The Anglican Communion Covenant

by Patrick Daunt

Jonathan Clatworthy's letter to the Church Times (25.2.11) was a timely reminder that the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant is now to be addressed by the dioceses. Since there is reason to doubt whether the case against it will be fairly heard, this is a good moment to recognise that its faults are not those of emphasis or detail but of fundamental incoherence and misjudgement.

Never undervalue an Introduction! - least of all one whose status is disavowed. The one preceding the Covenant seems to make the perceptions of its creators plain enough. Certainly, there is one mention of 'discipline'. But the general tone is unmistakably upbeat. As 'servants of greater unity' the Churches are to 'intensify their bonds of affection'. Their reality is one of 'growing our Communion into a truly global family'. Our prayer is 'to enrich our common life'; we covenant in order to 'proclaim more effectively the grace of God'. And so later: we are 'summoned into a more fully developed Communion life', which we are 'called to build up'. Clearly, we are happily in development mode.

No doubts, then, about what to expect of the Covenant when it comes to practicalities. Worldwide collaboration will be augmented at all levels, from parish twinnings to global theological commissions. The common effort to combat poverty and injustice will be intensified. Responsibility for promoting collaboration will be written into the roles of the Instruments. An engine will be forged not only to monitor growth and progress but to enable and animate them.

But of course what we find is not anything like that. Already in Article 3 innovation so far from being encouraged is regarded with suspicion. Relations are no longer to be enhanced but 'sustained'. Finally, a Standing Committee, the effective mechanism, is there to detect and highlight 'questions of incompatibility' and 'controversial action'. It is all about resolution of actual conflict, virtually no previous hint of the existence of which has been on offer.

So, in form the document is monstrous. It promises the fruits of peace only to deliver rules of engagement in combat. Preliminaries should set out the real motive for an action, whatever in the given circumstances justifies it; here, signally and surely not inadvertently, this is not even attempted - rather the actual situation is misrepresented. Whatever we think of the ethics of this concoction, how can we owe it respect let alone assent?

And the concluding prescription is even worse. We are left with a vision of the Standing Committee, the Churches and the Instruments engaged in some strange ritual, forlornly passing 'impairments' and 'limitations' from one to another, as the bad blood flows and the ill will accumulates, until the final blow is struck and a wicked Church is denied the satisfaction of refusing some invitation by not being sent one.

At least these bizarre provisions try to address the reality, which is as Rowan Williams described it at the last London Synod, that the Anglican Church 'faces piece by piece dissolution'. Yet the Covenant proposes exactly the wrong solution, taking the Churches in the opposite direction to the right one. The time for cohesive initiatives is when you are confident of where you are and feel ready to go further; a new bonding structure, by following solid progress and counting on future growth, will then codify and reinforce them. To attempt this when break-up threatens is to turn the difficulties experienced by dissidents on either side into impossibilities. The Covenant, if it works at all, will not be a mere diversion or inconvenience but a disaster. A certain effect will be to accelerate disruption; probably its scale will be enlarged as well.

Yet there is another choice, to take the opposite way, instead of trying to tighten the bonds of membership to relax them, recognising and proclaiming that this is a time for faith, hope and charity, and that order can wait its day. Instead of trying to make the 'extremes' modify (in effect, abandon) their positions, the centre stubbornly accepts them both as they are, and so woos them into accepting each other as they come to see that exclusion has no hope of victory. Imagine what would happen if the reconciling Primates and bishops, led from Canterbury, were simply to accept, and only accept, and to refuse to give up accepting! Everyone will always be invited; if they will not come together let them come separately; if they will not come at all, then go to them. Trust will be, and be seen to be, inviolable; there will be no members 'more equal than others'. Rejecting inept adventure into realpolitik, the Church dares to give the Holy Spirit a break.

As the world moves on, new problems and new opportunities will come. In time the numbers of the reconciled will grow, and so the company of reconcilers; with the heat off, those who aim to re-ignite it will find themselves increasingly isolated. Locally, barriers will begin to come down, common causes and shared principles begin to be rediscovered. There will be some defections, but not nearly as many as if constraint and distrust were the rule. Instead of losing its living unity by trying to save it, the Communion will have saved it by giving it away.

After teaching classics, Patrick Daunt has mostly worked in comprehensive and special needs education and disability rights. He's now a churchwarden in a village in south Cambridgeshire.