The Anglican Covenant: No Playing with Guns in the House.

Boys with toys.

We lived in a communal household on a farm for eight years - five and sometimes six adults and two children. The children were boys, 10 days apart in age. Apparently almost all boys get into playing at gun stuff - taking aim, shooting, falling over, etc. Ours were no different. We had two rules - no real guns or things that looked like real guns (sticks would do just fine) and no guns in the house.

No guns in the house.

The Anglican Communion is a large house, a large tent, perhaps the sort of house in which there are many rooms.  The Anglican Covenant has been billed as a kind of rule of life / rule of belief statement, one that spells out something of what we all hold in common. But near the end of the Covenant it becomes as well a standard against which inclusion and exclusion in the life of the Anglican Communion is based. The Covenant includes something that looks as if it could be used as a weapon, as a basis for some members bringing other members to judgment.  The Covenant includes a gun that can be aimed and fired.

It doesn't look like a gun, it looks like a stick. But by a series of carefully described processes the Standing Committee can recommend "relational consequences" and finally recommend that a Church be suspended from participation in the life of the Communion. 

Here is what the Covenant says:

"4.2.5)  The Standing Committee may request a Church to defer a controversial action. If a Church declines to defer such action, the Standing Committee may recommend to any Instrument of Communion relational consequences which may specify a provisional limitation of participation in, or suspension from, that Instrument until the completion of the process set out below.

(4.2.6)  On the basis of advice received from the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting, the Standing Committee may make a declaration that an action or decision is or would be “incompatible with the Covenant”.

(4.2.7)  On the basis of the advice received, the Standing Committee shall make recommendations as to relational consequences which flow from an action incompatible with the Covenant. These recommendations may be addressed to the Churches of the Anglican Communion or to the Instruments of the Communion and address the extent to which the decision of any covenanting Church impairs or limits the communion between that Church and the other Churches of the Communion, and the practical consequences of such impairment or limitation. Each Church or each Instrument shall determine whether or not to accept such recommendations."

Outside the house, while we are playing in the yard  and pretending, these sections of the Anglican Covenant may look like a stick instead of a gun.  But there is every possibility that the stick - gun will indeed come into the house, and in the house it is a gun. In the house section 4.2 can become a weapon in the hands of some.

Understand - upon agreeing to the Anglican Covenant a Church agrees to the monitoring of its life by the Standing Committee. " 

(4.2.2)  The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, responsible to the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting, shall monitor the functioning of the Covenant in the life of the Anglican Communion on behalf of the Instruments."

If The Episcopal Church sign the Covenant it could immediately be subject to review by the Standing Committee, particularly if complaint is made. 

TEC's current and past behavior in regard to the moratoria of the Windsor Report which we were "invited" to observe would become the subject for judgment by the Standing Committee.  Should the Standing Committee so determine, it could recommend to the Primates, the ACC and to the Archbishop of Canterbury as the one who issues invitation to Lambeth, that they suspend inclusion of The Episcopal Church.  

Signing the Covenant is not the issue, weapons in the House is.

If The Episcopal Church doesn't sign the Covenant it could be argued that it would lose its place in the meetings of the various "instruments of unity" but that is not at all clear.  The Anglican Covenant does not state that only those who sign are part of the Anglican Communion. It does say that only those signing or considering signing can be party to decisions about recommendations for suspension or exclusion (4.2.8) but it also says that Churches that "withdraw" from the Covenant (or who never sign, I suppose) are not automatically excluded from the various instruments (read bodies) and do not repudiate thereby being "Anglican."  Not signing means just that - not signing.  

Those who sign on, however, get to exercise judgment and can recommend exclusion from the bodies of the Communion, and those bodies in turn would be guided by some sort of majority vote to expel from their ranks offending persons.  So the gun is there, loaded and ready to be used whether or not we sign on the Covenant. 

The Episcopal Church, and any other Church in the Communion, is under no obligation to rush to sign the Covenant. Our process is by no means the slowest in the Communion. It does us no good to worry too much about signing on now or later. As soon as member Churches sign on they, and those Churches still about the business of signing on, begin to be clearly part of the judgment circle and can begin to make recommendations about suspension or exclusion.

Time to take our time.

So here is where it stands:  If TEC turns down the Covenant we are still part of the Communion and its instruments until such time as those who have signed or are still considering signing meet together to pass judgment on TEC and those recommendations are carried out by the instruments themselves.  If TEC signs or is still considering signing, it can still be under the gun, but cannot be excluded from the circle making the judgment call.  It at least is part of the decision making under 4.2.8. TEC is still in the room for discussion about its fate.

With or without signing the Covenant, there is now a gun in the house, a gun that will be used by some of the boys, sure as shootin'.  The instrument meant to encourage common life by not appearing as a rod of judgment but just a stick, has, on entering the house become a gun.

And here is the problem with the Covenant: Its articles concerning "The Maintenance of the Covenant and Dispute Resolution" (4.2) are meant to be reasonable and engaging means of resolution and continuance of life together. But in the hands of some Church leaders they can become means of pretty much instant expulsion.  Bang, bang....

A Rest from Judgment.

The rule, "No guns in the house,"  how might that be applied to the Anglican Communion?

I believe only by stipulating a moratorium on entertaining complaints involving noncompliance with the Covenant until such time as sufficient member Churches have signed on. That would not mean that no complaints would be heard, but only that they would be heard directly by the instruments themselves, not by the Standing Committee. (The Archbishop could, for example, recommend that members of errant Churches not be invited to serve on committees. His recommendation could be accepted or ignored.)  In the "on hold" period, the judgment stick or gun in part 4.2 of the Covenant could not be invoked.

The moratorium in all likelihood last for five to seven years.  In that period those matters that continue to divide, and new divisive matters, would be dealt with by the Instruments as they currently exist. But we would have time to also consider healing and reconciliation on several levels.

A Rest from Walking Away from the Table.

A second moratorium might also be proposed: A moratorium on walking away from the table - no member Church of the Communion would withdraw itself from participation in the Instruments of Communion or from participation in the Eucharist or the common life of the Communion. If we can't sit down with our opponents, who can we sit with? Our friends? Once we divide friend from foe we will end up finally sitting alone.

Be not afraid.

Of course we need not be afraid of the sticks become guns:  Out "there" in the yard they were after all only sticks - at best instruments to poke and even to thrash. When brought into the house, they may appear as guns, and have a nasty habit of going off. But, in reality, they are still just sticks.  

Above all we need not be afraid of being expelled from the Anglican Communion. If it happens it happens. If it does not it does not. 

Philip Marlowe, in Raymond Chandler's PLAYBACK, says, "Guns never settle anything. They are just a fast curtain to a bad second act." If the boys with guns in the house go, "bang, bang, you're dead!" well, it is just a bad second act.  In the third act it will turn out that we didn't die, we changed. And in the third act perhaps the boys will put away childish things and change as well.