Myths behind the proposed covenant

In conversations about our relationship as the Episcopal Church with other Churches of the Anglican Communion, it seems to me important that we recognize that we need not allow our attention to be taken hostage by the attempts of some to focus us on the proposed Anglican covenant.  It is merely a proposal and we can do a lot of good for our sister Churches if we reinforce this reality in our conversations.  In like manner, we can do a lot of good also by recognizing that our relationship with sister Churches of the Communion are not different in any practical sense from our ecumenical relationships with Churches of communions other than the Anglican.  
              
The proposed covenant is rooted in many false assumptions.  And its sponsors and authors seek to perpetuate many more.  The claim that the proposal is voluntary may be legally true; but more accurately described, it is coercive.  It seeks to perpetuate the myth that the Anglican Communion is a single Church, rather than an association of constitutionally independent Churches.  It seeks also to perpetuate the myth that there are four Instruments of the Communion.  The idea of four "instruments of Communion" was introduced in the Virginia Report of the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission, published in 1997.  It is worth noting the report's genesis: "In 1988 the Lambeth Conference was faced with a question that challenged the unity of the Communion: the proposal by the Episcopal Church of the United States of America to consecrate a woman to the episcopate," (from the introduction).  In response to the 'crisis' of ECUSA's consecration of a bishop who is a woman (gasp!), "the Archbishop of Canterbury, in consultation with the Primates, established a Commission on Communion and Women in the Episcopate under the leadership of the Most Revd Robert Eames, Archbishop of Armagh," (also from the introduction). 

Some will recognize both this tactic and the Archbishop of Armagh himself as having emerged also in the Lambeth Commission on Communion which produced the famous or infamous Windsor Report, another commission with another report issued on the occasion of yet another 'crisis,' this one the election of a bishop who is gay.  
             
After proposing the "four instruments of communion" and presenting arguments for each as such, arguments that are based more in tradition than in reason and charism, the report notes, in chapter five paragraph 20, "The world-wide Anglican assemblies are consultative and not legislative in character."  Quite right, quite accurate, of course; but the Commission seems to believe that this arrangement is deficient.  The paragraph continues, "There is a question to be asked whether this is satisfactory if the Anglican Communion is to be held together in hard times as well as in good ones.  Indeed there is a question as to whether effective communion, at all levels, does not require appropriate instruments, with due safeguards, not only for legislation, but also for oversight."  Here, I suggest we see the emergence of the current trend of the Church of England toward a more authoritarian role in the Communion. 

The paragraph continues with a rhetorical question, notably not an outright proposal: "Is not universal authority a necessary corollary of universal communion?"  In kind, I would ask rhetorically, 'Is not the establishment of a universal authority exactly what the Archbishop of Canterbury is pursuing with these various commissions?'  (Answering outright, I say, 'Yes.')  
         
The paragraph concludes with two claims, both of which, I suggest, are suspect: "This is a matter currently under discussion with our ecumenical partners. It relates not only to our understanding of the exercise of authority in the Anglican Communion, but also to the kind of unity and communion we look for in a visibly united Church."  To imply, as does this Commission, that universal authority is necessary for ecumenical relations is plainly absurd.  TEC, like our sister Churches of the Communion, have extant ecumenical relationships.  Thereby is it demonstrated that none of the Churches needs a universal Anglican authority to effect or to sustain ecumenical relations.  
           
The further and final implication of the paragraph is that such a universal authority as the Commission rhetorically recommends is necessary for a visibly united Church.  Here, I suggest, we find the promotion of the errant notion of the Anglican Communion as a single Church or a single denomination.  This notion may be English and it may be popular also among anglophiles outside Great Britain; but it is entirely contradictory to anything Anglican.  The Commission behind the Virginia Report, along with those behind the Windsor Report and the proposed covenant, seem to have forgotten that a defining element of Anglicanism is the Church of England's historic rejection of foreign governance.  Again, a recommendation of universal authority is what lay behind the original proposition of the "four instruments of Communion".  We need to be very cautious about simply accepting this proposition as anything more than just such.  It is already circulating in Anglican discussions with the weight of fact.  To the contrary, I suggest this is yet one more myth associated with it. 
             
The current proposed covenant is founded upon the very same myths as emerge in the Virginia Report and are reiterated in the Windsor Report: the assumption that the Communion is defined by the so-called "four instruments;" that the Anglican Communion is synonymous with a single world-wide Church; that the Anglican Consultative Council determines membership in the Communion; that Lambeth Conferences are juridical in nature; and that practical and effective relationships among the Churches of the Communion, as well as relations between these Churches and those of Communions other than the Anglican, are broken and irretrievable.  None of these myths is demonstrably true.  
          
What is plainly true is that the Archbishop of Canterbury and other parties in the Church of England, as well as malcontents elsewhere who seem driven by envy and/or megalomania, are acting opportunistically, attempting to claim for themselves power over Churches or provinces other than their own.  They are dressing up their grab for power in the subtlety and refinement of pseudo-legalese and pseudo-grace.  But even the legal dimensions of the proposed covenant remain dramatically deficient.  And the appearance of grace is so superficial that it is taken seriously by almost no one.  The disguise is ineffective.  It is a bald play for power.  Lust for power is at work here, supplanting the desire and commandment to love God and to serve neighbor.  
        
A contract effected by coercion, even though pleasantly and deceptively titled otherwise, will only lessen the nobility of our subscription to our baptismal covenant.  The structure of the Anglican Communion is indeed messy, inefficient, even amorphous to a large degree.  It is all these because, so far, the Anglican Communion is a relational phenomenon, not a juridical one.  With all due respect,  I suggest that it is delusional to believe that a document or an oppressive juridical process will heal relationships that are disturbed because TEC has the audacity of charism to consecrate bishops who are women, to consecrate bishops and ordain clergy who are gay or lesbian, and soon, pray God, to sanctify the love residing in same-sex couples.  We need to be realistic.  And we need to be faithful.  
        
Thus, I think we'll do well to be cautious about buying the premise that there is any urgency in the Communion at all, outside Lambeth Castle, and maybe Windsor, too.  The Communion is not as screwed up as some seem determined to believe.  Surely no one believes that a lack of 'universal authority' is preventing our growth in witness and number.  Mission and ministry continue.  Relationships between the Churches of the Communion remain effective for ministry.  Even Churches whose Primates have condemned the Episcopal Church as apostate have bishops and dioceses that continue to work together with bishops and dioceses of TEC.  Those Primates, bishops, clergy, and lay persons who have in fact condemned TEC, the Church of England, etc., have effectively taken themselves out of the Anglican Communion.  These are people who have already condemned the proposed covenant for failing to punish TEC more harshly than it would, rendering the proposition all the more futile.  I suggest that we will do well to recognize that the real problem, the real source of any decline, numerical, spiritual, or otherwise, is not the absence of 'a universal authority;' it is our continued narcissism.  The proposed covenant is simply more of this.  
               
TEC and the rest of the Communion will do itself a great favor, and will do the world a greater favor, when it puts this bad fruit from bad seed into the trash heap of bad ideas.  Some will not be able or willing to do so, and they will perhaps find a spiritual home in some expression of Church and Christian faith other than the Anglican one.  God bless them and I'm confident that they will be welcome to return to Anglicanism if so moved.  But they will not be and are not now welcome to try to re-define it, thank you.  Meanwhile, TEC will do well to continue helping redirect the focus of the Communion away from the proposed covenant and from similar expressions of selfish prejudice and petty ambition, returning our collective attention to our common vocation to be people of God's Love for all.  

Jim +