceses) vote for the proposal in order for it to return to the General Synod for a vote. In the event that a majority did not vote for the proposal (i.e., at least 22 voted against), the proposal cannot return to the General Synod in the current quinquennium, which I understand runs until July, 2015. So now, with 25 diocese having voted against the Covenant, it is effectively dead in the water.

The blogosphere is full of the comments of pundits examining the entrails of the diocesan decisions from a political perspective, but I am more interested in procedural questions.

What does this mean for the Church of England?

Technically speaking, what this does not mean is that the Church of England has rejected the Covenant. Under the rules of Article 8, the General Synod may now not consider the draft Act of Synod to adopt the Covenant, and thus may not vote either yes or no, at least until the next quinquennium. Whether the leadership of the Church of England wants to resurrect the process of adopting the Covenant in 2015, and whether the General Synod wants at that time to start over with another Article 8 reference to the dioceses, would be matters for them to decide then, prognostications of pundits notwithstanding. So the Church of England has (obviously) not adopted the Covenant, nor has it definitively decided not to adopt the Covenant. Nor can it, by its own rules, consider the question for at least another three years.

I suppose the General Synod could conceivably consider a Act of Synod stating that it does not adopt the Anglican Covenant, although I seriously doubt that is likely.

What does this mean for the operation of the Anglican Covenant?

The proposed Covenant contemplates three categories of Church in the Anglican Communion. It refers in a few places to Churches that have adopted the Covenant “through the procedures of [their] own Constitution[s] and Canons.” (4.1.6) Once they have done so, the Covenant is “active” for them. This means that they can be the object about whom a question is “raised” (4.2.3), that they can participate in the decision making processes of section 4.2 (4.2.8), submit a proposal to amend the Covenant (4.4.2) or withdraw from it. (4.3.1)

The second category of Church consists of those “who are still in the process of adoption” of the Covenant. Although this term is not defined, it seems to refer to Churches that have neither said that they will adopt the Covenant, nor that they won't. These Churches can participate in the processes of section 4.2 (4.2.8), but are not subject to these processes, nor can they propose an amendment to the Covenant. The Church of England is, as I have suggested above, in this category.

The third category, non-Covenanting Churches, is implied by the text in section 4.2.8 and section 4.3.1. It is not clear whether this refers to Churches that have rejected a motion to adopt the Covenant, or have definitively adopted a motion stating that they will not adopt the Covenant. Sometimes voting against a motion is not the same as adopting its opposite. One could argue that as long as the possibility remains that a motion to adopt the Covenant could be brought to a Church's General Synod (or equivalent), that Church is still in the process of adopting the Covenant, even if it has previously rejected a motion to adopt the Covenant.

So, from the perspective of the operation of the Covenant, it is apparently in effect for a few Churches that have adopted it, with the implications set out above. (Exactly which Churches have adopted the Covenant is a matter of some debate.) The rest of the Churches, at least those that haven't definitively rejected the Covenant (and it's not clear that any have done that), are still in the process of adopting it.

What if the Church of England definitively rejects the Covenant?

This is where the wheels come off. Some pundits have raised questions about whether the Archbishop of Canterbury acts, with respect to the operation of the Covenant, as an Instrument of Communion, or as a representative of a particular Church. They raise this question because if the Archbishop of Canterbury is a representative of the Church of England, and the Church of England definitively rejects the Covenant, then the whole operation becomes absurd. Elsewhere I have pointed out the several overlapping roles of the Archbishop of Canterbury with respect to various bodies that conduct the dispute settling processes of section 4.2. (The overlap of roles means that the process violates the second principle of Natural Justice, as I have shown.) But if you take the Archbishop out of those roles without in some way replacing him, it creates a procedural crisis. For example, the Primates' Meeting has a key role in staffing the Standing Committee, and advising it in its deliberations. And the Archbishop of Canterbury is the convenor of the Primates' Meeting (and the President of the Standing Committee). He's also the President of the Anglican Consultative Council, which is the other key body that staffs and advises the Standing Committee. If he cannot participate in the process, the process itself becomes unworkable.

