The Anglican Covenant

Jonathan Clathworthy writes

More on the proposed Anglican Covenant. This Covenant is the product of the debate over gay bishops: the idea is that the different international provinces, including the Church of England, will sign a commitment to consult each other before doing anything controversial. The effect would be to give new powers to people wanting to object to what is being done in another part of the world. The Church of England is due to vote on it in July 2012, at the General Synod meeting (immediately after its decisive vote on women bishops). I’ve been arguing against the Anglican Covenant, on the ground that power should not be centralized; it should be okay for different parts of the Anglican Communion to hold different opinions without bullying each other. The first openly gay bishops were consecrated in the USA. Supporters of the Covenant often appeal to anti-American sentiment, as though the USA were imposing their ideas on the rest of us again: in fact, in this instance, it is the Americans who are sensitive to the feelings of those discriminated against (gays and lesbians).

Peter Doll, Canon Librarian at Norwich Cathedral, wrote an article in favour of the Covenant which is on http://deimel.org/commentary/b_pages/doll.pdf.

I wrote a reply which is on http://www.modernchurch.org.uk/resources/clatworthy/2012-1.

An American has also written a reply, on http://blog.deimel.org/2012/01/very-close-look-at-dolls-pro-covenat.html.