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Category - "Anglican Covenant":

26th June 2011

‘It Is Not Necessary To Change. Survival Is Not Mandatory’

If all the words that have been written about the Anglican Covenant were laid end to end, they would surely circle the earth several times over. And we seem no nearer getting the hierarchy to consider whether it is, after all, possible that the Communion is being led down a blind alley, cul de sac, impasse or dead end.

The powers that be refuse absolutely to consider how insanitary it is never to change their minds. Presumably they change their socks and underpants at regular intervals; now we have to find a way of persuading them that their minds need frequent laundering also (particularly considering their obsession with ‘who does what and with which and to whom’).

The No Anglican Covenant Coalition, an international group, was launched on 3 November 2010,
 “the date the commemoration of the sixteenth century theologian Richard Hooker. “Hooker taught us that God’s gifts of scripture, tradition and reason will guide us to new insights in every age,” according to the Canadian priest and canon law expert, the Revd. Canon Alan Perry. “The proposed Anglican Covenant would freeze Anglican theology and Anglican polity at a particular moment. Anglican polity rejected control by foreign bishops nearly 500 years ago. The proposed Anglican Covenant reinstates it.”

The NACC convenor, the Revd Lesley Fellows, wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury explaining why the NACC and its supporters are opposed to the Covenant. After a delay of three months, she got the equivalent of ‘the bug letter’ from the Revd Canon Joanna Udal, the Archbishop’s Secretary for Anglican Communion Affairs.

There have been articles in the press, and the Church Times of 18 March 2011 was devoted to it. Many of us have blogged about it, and I’m sure we have all prayed about it. Some are more exasperated than others, but few can match the exquisite courtesy of Tobias Haller. Overall, I am very proud to be associated with such a reasoning, courteous group of people. We have covered every angle, and have put our arguments most persuasively.

But it seems to be of no avail. I sense battle-fatigue setting in, and no wonder. What can we do next?

Well, perhaps we should go for some form of direct action? I did consider modelling myself on the suffragettes, but admit to being too much of a coward to relish the prospect being trampled to death at Ascot or force-fed in Wandsworth gaol. I thought of chaining myself to ‘the railings’ at Lambeth Palace, but unfortunately there are no railings, only a high and solid wall. I could chain myself to the gates, but would have to run backwards and forwards every time they opened or shut, which would be hard work in this heat and rather undignified.

Thanks to our own Church Mouse, we now know that the Archbishop is defended by a team of Ninja nuns, so unfortunately my chances of emulating the girl in the cartoon above must be considered poor to nil.

Another suggestion: we get a ghetto-blaster and put the following song on perpetual repeat outside the walls of Lambeth Palace until we get a change of heart:

My considered solution is as follows. We brainwash both Archbishops with Fortune Cookies. The plan is as follows:

  1. We order a large number of fortune cookies, with the mottoes below enclosed.
  2. We recruit anti-Covenanteers from amongst the domestic (and possibly office) archiepiscopal retainers.
  3. Said retainers hide these at regular intervals in the biscuit tin, sock drawer, bathroom cabinet etc. 

Well, all right, all right. I’m sure you can come up with a better plan. The comment box below would be a good place to offer your ideas for better plans or – failing that – better mottoes for the fortune cookies.

He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery. ~Harold Wilson

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom. ~Confucius

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place. ~Washington Irving

Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. ~John Kenneth Galbraith

Life is its own journey, presupposes its own change and movement, and one tries to arrest them at one’s eternal peril. ~Laurens van der Post

Growth is the only evidence of life. ~John Henry Newman, Apologia pro vita sua, 1864

The circumstances of the world are so variable that an irrevocable purpose or opinion is almost synonymous with a foolish one. ~William H. Seward

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. ~William Blake

You can avoid having ulcers by adapting to the situation: If you fall in the mud puddle, check your pockets for fish. ~Author Unknown

Stubbornness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow. ~Glen Beaman

We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.
~W.H. Auden

Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history. ~Joan Wallach Scott

All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward. ~Ellen Glasgow

Oh, would that my mind could let fall its dead ideas, as the tree does its withered leaves! ~Andre Gide

The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists. ~Japanese Proverb

God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it’s me. ~Author Unknown

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly. ~Francis Bacon

Note
1. The headline quote (It is not necessary to change…) is from W. Edwards Demers, the American management guru.
2. The illustration/cartoon is from www.sangrea.net and is covered by a Creative Commons Licence
3. The You-Tube video is ‘Change Your Mind’ (3.38 minutes) by the ‘All-American Rejects’

Category: Anglican Communion, Anglican Covenant, Archbishop Rowan

25 Comments »
Posted by at 20:32

28th April 2011

Archbishop Rowan: Yellowbelly or a Martyr in the Making?

