News and Information

The promise of an Anglican Covenant
by Dr. Christopher Wells, scholar-in-mission

s scholar-in-mission in Dallas this fall, I have had a number of opportunities to speak around the diocese
about the possibility and the promise of an Anglican Covenant. Thank you! I offer here a brief summary of the Covenant process that is in progress in our Communion
and why it is exciting. However, I would suggest up front that you visit the Anglican Communion’s website (www.anglicancommunion.org/
commission/covenant/index.cfm) and read about the Covenant yourself (including the current
“St. Andrew’s Draft”).

The notion of covenant is, of course, familiar not only from scripture but also from the vows we make at baptisms and ordinations, the various agreements between Anglican churches for purposes of mission, and from our ecumenical commitments with other Christian churches. In every case, to “covenant” with God and with one another means that we accept basic facts about the faith and the consequences of how we live according to shared principles, texts, and traditions. This fits with the literal meaning of the word covenant, which has two connotations: (a) to agree about something, and then (b) to act on that agreement by coming together or assembling in a visible way. (The origin is a Latin word, convenire, from which our English word, convene, derives.)

The beginning of the present Anglican discussion of covenant may be found in The Virginia Report of 1997 (written by the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission), which spoke of “the reality of divine ‘Covenant’ as the fundamental means by which God’s purposes are enacted historically.” The Windsor Report (TWR) of 2004 picked up the argument, describing the particular bond among Anglicans as one of “covenantal affection” (¶ 45). On this basis, TWR “recommended” and “urged” the formal adoption “of a common Anglican Covenant which would make explicit and forceful the loyalty and bonds of affection which govern the relationships between the churches of the Communion” (¶ 118).

In June 2006, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, suggested in a pastoral letter to the Communion that “the best way forward” would be for us to develop an “adequate” set of “structures … to cope with the diversity of views that will inevitably arise in a world of rapid global communication and huge cultural variety.” In this way, he continued, we could make “sure we’re still talking the same language, aware of belonging to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ” and its one faith. Moreover, by choosing to covenant with one another in this way, we might learn, more and more, what it means to “share responsibility,” and, when necessary, to “limit [our] local freedoms for the sake of a wider witness.”

Archbishop Williams appointed a team of ten bishops, theologians, and experts in canon law to be the Covenant design group, and they produced a first draft in January 2007 and a second in February 2008. The majority of the Communion studied both carefully, the latter receiving considerable attention at the Lambeth Conference last summer. At the end of this month (Jan. 31 – Feb. 6), the “primates” or head bishops of the 44 churches of the Communion will consider the proposed Covenant at their meeting in Alexandria, Egypt, after which the design group will likely revise the text once more in time for the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council, May 2009.

After that, it is hoped that each Communion province/church — and hopefully each diocese —will have the opportunity to say, in effect, “Yes, we wish to be counted among those who welcome the opportunity to articulate more fully our common faith and life together in Christ — a faith not of our own devising or fashioned after our own image, but rather given by God to the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs for the salvation of many. Yes, we embrace a greater degree of accountability to one another for the sake of unity and mission, according to Jesus’ own mandate for his disciples in John 17 — “that they all be one, for the sake of the world.”

This last point invites reflection on the relationship between the Anglican Communion and the wider body of Christ — those Christians with whom we recognize a common language of faith. What peculiarly Anglican gifts might God be calling us to share with them, and what do we need to receive, in turn, to heal the wounds of division between us and in the world around us? Might the development of an Anglican Covenant help us in some way to continue — and sadly, in some cases to begin — this larger labor of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation with other estranged sisters and brothers in the body?

Since, according to St. Paul, every part of the body of Christ is essential for the health of the whole, any improvement in the function of even the seemingly weakest member will prove “indispensable” (I Cor 12:22). Perhaps we should understand the present agonies of the Anglican Communion as an occasion for us to grasp, more and more, the call of “ministry and service and sacraments … throughout the world” — the call “to see each other as standing in the same Way and the same Truth, moving together in one direction and so able to enrich and support each other as fully as we can” (as Archbishop Rowan said at Lambeth last summer), not only within the confines of the Anglican Communion but well beyond them. “The global horizon of the Church matters because churches without this are always in danger of slowly surrendering to the culture around them and losing sight of their calling to challenge that culture,” wrote Williams, in words that could be read as an indictment of denominationalism and nationalism, the world over.

“Our global, Catholic faith” the Archbishop continued, “affirms that the image of God is the same
everywhere — in the Zimbabwean woman beaten by police in her own church; in the manual scavenger in India denied the rights guaranteed by law; in the orphan of natural disaster in Burma; in the abducted child forced into soldiering in Northern Uganda; in the hundreds of thousands daily at risk in Darfur and southern Sudan; in the woman raising a family in a squatters’ settlement in Lima or Buenos Aires. This is the Catholic faith: that what is owed to them is no different from, no less than, what is owed to any of the rest of us.”

We need the Anglican Communion, in large part, because it disciplines our whims and our separatism, our carelessness and forgetfulness of one another, by confronting us with the most faithful voices in the world today and saying, “Listen to them and follow their example; do as they do.” Jesus himself taught that the hungry and thirsty, strangers and prisoners, are Christ in our midst (Matt. 25). Precisely as they speak in words and actions after the example of the incarnate Word, let us have the courage to listen, follow, and love anew, no longer keeping “silent” in the midst of the “great crowd” (Luke 9:36-37).

Heavenly Father, raise our voices together to make a loud shout that will be a blessing to the nations. Thy will be done, O Lord. And save us from the time of trial. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ.

NOTE: For further reading, click here for Ephraim Radner’s excellent and edifying “Short primer in defense of an
Anglican Covenant.”