Dreaming of a Transformed Anglican Communion.

The Archbishop of Canterbury in his second presidential address to the Lambeth Conference challenged people to think of "a a new and transformed relation of communion in Christ." My sense of the proposed Anglican Covenant has been that it fails the transformation test. It is the same old same old, an attempt to make communion be about union in a formal sense, not an effort to live into a common practice of care and friendship. So I wrote a simple alternative Anglican Covenant. Here it is:

A Covenant among certain Churches:

"In as much as God has seen fit to encourage friendship between churches whose understanding of the faith, the scripture, the sacraments and the common life of prayer and church governance was formed from the experience of the Church of England, we the undersigned pledge, in so far as we are able, to constant prayer for one another, companionship in mission and evangelism, and to hold each other in mutual regard.

We pledge to honor the baptism of persons from every church so pledged, to accept ministers of the Gospel from any of our churches in so far as our own canons permit, and to extend sacramental ministry to members of every church so pledged provided they follow the godly counsel of the church in which they participate as regards preparation for reception of sacramental ministry."

Perhaps it's a start.