Archbishop Rowan has been nicknamed ‘Archbishop Yellowbelly’, presumably because he was thought to be a liberal at the time of his enthronement on 27 February 2003, an opinion confirmed by his announcement on 20 May 2003 of Jeffrey John as the new Bishop of Reading. When a number of conservative Anglican leaders said they would leave the Anglican Communion if the consecration went ahead, Archbishop Rowan asked Dr. John to withdraw his acceptance of the post, which John duly did on 6 July 2003.

It seems worth going over this old ground to remind ourselves of the dates. Do the facts really indicate that he is ‘yellow’, in other words a coward? In my view they do not: I think the explanation may be more worrying.

Civil servants are advised to wait six months in a new post before taking any precipitate action. This is the path of caution which one would expect a new archbishop to follow, certainly if he were a coward. Doubtless the new archbishop made several minor decisions in his first three months in office, but none of these was ever likely to hit the headlines.When he decided to proceed with the appointment of Jeffrey John as a suffragan bishop, it is simply not credible that he was not fully aware in advance that this appointment was unlikely to be well-received by, for example, the African primates. Knowing this, he went ahead. We must presume this was because his personal conscience told him this was the right thing to do, a desirable and indeed necessary next step for the Church of England. One can almost hear him humming:

Father, hear the prayer we offer:
Nor for ease that prayer shall be,
But for strength, that we may ever
Live our lives courageously.
Not forever in green pastures
Do we ask our way to be,
But the steep and rugged pathway
May we tread rejoicingly.
Not forever by still waters
Would we idly rest and stay;
But would smite the living fountains
From the rocks along our way.

In the weeks between May and July, one imagines telephone calls, emails and visitations warning the ABC that this one precipitate action, taken on the basis of his own personal views, would destroy the Anglican Communion, which was not his personal fiefdom: having accepted the leadership of ‘the whole world’, he had a duty to follow the conservative majority in order to maintain unity.

At that point, no doubt after much soul-searching, Archbishop Rowan seems to have decided that God had not appointed him ABC in order to preside over the disintegration of the Anglican Communion, whose unity should be the over-riding factor. It is then that I think he switched on the auto-pilot.

I fear that he has decided that he must hold to the allotted course, come what may, even if it results in his own personal martyrdom.

There is an undeniable nobility in this: the only problem is that many others will be joined to his martyrdom in what is beginning to bear all the hallmarks of a Greek tragedy.

Tags: | Category: Anglican Communion, Anglican Covenant, Archbishop Rowan

3 Comments »
Posted by at 11:21

23rd April 2011

We must not let in daylight upon the Anglican Communion

We, the people, are the embodiment of the Anglican Communion. This point is so self-evident, banal even, that it seems on the face of it hardly worth blogging about. And yet the powers that be seem so obsessed with lining up the trees in nice, neat rows that they fail to notice the wood.

We, the blogging and tweeting community, represent this worldwide Communion in microcosm. What unites us is a shared love of the Anglican church, coupled with occasional exasperation. What divides us?  Well, we are no doubt a very mixed bunch. If you could assemble us all in one room, you might well wonder how such a disparate group could ever have got together. It would be like getting Mahler and Bartok together with Dolly Parton, Mick Jagger and Lily Allen. The film-maker, Jean Renoir, explained it thus in a television interview on 7 September 1979:

‘If a French farmer were to sit down to dinner with a French financier, they would have nothing to say to each other. But if a French farmer were to sit down with a Chinese farmer, they would talk late into the night.’

