The video, available here, features two General Convention deputies from the Diocese of California (Sarah Lawton, development coordinator for UC-Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education, and Dr. Rod Dugliss, dean of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific’s School for Deacons) and the Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers, the Hodges-Haynes Professor of Liturgics at CDSP, who served as a deputy from the Diocese of Chicago.

The seminary describes the final text of the Covenant, incorrectly, as its third and final draft. The text is complete. The question is now how many provinces will sign on to the completed text.

One of the stranger assertions in this discussion: That Truro Church in Fairfax, Va., somehow influenced the Ridley Cambridge Draft. Such global power for a church in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

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Douglas LeBlanc - 01 March 2010 03:38 PM

snip

The seminary describes the final text of the Covenant, incorrectly, as its third and final draft. The text is complete. The question is now how many provinces will sign on to the completed text.

snip

The Provinces have every right to propose further changes to the text. However much work went into this “final” text, there is too much at stake for Provinces not to express or not express changes they would like to see.  It will be interesting to see how many Provinces actually adopt it without revision.

The moderator tells a small lie in that he describes the panel as having a “range of perspectives” on the Covenant.

Here is what the Covenant text says:

(4.4.2) Any covenanting Church or Instrument of Communion may submit a proposal to amend the Covenant to the Instruments of Communion through the Standing Committee. The Standing Committee shall send the proposal to the Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates’ Meeting, the covenanting Churches and any other body as it may consider appropriate for advice. The Standing Committee shall make a recommendation on the proposal in the light of advice offered, and submit the proposal with any revisions to the covenanting Churches. The amendment is operative when ratified by three quarters of such Churches. The Standing Committee shall adopt a procedure for promulgation of the amendment.

I do not see here a provision for provinces to amend the Covenant before they commit to it. Of course non-covenanting provinces may respond as they wish, but that does not transform the text into a draft.

I agree with Doug.

Douglas LeBlanc - 01 March 2010 04:58 PM

Here is what the Covenant text says:

(4.4.2) Any covenanting Church or Instrument of Communion may submit a proposal to amend the Covenant to the Instruments of Communion through the Standing Committee. The Standing Committee shall send the proposal to the Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates’ Meeting, the covenanting Churches and any other body as it may consider appropriate for advice. The Standing Committee shall make a recommendation on the proposal in the light of advice offered, and submit the proposal with any revisions to the covenanting Churches. The amendment is operative when ratified by three quarters of such Churches. The Standing Committee shall adopt a procedure for promulgation of the amendment.

I do not see here a provision for provinces to amend the Covenant before they commit to it. Of course non-covenanting provinces may respond as they wish, but that does not transform the text into a draft.

Indeed there is a process for amendment of the Covenant and that is seen above as quoted by Doug.  However - this is indeed a text for acceptance and not a conversation piece.  As I read it it is only modifiable by submission from a “covenanting Church,” who will submit proposals to the SC.  This means that the Covenant needs to be accepted by a Church/Province.  Later the proposals for change go to the SC then to the ACC, Primates and the community of Covenanting Churches and so on.

Neither TEC nor any other Province/Church can make changes until they have accepted the Covenant and its settled text as we now have it.  I am sure that TEC would love to delay in any way possible.  That playing card is not available.  Besides when Ms. Glasspool gets her consents and is made a Bishop of TEC then all bets are off as to TEC being Covenant compliant and thus able to sign on even with its fingers crossed behind its backs.  Her being made a bishop of TEC will prove the mendacity of the TEC leadership and that they are NOT to be trusted.

As to the latter likely hood - Ms. G was only 5 SC votes lacking last week and we have no true idea where we are on consents from Bishops with jurisdiction.  This will be a waiting game until April sometime.  I have no doubt she will be consented to and made a bishop in TEC.  So why bother about the Covenant discussions in TEC?  Maybe more dioceses will sign on - I do hope so.

Meanwhile the folk against the Covenant protesteth over much - the AC will largely adopt (IMHO) and TEC and a few other tiny provinces will be left out in the possible second tier, whatever that may mean.  I hope it means the loss of the use of the term Anglican.

