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Common Sense and the Covenant

December 31st, 2009 Posted in Anglican Covenant | Comments Off

By A S Haley

Now that the proposed Anglican Covenant has had time to circulate through the blogosphere, and produce the predictable reactions ranging from "So what?" to "Outrageous, simply outrageous!", maybe there will be an opening for some common sense to enter the room. I cannot promise that what follows will appeal to all Anglicans, but to those who may find its perspective useful, you are welcome to use it as a springboard for your own thoughts and reactions. I shall adopt a question-and-answer format.

What is the proposed Anglican Covenant?
It is a written compact, entered into by constituent members of the family of churches which we call the Anglican Communion, to evidence their shared commitment to the bonds of their common faith. The Covent expresses its purpose this way, in its introduction:

We recognise the wonder, beauty and challenge of maintaining communion in this family of churches, and the need for mutual commitment and discipline as a witness to God’s promise in a world and time of instability, conflict, and fragmentation. Therefore, we covenant together as churches of this Anglican Communion to be faithful to God’s promises through the historic faith we confess, our common worship, our participation in God’s mission, and the way we live together.

The Anglican Communion has existed for over a hundred and forty years. Why does it need a Covenant now?

The Anglican Communion does not need a Covenant. It could go right on being the Anglican Communion without one. However, there are certain churches in the Communion which recently have taken it upon themselves to proclaim that they, and they alone, are the sole judges of whether they are "Anglican" or not. The Covenant is the understandable reaction of those churches who do not agree with this stance. By proposing a common Covenant, they hope to have the members of the Communion coalesce around a set of principles and precepts on which all can agree.

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