From their shared values, bonds of affection would develop. A certain amount of good-natured teasing might ensue over the different methods of farming. (Like the Australians persistently calling the Brits ‘Pommy bastards’, they ‘only do it to annoy because they know it teases’). But imagine if you started to try and pin this relationship down in paragraphs, clauses and sub-clauses: does anyone really imagine this would deepen the ties? To state the obvious, we have managed well enough until now on the basis of an agreement metaphorically written on the back of an envelope: the longer and more detailed our Covenant becomes, the more there is to disagree over.

Anglicanism has been accused of fudge, sweeping all controversy under the carpet, and saying collectively ‘If it’s not pleasant, it does not exist’. Well, as our grandmothers told us, together with remembering our manners, there are worse recipes for getting through the vicissitudes of life. Examining dusty corners with powerful halogen beams is unlikely to prove illuminating in the long run.

St Paul said it first, in his letter to the Philippians (4.8):

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

“We must not let in daylight upon magic,” Walter Bagehot famously wrote about the British monarchy. “We must not bring the Queen into the combat of politics, or she will cease to be reverenced by all combatants; she will become one combatant among many.” Autre temps, autre moeurs—or do I mean plus ça change… ?

Tags: , , , | Category: Anglican Communion, Anglican Covenant, Life's lessons

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Posted by at 16:01

17th April 2011

Is Archbishop Rowan fatally dependent on his sat nav?

Everyone has heard silly stories, some surely apocryphal, of drivers being led astray by their sat navs, with varying results from getting stuck in narrow country lanes to driving off piers into the sea. In my own experience, friends staying with us in Hampshire from the Middle East needed to take their son to Leicester to put him into university. I insisted on map-reading for the outward journey, which they thought quaintly stubborn; the journey took one and a half hours. We would return, they announced, via sat nav (or GPS, to our cousins across the pond). As they had programmed ‘using motorways’, the sat nav decided to return via the M1 and the journey took nearly three hours.

I am wondering whether ++Rowan (and his advisors) are similarly fatally fixated on their sat nav. One can imagine the archbishop settling down in 2008 to plan the march towards the worldwide adoption of the Covenant. He would have punched all data then available into the massive central processing unit that is undoubtedly his brain, hit the enter button and then produced the route he intended to take to his simplistic panacea for all the ills that beset the Anglican Communion.

He does not appear to have noticed that the parameters have changed. Roadworks have started along the way, there have been diversions, and some roads have been turned into cul-de-sacs or, as the French really say, ‘voies sans issue’. More seriously, some of his original data was also corrupted.

And yet, like Mr Magoo, he carries on regardless. Helpless onlookers do their best to prevent him from falling into the ditch, but he marches forward saying ‘I can do no other’.

Archbishop Rowan, this is a petition.

Please, please stop, look and listen. Remember the law of unintended consequences. Only proceed further with great caution!

We echo the heartfelt words of  Oliver Cromwell  to the 1650 general assembly of the Church of Scotland and “beseech you in the bowels of Christ [to] think it possible you may be mistaken.”

………………………………………….

Postscript: If you enjoyed this, you may also like the story on  Lay Anglicana, which was hijacked by Archbishop Rowan on page 2

Tags: , | Category: Anglican Covenant, Archbishop Rowan, Life's lessons

20 Comments »
Posted by at 16:59

13th April 2011

Old King Rown (and, you guessed it, the Anglican Covenant)

Old King Rown was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he.
He called for his crook and he called for his cope
And he called for his Thurifers three.
‘Where are the acolytes?’ asked the Thurifers.
‘Where, oh where can they be?’
There’s none so fair as can compare to the good old C of E!

Old King Rown was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he.
He called for his crook and he called for his cope
And he called for his Curates three.
‘We need a vacancy!’ moaned the Curates.
‘Where are the acolytes?’ asked the Thurifers.
‘Where, oh where can they be?’
There’s none so fair as can compare to the good old C of E!

Old King Rown was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he.
He called for his crook and he called for his cope
And he called for his Vicars three.
‘We’ll be bolshie if we want!’, said the Vicars.
‘We need a vacancy!’ moaned the Curates.
‘Where are the acolytes?’ said the Thurifers.
‘Where, oh where can they be?’
There’s none so fair as can compare to the good old C of E!