And even if the process can somehow be rescued, there is still the question of how Churches which are bound to a certain set of (vaguely defined) commitments can continue indefinitely in a meaningful relationship with a Mother Church which chooses not to take on those commitments itself. The primacy of honour traditionally accorded to the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury within the Anglican Communion would be seriously undermined if the Church of England rejects the Covenant and the Covenant is widely adopted by other Churches in the Communion.

What does this mean for the rest of the Anglican Communion?

Two years ago, I introduced a resolution to the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada that it not consider the Covenant until after the Church of England formally adopts it. The resolution was ruled out of order by the chair, and so I was not able to present my reasons for introducing it. My concern was, in fact, that we might face just the current state of affairs. If the Church of England rejects or fails to adopt the Covenant, it would create a problem for the Canadian Church if it were to adopt the Covenant. We are constitutionally bound to communion with the Church of England, and adopting a Covenant with respect to the Anglican Communion to which the Church of England is not party would create constitutional problems, to say the least. Hence, my resolution was intended to suggest that we not spend too much time, effort or money on a constitutional proposal before it became clear that its adoption by the Church of England made it at the very least workable.

I don't know how much time, effort or money has been expended on the Anglican Covenant proposal, but I think it is safe to say “a lot”. And this proposal has distracted Anglicans to a significant degree from pursuing, both other avenues of building relationships, and our primary mission of living out the Gospel in our various contexts. Now that the project is stalled, perhaps irretrievably, in the Church of England, how much more time, energy and money should the rest of us be expending on this proposed Covenant?

What should those outside England do?

It's really up to each Church to decide how it's going to deal with the proposed Covenant, but I see four options at this point:

1. Continue with the process of considering and adopting the proposed Covenant;
2. Continue to consider the Covenant, but adopt it conditionally such that an Act of Synod adopting the Covenant does not come into effect until the Church of England adopts it;
3. Suspend the process of considering the Covenant until it is clear what the Church of England is going to do next;
4. Adopt a resolution rejecting the Covenant.

The first and fourth options are pretty straightforward. I suggest the fourth because it is clearer than simply defeating a resolution to adopt the Covenant, which is a possible outcome of Option 1.

Option 2 would allow for continued study and debate of the Covenant, but if it is adopted, it would not come into effect, and the Church in question would thus not become a Covenanting Church, until the Church of England chooses to adopt the Covenant. Other conditions such as a critical mass of Covenanting Churches being reached could also be included. This would be rather like the adoption by the British Parliament of the EasterAct 1928, which fixes the date of Easter on “the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April”. The Act itself has not yet come into effect, and will not before an Order in Council is made, “provided ... that, before making such draft order, regard shall be had to any opinion officially expressed by any Church or other Christian body.” Similarly, a given Church could entertain a conditional resolution to adopt the Covenant in order to bring the project to a decisive conclusion. If the Church decides to adopt the Covenant, doing so conditionally would mean that it's not actually bound by that decision until the conditions are met.

I think the attraction of Option 3 is pretty self-evident. Perhaps it's time to admit that the proposal for a Covenant has been found sufficiently wanting that it's time to cut our losses and get on with building up the Kingdom of God in our several contexts and building relationships with other members of the Anglican Communion. But if we're not prepared to take that definitive a step, then at least we could take a wait and see approach and let the Church of England untie its Gordian knots before we spend any more time on this project.

Of Archbishops and Videos

The Archbishop of Canterbury recently issued a video defending the proposed Anglican Covenant against what he depicted as some “misunderstandings” about the proposed Covenant, which seem to be abroad. I assume he refers to such “misunderstandings” as some of mine. Though I don't flatter myself that the Archbishop has ever read my blog in person.