Doug and Ian

  In an anarchic setting, like that of the WWAC, people can propose whatever they want and define it however they please, but all the rest are free to simply say that this will not do.  Of course Dr. Radner and Bishop Gomez left no provision for further review, except of course in the provision that nothing in the Covenant could over ride Provincial Canons and Constitutions.  And while many might be ready to throw burning brands on TEC, the same may not be true of other provinces who chose not to sign this document.  It will be a hoot if the C of E cannot or will not sign on. 

  This will be just another source of division with the signers pretending they are the Anglican Communion, when in fact they are just signatories to a covenant that only covers signatories.  I of course think TEC should sign it so we can begin using the juridical processes contained therein to sanction jurisdiction jumpers, churches that openly support the criminalization of homosexuality, and so forth.  It will be fun to rain down a list of quite legitimate complaints from within the text of the AC.

  Ian, we have lots of splinters in ACNA who call and have called themselves “Anglican” for decades.  There is no franchise on the name.

Interesting couple of points Michael

I of course think TEC should sign it so we can begin using the juridical processes contained therein to sanction jurisdiction jumpers, churches that openly support the criminalization of homosexuality, and so forth.  It will be fun to rain down a list of quite legitimate complaints from within the text of the AC.

  Ian, we have lots of splinters in ACNA who call and have called themselves “Anglican” for decades.  There is no franchise on the name.

One of Mrs. Schori’s themes is that she and TEC have the Anglican franchise - hence the remarks about preferring to sell a church building to become a bar rather than let another “Anglican” group have it.

As to your first point - it was made very clear at Dar es Salaam that there is NO equivalence between the jurisdiction jumpers and those who are acting contrary the the mind of the Instruments re doctrine of marriage and ordination of the actively homoerotic. 

As to your second.  The criminalization of homosexuality has been around for centuries and is lessening generally, even in Africa where it is not simply a secular tradition but also hugely sanctioned where there are any significant Muslim presences.  Churches in East Africa - with which I am mostly familiar - are seeking a balance between the Muslim world and the clear abhorrence of homoerotic behavior forbidden in the Holy Scriptures and reflected in Lambeth 1.10. 

Incidentally the listening process was just that, to listen, not to be a process for assimilation of revisionist/reappraiser teaching, which is how it tends to be promoted by TEC and such.  I will listen, be compassionate and give pastoral care that includes healing and prayer for the strength to say NO.  I will not in any way recommend such behavior or relationships as acceptable for Christian men and women.

I should also add that Dar es Salaam recognized the pastoral reasons for the jurisdiction jumping as I believe did the English Synod last month.  The abhorrent lawsuit happy excesses of the current PB and her leadership are no longer hidden but now visible - and execrated around the AC.  Meanwhile ACNA is its own independent Anglican province of sorts and an alternative to those provinces in impaired or broken communion with TEC.

As to your overall premise that TEC should sign.  I sincerely doubt that TEC will be allowed to sign given what has happened and will happen with Ms. Glasspool.  Trust of TEC was lost in the AC a long while ago.

All very sad - I never thought I would think it a good thing to bring back Frank Griswold - at least he let dioceses be pretty autonomous and work at some kind of grace in these horrible divisions we now see.

Charlie Clauss - 01 March 2010 04:44 PM

The moderator tells a small lie in that he describes the panel as having a “range of perspectives” on the Covenant.

Exactly my reaction. It became hard to take the discussion seriously after that.

The first women’s concern about autonomy and the place of the laity is instructive.

TEC will never agree to anything that does not grant them total autonomy, nor give to the laity equal power as clergy.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Bishops are a non-stater for both conservatives and progressives.

Moral equivalence was and is irrelevant with respect to the moratoria all three of which applied.  Fortunately the U.S. Supreme Court has for a second time refused to hear appeals of the CA Supreme Courts ruling on property issues.  The return of nearly all the alienated properties is now just a matter of time.  And the ACNA is not an Anglican Province in any terms that the ++ABC or most of the communion’s provinces would understand it.

The sorting that is going on in the WWAC will continue in some fashion we will see how much splintering will happen.