Old King Rown was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he.
He called for his crook and he called for his cope
And he called for his Bishops three.
‘Toe the party line!’, cried the Bishops.
‘We’ll be bolshie if we want’, said the Vicars.
‘We need a vacancy!’ moaned the Curates.
‘Where are the acolytes?’ asked the Thurifers.
‘Where, oh where can they be?’
There’s none so fair as can compare to the good old C of E!

Old King Rown was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he.
He called for his crook and he called for his cope
And he called for his Synods three.
‘Now to square the laity’, said the Synods.
‘Toe the party line!’, cried the Bishops.
‘We’ll be bolshie if we want’, said the Vicars.
‘We need a vacancy!’ moaned the Curates.
‘Where are the acolytes?’ asked the Thurifers.
‘Where, oh where can they be?’
There’s none so fair as can compare to the good old C of E!

Old King Rown was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he.
He called for his crook and he called for his cope
And he called for his Primates three. 
‘Time to spank the Yanks!’, said the Primates.
‘If that’s what you want?’, said our Cantuar.
‘Now to square the laity’, said the Synods.
‘Toe the party line!’, cried the Bishops.
‘We’ll be bolshie if we want’, said the Vicars.
‘We need a vacancy!’ moaned the Curates.
‘Where are the acolytes?’ asked the Thurifers.
‘And the poor old laity?’ (sung slowly, and with feeling, please)

There’s none so fair as can compare to the good old C of E!

Tags: , | Category: Anglican Covenant, Archbishop Rowan, Church of England

3 Comments »
Posted by at 17:40

10th April 2011

“We are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet”

In England, the Anglican church is the established church. Unlike the United States, there is no separation of church and state – quite the reverse: the Anglican church is The Church of England. No other church, and no other Christian denomination, is anything other than ‘one of the churches which operate in the United Kingdom’. But our monarch is ex officio ‘Head of the Church of England’. Some of our bishops sit in the House of Lords in ‘the Mother of Parliaments’, helping to draft the laws of the land. The Church of England is inextricably woven into the fabric of our national political life.

We say that we live in a parliamentary democracy, and that we have had universal suffrage for all in the United Kingdom since 1928.

And yet, when the Church of England is planning to introduce changes which radically change the relationship between Bishops and people, the Church has made no attempt to inform the people of what is proposed. Why has a pastoral letter not been issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury to be read from every Anglican pulpit in the land?

By what right does the Church expect to impose the radical changes of the Covenant with only the most token of consultations at diocesan (and in some cases deanery) level, with in most cases no provision for people to inform themselves of the background? In General Synod in November 2010, disgracefully, only papers putting the case for the Covenant were allowed to be circulated.

Do you know the poem by G K Chesterton, The Secret People?

Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget,
For we are the people of England, that never has spoken yet…
You laugh at us and love us, both mugs and eyes are wet:
Only you do not know us. For we have not spoken yet…

And the face of the King’s Servants grew greater than the King:
He tricked them, and they trapped him, and stood round him in a ring.
The new grave lords closed round him, that had eaten the abbey’s fruits,
And the men of the new religion, with their Bibles in their boots,
We saw their shoulders moving, to menace or discuss,
And some were pure and some were vile; but none took heed of us.
We saw the King as they killed him, and his face was proud and pale;
And a few men talked of freedom, while England talked of ale…

They have given us into the hands of the new unhappy lords,
Lords without anger and honour, who dare not carry their swords.
They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;
They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,
Their doors are shut in the evenings; and they know no songs.

We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,
Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.
It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,
Our wrath come after Russia’s wrath and our wrath be the worst.
It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest
God’s scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best.
But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.

Please pray that the Church of England relents, and decides to consult the people of England – from whence come their congregations – before any irrevocable steps are taken.

Tags: , | Category: Anglican Covenant, Church of England, Parliament

2 Comments »
Posted by at 23:05

7th April 2011

Doctor Who, Star Trek and the Anglican Covenant

The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888 declared its support for:

“the Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church.”

Consciously, or more likely unconsciously, this formulation mirrored the understood rules of international diplomacy, time travel and natural justice. Since at least the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, it has been one of the tenets of international diplomacy that one nation should not attempt to impose its cultural norms on another. The collapse of colonialism could be said to be in part because the colonised nations were determined to  follow their own cultural norms without outside interference and reassert their right to ‘self-determination’.

