Brothers_+

Any body remember Rube Goldberg and his fantastic
mechanical designs?

Rube Goldberg's imaginary machines were less
convoluted than the plan that will be brought forth to
patch together the Anglican Communion.

Charles+
Church of the Good Shepherd
"-----------------------------------

New Anglican covenant begins to take shape 

By Bill Bowder 

THE OUTLINES of a sacrificial covenant that could bind
the Anglican Communion together as a "genuinely global
communion of interdependent autonomous Churches",
despite its current differences, has been approved by
the Archbishop of Canterbury and a select group of
Primates.

Dr Williams and other members of the joint standing
committee of the Primates of the Anglican Consultative
Council have agreed on a way to produce a covenant
that could be in place by 2012. It would form a key
part of the discussions at the Lambeth Conference in
Canterbury in 2008.

The details of the covenant will be drawn up by a
design group, to be appointed by Dr Williams later
this year. They will then be considered by bishops,
clergy, and laity across the Communion.

A working party of eight clerics and academics based
in Britain has sketched out a timetable for its
development and implementation, and the style of its
possible contents.

First, there would be just one Anglican covenant for
everyone. It would be a single formula and it would
have no opt-outs. For the purposes of the Communion,
the covenant should be built on the idea of God's
promise "that we shall be led to truth and unity". 
In the covenant, the different provinces and Churches
would commit themselves once again to live together in
communion. 

Such a covenant would be costly: "We do not
underestimate the cost that being in covenant may
exact on the Churches of the Communion," the group
warns. 

For the covenant to work, most Churches and provinces
must be able to "gather" around it. But those who
could not, would not then have to leave the Communion.

Just as the Churches had been Anglican before there
was a Lambeth Conference, so they could be Anglicans
without accepting the covenant. "It might be expected
that, as time goes on, stronger presumptions of mutual
recognition and interchangeability of ministry and
membership would arise between those Churches and
provinces that had signed up than those who had not
chosen to do
so."

What could emerge was "a two (or more) tiered
Communion with some level of permeability between
Churches signed up to the Covenant, and those who are
not". 

www.anglicancommunion.org