The President of the House of Deputies recently sent a note to General Convention deputies to remind us that we ought to be about getting input from congregations on the Anglican Covenant. Dr. Bonnie Anderson wrote,
"On September 8, 2010 Presiding Bishop Katharine and I sent a letter to the Church asking for input from congregations regarding the proposed Anglican Covenant. Comments are due April 24, 2011. Here is the link to the letter, the final study guide and the proposed covenant. The letter tells where to send comments. Deputations are also encouraged to send their comments."
The Anglican Covenant has consumed a considerable amount of time and my sense is many of us have about had enough of the discussion. Still, I am glad Dr. Anderson and the Presiding Bishop are encouraging further discussion. We have a final form of the Covenant before us and one way or another response to it will be before us at General Convention 2012. Now is not the time to drop the matter, no matter how tedious it seems to be getting.
There are some fine resources on the Covenant already available and new ones coming along. In addition there are new essays being published on various elements of the the Covenant that will be of great help in unpacking the rather dense material of the Covenant text.
Today (March 11th) Canon Simon Mein has published an important contribution to the discussion of the notion that Scripture containing All Things Necessary for Salvation. As always Simon writes high protein material, with lots to chew over.
The assent to the Scriptures as formative of Anglican understandings is referenced 15 times in the Anglican Covenant, and Mein helps us explore just how to appropriate the truth of scripture as primary and how the phrase "the Holy Scripture as containing All Things Necessary to Salvation" presents certain difficulties when repeated as a mantra. (my words not his.)
Take yourselves over to Simonsurmises and read All Things Necessary for Salvation. There is no quiz, but there may be many questions.
I have three problems with Scripture's containing "all things necessary for salvation": tradition, reason and, possibly the most important factor, the other "miserable offender" sitting next to me. Since faith is lived out in community, I need the fellowship and forgiveness of others if I'm to grow in wisdom and grace.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link. I look forward to reading the Simon Mein's article.
This is an excellent article, and I plan to share it with the clergy of my parish (Transfiguration, Dallas) some of the professors at Perkins (SMU, Dallas).
ReplyDeleteThanks again for posting these things that needed to be said.