And it is a recognised principle in science fiction. For example:

“In the universe of Star Trek, the Prime Directive, Starfleet’s General Order #1, is the most prominent guiding principle of the United Federation of Planets. The Prime Directive dictates that there can be no interference with the internal development of alien civilizations, consistent with the historical real world concept of Westphalian sovereignty.”

Similarly, the Time Lords in Doctor Who have a strict policy of non-interference. I am ready to be corrected by any SciFi buffs among you, but I think any attempt in science fiction to break this non-interference rule Leads To Tears Before Bedtime.

One could also say it is against the laws of natural justice:

Natural justice operates on the principles that man is basically good, that a person of good intent should not be harmed, and one should treat others as one would like to be treated.

This is the text of Section 4 of the Anglican Covenant:

4. Each Church affirms the following principles and procedures, and, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself to their implementation.
4.1 Adoption of the Covenant
(4.1.1)  Each Church adopting this Covenant affirms that it enters into the Covenant as a commitment to relationship in submission to God. Each Church freely offers this commitment to other Churches in order to live more fully into the ecclesial communion and interdependence which is foundational to the Churches of the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion is a fellowship, within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, of national or regional Churches, in which each recognises in the others the bonds of a common loyalty to Christ expressed through a common faith and order, a shared inheritance in worship, life and mission, and a readiness to live in an interdependent life.
(4.1.2)  In adopting the Covenant for itself, each Church recognises in the preceding sections a statement of faith, mission and interdependence of life which is consistent with its own life and with the doctrine and practice of the Christian faith as it has received them. It recognises these elements as foundational for the life of the Anglican Communion and therefore for the relationships among the covenanting Churches.
(4.1.3)  Such mutual commitment does not represent submission to any external ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Nothing in this Covenant of itself shall be deemed to alter any provision of the Constitution and Canons of any Church of the Communion, or to limit its autonomy of governance. The Covenant does not grant to any one Church or any agency of the Communion control or direction over any Church of the Anglican Communion.
(4.1.4)  Every Church of the Anglican Communion, as recognised in accordance with the Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council, is invited to enter into this Covenant according to its own constitutional procedures.
(4.1.5)  The Instruments of Communion may invite other Churches to adopt the Covenant using the same procedures as set out by the Anglican Consultative Council for the amendment of its schedule of membership. Adoption of this Covenant does not confer any right of recognition by, or membership of, the Instruments of Communion, which shall be decided by those Instruments themselves.
(4.1.6)  This Covenant becomes active for a Church when that Church adopts the Covenant through the procedures of its own Constitution and Canons.
4.2 The Maintenance of the Covenant and Dispute Resolution
(4.2.1)  The Covenant operates to express the common commitments and mutual accountability which hold each Church in the relationship of communion one with another. Recognition of, and fidelity to, this Covenant, enable mutual recognition and communion. Participation in the Covenant implies a recognition by each Church of those elements which must be maintained in its own life and for which it is accountable to the Churches with which it is in Communion in order to sustain the relationship expressed in this Covenant.
(4.2.2)  The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, responsible to the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting, shall monitor the functioning of the Covenant in the life of the Anglican Communion on behalf of the Instruments. In this regard, the Standing Committee shall be supported by such other committees or commissions as may be mandated to assist in carrying out this function and to advise it on questions relating to the Covenant.
(4.2.3)  When questions arise relating to the meaning of the Covenant, or about the compatibility of an action by a covenanting Church with the Covenant, it is the duty of each covenanting Church to seek to live out the commitments of Section 3.2. Such questions may be raised by a Church itself, another covenanting Church or the Instruments of Communion.
(4.2.4)  Where a shared mind has not been reached the matter shall be referred to the Standing Committee. The Standing Committee shall make every effort to facilitate agreement, and may take advice from such bodies as it deems appropriate to determine a view on the nature of the matter at question and those relational consequences which may result. Where appropriate, the Standing Committee shall refer the question to both the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting for advice.
(4.2.5)  The Standing Committee may request a Church to defer a controversial action. If a Church declines to defer such action, the Standing Committee may recommend to any Instrument of Communion relational consequences which may specify a provisional limitation of participation in, or suspension from, that Instrument until the completion of the process set out below.
(4.2.6)  On the basis of advice received from the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting, the Standing Committee may make a declaration that an action or decision is or would be “incompatible with the Covenant”.
(4.2.7)  On the basis of the advice received, the Standing Committee shall make recommendations as to relational consequences which flow from an action incompatible with the Covenant. These recommendations may be addressed to the Churches of the Anglican Communion or to the Instruments of the Communion and address the extent to which the decision of any covenanting Church impairs or limits the communion between that Church and the other Churches of the Communion, and the practical consequences of such impairment or limitation. Each Church or each Instrument shall determine whether or not to accept such recommendations.
(4.2.8)  Participation in the decision making of the Standing Committee or of the Instruments of Communion in respect to section 4.2 shall be limited to those members of the Instruments of Communion who are representatives of those churches who have adopted the Covenant, or who are still in the process of adoption.
(4.2.9)  Each Church undertakes to put into place such mechanisms, agencies or institutions, consistent with its own Constitution and Canons, as can undertake to oversee the maintenance of the affirmations and commitments of the Covenant in the life of that Church, and to relate to the Instruments of Communion on matters pertinent to the Covenant.
4.3 Withdrawing from the Covenant
(4.3.1)  Any covenanting Church may decide to withdraw from the Covenant. Although such withdrawal does not imply an automatic withdrawal from the Instruments of Communion or a repudiation of its Anglican character, it may raise a question relating to the meaning of the Covenant, and of compatibility with the principles incorporated within it, and trigger the provisions set out in section 4.2 above.