I think the Archbishop has a few misunderstandings of his own.

For example, he seems to believe that

A lot of people have said that the first few sections of the Covenant, the first three bits of the Covenant, are uncontroversial. They set out a common ground on which we all agree and they, in general ways, urge us to think about these things – to think about the impact on other parts of the Communion and what we decide to do.

Well, I for one am not among that “lot of people.” The first three sections are, in my view, very controversial. They have some serious problems which I have outlined in depth. The biggest problem is that they purport to set out a coherent understanding of the Anglican faith and the Anglican way, against which future actions can be objectively measured (in section 4's process). That's what the Archbishop seems to believe. But, with the greatest respect, he's wrong. Sections 1 to 3 are very far from coherent, and although they may look attractive to a broad constituency because of the elasticity of their language which lends them to a variety of interpretations, that very elasticity of language will make it quite impossible to use them as the basis of anything remotely resembling an objective comparison with a proposed future action by a Church.

The reason these sections have attracted so little comment from opponents of the propose Covenant is not because they are so brilliant or uncontroversial. It's because section 4 is so very awful that it attracts the lion's share of the debate. As I have suggested before, if a man with a bad haircut attacks you with a knife, your attention is on the knife, not the haircut. Section 4 is a knife; sections 1-3 are a very bad haircut.

But the biggest problem, as the Archbishop sees it, is not any quibbles obscure Canadians like me might have with sections 1-3. No, there is apparently some false propaganda circulating. As the Archbishop puts it:

one of the greatest misunderstandings around concerning the Covenant is that it’s some sort of centralising proposal creating an absolute authority which has the right to punish people for stepping out of line. I have to say I think this is completely misleading and false.

I would be more convinced if he were to demonstrate, citing the actual Covenant text of course, precisely why these concerns are “misleading and false.” Without doing so, he engages in unsupported assertions and even verges on ad hominem attacks.

The fact is, as I have already demonstrated, that the so-called dispute-settling process in section 4 of the proposed Covenant is vague, arbitrary and intrinsically unfair by design. And it is designed to determine winners and losers. Either an action by a Church is compatible or incompatible with the Covenant. And the decision is final, with no mechanism for further discussion or appeal.

Oh, says the Archbishop, “what the Covenant proposes is not a set of punishments, but a way of thinking through what the consequences are of decisions people freely and in good conscience make.” Given the vagueness of the process, it's not much of a way of thinking through anything. We don't even know how to start the process. It's that unclear. I challenge the Archbishop to demonstrate where the Covenant text says how a question is to be raised, as it quaintly puts what elsewhere would be called lodging a complaint. It's simply not there in the text.

And furthermore, as I have shown before, the “recommendations” of “relational consequences” will be made with the a priori expectation that they will be adopted. Indeed, it might be that failure to adopt a recommended relational consequence would in itself be “incompatible with the Covenant.”

This is not about having scones and cream at tea, but no jam; it's about not being invited to the popular parties because one has been sent to the naughty corner. It's about churches being judged by an unfair and arbitrary process against unclear standards, and on the basis of that judgement, without any right of appeal, having their participation in the Instruments of Communion withdrawn.

“The Covenant suggests a process of scrutiny,” says the Archbishop. Yet for some reason the proponents of the Covenant try to block or ignore every serious attempt to scrutinise the Covenant text. The Archbishop's video is yet another attempt at diverting decision makers from having access to the necessary information on which to base their decisions. It's because he knows what decision they will make with that information.

Implementing the Covenant

It has been said that the proposed Anglican Covenant does not affect the constitution or canons of any Church adopting same. Actually, the Covenant itself says that. It has also been said that this statement is, as the technical term puts it, “poppycock”. Because if any Church truly wants to implement the Covenant, it does have constitutional implications. After all, adopting the proposed Covenant means agreeing to all the terms therein, including the possibility of having any action taken by the adopting Church declared to be “incompatible with the Covenant” (whatever that means) and thus being subjected to “relational consequences” (whatever that means) unless it ceases and desists from its incompatible activity.