Michael:  The property decisions will have much fewer positive consequences then you suppose and far more negative ones (from a TEC perspective).  I have read now numerous commentaries from TEC-friendly sources detailing the costliness of maintaining empty buildings.  On the flip side, loss of properties does not seem to have dampened ACNA growth at all.  I think that the consequence of the PB’s litigation campaign will be: 1) increased costs to an already financially troubled TEC (to maintain empty buildings and prop up fake congregations in them); 2) an increasing reticence by conservative members of TEC to give to their parish or diocese (I don’t know any conservative in their right mind who would give a dime to any TEC sub-unit); and 3) virtually no new TEC church plants (none would want to start under such circumstances).  In other words, in the long run, the PB’s litigation “victories” will actually have serious negative long-term consequences for TEC, but will not likely have any long-term negative consequences on the ACNA.

Other then that, I do agree that the sorting in the WWAC will continue, and will likely continue for some time.  My predictions are that either (1) the Global South primates will band togehter in bold and coordinated action, thus forcing Rowan Williams’ hand leading to TEC’s walking away from the Communion; or (2) the Communion will de facto fall apart, staying together in name only (but without any interchangeability of orders, no working Instruments of Unity, etc.) until a new Archbishop of Canterbury emerges who will begin to rebuild it back into a Communion.

A couple of comments:

The moral equivalence argument has always been weak, IMV. Just because there is no moral equivalence between murder and stealing does not mean that stealing is OK. If the request for moratoria has any weight, then it should have weight for all of them. One can, in the tradition of “civil disobedience,” decide to ignore a moratorium request, but then one should expect to suffer the consequences, such as they are. Up until the last General Convention, TEC maintained the two moratoria that were requested of TEC. The moratoria on the blessing of same-sex unions is no longer being complied with and the moratoria on consecrating bishops who are in same-sex unions will no longer be complied with if Canon Glasspool receives the required number of consents.

James speaks of “fake congregations” is his latest post. Having served very small congregations in two dioceses, I find the idea that any congregation is fake to be insulting. It is not quite as insulting as a bovine reference to the PB that I discovered on a blog, but it is hardly an example of the love that binds all of us in spite of our differences. The congregation as the Anglican Chapel in our village is far smaller than our Episcopal congregation, but I would never demean those sisters and brothers by calling it a fake congrgeation. Wherever two of three….

Daniel:  When I speak of “fake congregations” I speak of a situation (which actually exists in my diocese) in which an congregation voted to leave TEC by an overwhelming margin.  The diocese, however, sought to maintain the fiction that the “parish” did not, in fact leave.  There was a lawsuit to regain the buildings, which the diocese won.  At the grand celebration of getting back the building, there were, according to diocesan reports, a total of 100 persons present, which included, again according to diocesan reports, a very large number of TEC clergy and many “supporters” drawn from other TEC congregations.  Over the last two years, I had occasion to see the leadership of the TEC parish and noted that the individuals in leadership positions had very recently (i.e. prior to the Anglican congregation leaving) held similar leadership positions in a nearby very liberal TEC parish.  According to diocesan information, this new TEC parish has no recorded pledges.

Now Daniel, I am not stupid.  And the evidence points one way here.  The diocese and local TEC liberals have created a “fake” congregation for PR purposes.  It is in no way representative of the original congregation that left.  Had the original congregation never existed, this new “fake” congregation would never have existed.  It is not financially viable.  It is on financial life support from the (deeply financially troubled) diocese.  And this is, apparently, not uncommon in similar circumstances.  I refer to such congregations as “fake” because they were not created for the normal reasons a diocese plants new congregations - they were created specifically for a PR purpose, at significant financial cost to the diocese.

James Wirrel - 03 March 2010 05:14 PM

Daniel:  When I speak of “fake congregations” I speak of a situation (which actually exists in my diocese) in which an congregation voted to leave TEC by an overwhelming margin.  The diocese, however, sought to maintain the fiction that the “parish” did not, in fact leave.  There was a lawsuit to regain the buildings, which the diocese won.  At the grand celebration of getting back the building, there were, according to diocesan reports, a total of 100 persons present, which included, again according to diocesan reports, a very large number of TEC clergy and many “supporters” drawn from other TEC congregations.  Over the last two years, I had occasion to see the leadership of the TEC parish and noted that the individuals in leadership positions had very recently (i.e. prior to the Anglican congregation leaving) held similar leadership positions in a nearby very liberal TEC parish.  According to diocesan information, this new TEC parish has no recorded pledges.

