Communion Partner Bishops doing the Anglican Covenant two-step. (reformatted)

Bishop Dan Martins, of Springfield, a fine man and great blogger, wrote this in his comments on day four of the House of Bishops Spring Meeting:

"The time slot after dinner was dedicated to various interest groups, so I hung out, naturally, with my Communion Partner colleagues. CP is dedicated to fostering the highest degree of fellowship possible between TEC and the other Anglican Communion provinces, especially those in the Global South, and advocating continuously on behalf of the Anglican Covenant. We had some strategizing to do as we look toward General Convention."

Well, there it is: the Communion Partner Bishops had a chat up at the House of Bishops Meeting and worked on strategies related to General Convention. 

What might they have been strategizing about? Certainly strategies concerning the "highest degree of fellowship possible between TEC and the other Anglican Communion provinces" are in order. I would think most of those strategies would be of great interest to the World Mission Legislative Committee. Some of the critique of the Continuing Indaba thingy of the Anglican Communion office will surely come up. Certainly there will be issues concerning relations the Global South provinces and relations with GAFCON (they are not the same). And of course there will be the concerns of missionary action in a hostile world and the relation with Islam in its many forms.

But sure as the sun comes up, the strategies will indeed include "advocating continuously on behalf of the Anglican Covenant."

Last time around, when asked if TEC would assent to, sign on to, approve, or adopt the Anglican Covenant, the General Convention responded with "not now."

There is already a resolution being suggested for this Convention regarding the Anglican Covenant, coming from the Task Force on the Anglican Covenant. I am sure that there will be from one source or another a simple resolution, reading something like this:"Resolved the House of ________ concurring, that the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church, meeting in Salt Lake, Utah, June 23-July 3, 2015, adopts the Anglican Covenant." Likely there will be one resolving that GC reject the Covenant.

There was some passion last General Convention for and against the Covenant, many supposing that because we were asked we were under some constraint to answer at Convention.  Those advocating for the Covenant and those advocating against the Covenant wanted to put the General Convention on record. None of the passionate were pleased with the result, which rejected both positions.

This time around, I detect little passion. Time has passed the Covenant thingy by. The big items on the agenda this round are about marriage, the budget, re-imaging the church, electing a presiding bishop, and maybe doing something about theological education. 

The Anglican Covenant will not draw much careful interest.

That is both a curse and a blessing. I believe it should get no attention at all. That is, the Task Force should note that there is little new action out there on the Covenant and have done with it for the moment, recommending that we continue to monitor the developments regarding the Covenant and make recommendations as necessary in the future.
 
But if it gets some attention from the Communion Partners, and little attention by those opposed or wanting to kick the can further down the road, we could end up having a up or down vote get to the floor, where in the rush of legislation it might slide on by with a tepid yes vote.  

So it becomes important to know just what the Communion Partner bishops are thinking about doing, and to know just what sorts of resolutions are coming forward and from where. And it becomes important to have witness at the hearings who speak against the Covenant, or for continued non-engagement. 

The counter to advocating for the Anglican Covenant by adopting it is still not necessarily advocating against adoption ever. It might still be to advocate not adopting it now.

We might remember that there is no definitive "no" vote. A "no" vote now could be changed in three years to a "yes."  The Anglican Covenant managers in the higher realms of Anglican land are not (I believe) interested in the "no's"... those can change over time. It is the "yes" votes that count.

Of course "yes" can be reversed as well, but saying "yes" and later saying "no" is a bit more difficult to pull off with grace.The value to the yes vote is that it is evidence that things are moving along and all will be well in Anglican land lead by the Anglican Communion Office.

At the moment I can think of no reason to say "yes" and buy onto the Anglican Covenant. I believe it to be a seriously flawed document. The arguments against it are increasingly persuasive, particular the arguments that draw on decision making in the Church of England - decisions which would have been much more difficult had the CofE adopted the Covenant. See Lionel Deimel on this HERE.

If it came to a yes or no vote, I'd advocate for the "no."
But I don't think it needs to come to that.

Those who think TEC is going down the wrong path on many fronts would perhaps love it if we voted "no."  It would simply prove their case once again.

Why give them the satisfaction?  

And of course, should they prevail, we would all be in deeper than we want. Suddenly those who believe TEC is the terrible thing GAFCON believes it is would have many cases to prove their point. And bishops (and others) in TEC would have grounds to bring the wayward into line on the grounds that their actions ran counter to world wide Anglican norms. 

The whole trouble with this Anglican Covenant thingy is that it is the prelude to a world wide Anglican Church - it is the prelude to the Anglican Communion as yet another branch acting like a tree. There are too many branches acting like trees out there already, and too much of that wood has been used to burn out the heretics and malcontents. Do we really need a world wide Anglican Church, whose purpose is to keep the party line pure and the local franchise undefiled? 




Not now, not ever.