So what would it take to implement the Covenant, should a Church decide to adopt it?

It seems to me that it would mean putting into place mechanisms for addressing the possibility that a given action would be declared “incompatible with the Covenant.” So, for example, any action of any legislature in the adopting Church which has been declared “incompatible with the Covenant” would have to be addressed. One way would be to hold an emergency meeting to rescind the offensive action, or alternatively to decide to accept the “relational consequences”, whatever that might mean. (Call me a stickler, but I do wish these terms were actually defined!) But holding emergency meetings in a Church such as the Anglican Church of Canada, whose General Synod only meets every three years, would be a significant burden.

So, the Church could simply incorporate in its constitution a provision automatically to nullify any action that has been deemed “incompatible with the Covenant.” This would, in effect, give the Standing Committee the power to veto any action taken by the adopting Church. Which is actually the point of the proposed Covenant. It's called ceding jurisdiction. And, of course, the veto power would have to extend to any action taken by any given bishop, such as ordaining someone, or authorizing a liturgy. Obviously the bishops of a Church adopting the proposed Covenant would accept that it is necessary to constrain their own powers, and the powers of their successors, in order to ensure that they (and their successors) never do anything, however inadvertently, that is “incompatible with the Covenant.”

A second area to address would be the definition of heresy. Heresy is, after all, a disciplinary offence. At least in my Church. Even if (sadly) it no longer means burning the heretic at the stake. But the definition of heresy would have to be expanded to include teaching anything incompatible with the Anglican Covenant. Which is a bit of a problem, given the fuzziness of the definition of the faith in the proposed Covenant.

A third point would have to do with the question of consultation on significant issues. Many Churches have provision for their General Synod (or equivalent) to consult (e.g. with dioceses) on certain matters such as the ordination of women as bishops, or the adoption of an international treaty such as the proposed Anglican Covenant, prior to the adoption of such measures. Obviously, it would be prudent (or “cautious” as the proposed Covenant puts it) to include in that consultation process a reference to the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion through the process known as “raising a question” in order to determine proactively whether the proposed action would be compatible or incompatible with the Covenant. Such a reference shouldn't add too many years to the process of adopting whatever change is contemplated (such as ordaining women bishops, for example). And any delay would be well spent in order to be certain that the contemplated change won't be subsequently found “incompatible with the Covenant” and nullified. We wouldn't want to rush into any changes that might be challenged under the proposed Covenant.

Exactly how to implement these points into the constitution of any given Church would depend on the nature of that Church's constitution. For the Anglican Church of Canada, it is relatively easy to imagine about four changes that would have to be drafted in the Constitution and Canons of the General Synod. (Three changes to the Declaration of Principles, and one to the Discipline Canon, to be precise.) These changes would only take two readings (or about six years) after the formal adoption of the Covenant. It would be a bit more complex to draft the necessary changes for the thirty-four other legislatures in the Anglican Church of Canada (four internal Provinces and thirty dioceses). But it is doable, I suppose.

Even more complex would be the mechanisms to implement the Covenant in the Church of England, with its complex system of governance as the only Established Church in the Anglican Communion. For example, if the appointment of a given bishop were subsequently deemed “incompatible with the Covenant”, the appointment – a Crown appointment – would obviously have to be nullified. Similarly if a Measure (which in the Church of England has the full status of an Act of Parliament) were to be found “incompatible with the Covenant” it, too, would have to be nullified. So, too, with any legacy Act of Parliament. Unless, of course, the Church of England decided to accept the ensuing “relational consequences” such as being expelled from the Lambeth Conference. But that would be absurd.

Obviously, anyone voting to adopt the proposed Covenant has already thought through these issues and accepted the implications. Not to do so would hardly be “cautious”, as the proposed Covenant puts it.