Now Daniel, I am not stupid.  And the evidence points one way here.  The diocese and local TEC liberals have created a “fake” congregation for PR purposes.  It is in no way representative of the original congregation that left.  Had the original congregation never existed, this new “fake” congregation would never have existed.  It is not financially viable.  It is on financial life support from the (deeply financially troubled) diocese.  And this is, apparently, not uncommon in similar circumstances.  I refer to such congregations as “fake” because they were not created for the normal reasons a diocese plants new congregations - they were created specifically for a PR purpose, at significant financial cost to the diocese.

James:

Two points of disagreement.

First, it is my view that people, even entire congrgeations, can leave, but the incorporated parish can’t. That is the issue that is being litigated and, so far, my point of view has prevalied in most cases.

Second, would you label a congregation as “fake” if, after the death or departure of most of its members, Episcopalians from other congregations decided to join the congregation in support of the remaining members? I wouldn’t and didn’t when that happened in Buffalo in 1992. The congregation eventually closed, but the effort was worth it. It, like many small congregations, was supported financially by the dioceses and by neighboring parishes. You may interpret these actions as mere PR, but I seem as attempts to support those who wish remain Episcopalians as members of the continuing congregation.

Daniel

Daniel:

Part of our disagreement is semantic.  Can a “parish” leave or not?  Depends how you define “parish”.  If you define it as an administrative sub-unit of the diocese, then no, it can’t.  If you define it as a local community of Christians banded together in common purpose, then yes, it can.  So the answer is both yes and no.

Second, there are instances where a congregation is legitimately split on leaving and a core of TEC adherents remain.  That remnant may not be financially viable.  I would not term such a group as “fake”.  When I refer to a “fake” congregation, I mean it is a congregation which was assembled with a PR motive in mind.  As regards the situation I refer to, if there were no PR motive at play, I have no doubt at all in my mind that there would be no congregation there.  And I also have no doubt at all that in 1-2 years, when the news cycles have died down, this congregation will be quietly disbanded and the “rent-a-congregation” folks will return to their real parishes again.

In the end, Daniel, the above discussion doesn’t matter to the original point I made in the earlier post.  However you want to term the small, non-viable congregations inhabiting the old buildings on the diocesan dole, the reality is that these arrangements are very costly to the TEC diocese.

James Wirrel - 03 March 2010 02:09 AM

Michael:  The property decisions will have much fewer positive consequences then you suppose and far more negative ones (from a TEC perspective).  I have read now numerous commentaries from TEC-friendly sources detailing the costliness of maintaining empty buildings.  On the flip side, loss of properties does not seem to have dampened ACNA growth at all.  I think that the consequence of the PB’s litigation campaign will be: 1) increased costs to an already financially troubled TEC (to maintain empty buildings and prop up fake congregations in them); 2) an increasing reticence by conservative members of TEC to give to their parish or diocese (I don’t know any conservative in their right mind who would give a dime to any TEC sub-unit); and 3) virtually no new TEC church plants (none would want to start under such circumstances).  In other words, in the long run, the PB’s litigation “victories” will actually have serious negative long-term consequences for TEC, but will not likely have any long-term negative consequences on the ACNA.

Other then that, I do agree that the sorting in the WWAC will continue, and will likely continue for some time.  My predictions are that either (1) the Global South primates will band togehter in bold and coordinated action, thus forcing Rowan Williams’ hand leading to TEC’s walking away from the Communion; or (2) the Communion will de facto fall apart, staying together in name only (but without any interchangeability of orders, no working Instruments of Unity, etc.) until a new Archbishop of Canterbury emerges who will begin to rebuild it back into a Communion.

In a Diocese that is in fact recovering properties we are actively planning futures for them as parishes or mission centers.  In one case the rightful congregation moved back on, though the dissidents stole the various vestments, silver and such.  Another, just emptied will gather a new community and we expect the same for the third.  What we will have a freshly charged folks, looking to grow and free of the toxic leadership of years past.  And whether we do that nationwide or not, the principles of church structure will be absolutely clear for the future and those who have misrepresented them will be gone.

I pretty much agree with your second paragraph.  I think the future fight in the WWAC will be over whether or not control will be centralized in Primates/Bishops or distributed among all four orders.  Certainly TEC will not support a future with a Roman style Curia.  Nor will many evangelical/congregationalists.  If the curial-congregationaists now in union to destroy TEC go off together, they will not last long.