I submit that these provisions are against the rules of international diplomacy, science fiction and natural justice. Is it bound to lead to tears before bedtime?

P.S. Alan Perry has written in a more detailed and much more scholarly way on the Anglican Covenant and Natural Justice in his blog, ‘Insert Catchy Blog Title Here’. I strongly recommend it.

Tags: , | Category: Anglican Covenant, Church of England, Natural justice

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Posted by at 09:27

2nd April 2011

Does the Anglican Covenant Threaten the Unwritten British Constitution?

The Wikipedia entry on the UK constitution has the following on the role of the Church of England :

The Church of England is the established church in England (i.e., not in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland). The Sovereign is ex officio Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and is required by the Act of Settlement 1701 to “join in communion with the Church of England”. As part of the coronation ceremony, the Sovereign swears an oath to “maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England” before being crowned by the senior cleric of the Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury – a similar oath concerning the established Church of Scotland, which is a Presbyterian church, having already been given by the new sovereign in his or her Accession Council. All clergy of the Church swear an oath of allegiance to the Sovereign before taking office.

Parliament retains authority to pass laws regulating the Church of England. In practice, much of this authority is delegated to the Church’s General Synod. The appointment of bishops and archbishops of the Church falls within the royal prerogative. In current practice, the Prime Minister makes the choice from two candidates submitted by a commission of prominent Church members, then passes his choice on to the Sovereign.

No wonder the Queen is looking a bit thoughtful these days. Of course, the problem with having a constitution which is the sum of its component parts, the laws of the land , is that it is a minefield for lawyers.

The commentator, Sir Robin Day, attempted to analyse the governance and character of England in his 1975 autobiography:

In this country, we…are entrusted with a set of values through which our reasoning is tempered with humanity, moderated by fairness, based on truth, imbued with the Christian ethic, applied with commonsense, and upheld by law. If there is a gulf of hypocrisy between the professing and the practice of these values, that does not mean that we should abandon them.

Our society…whatever its present troubles, is by nature and tradition reasonable in the way it lives and governs itself. That way is by peaceful reform rather than violent revolution…In the Reasonable Society, there can be no place for absolutes, no place for theories which must be rigidly adhered to, no place for dogmas which must be defended to the death…there should be no principle which is too important to be reconsidered for the sake of others, no interest which cannot make some sacrifice for the common good.

The idea of the Reasonable Society is deeply rooted in our temper and tradition. That temper and tradition has much in common with our climate…and also perhaps with the quality of light and colour which goes with that climate…of light and colour captured with such magical effect by the genius of our greatest painter, Turner, in his landscapes.

The Reasonable Society, and the institutions which have grown with it, has flowered in the temperate climate of our mental habits. Equanimity is preferred to hysteria. Experience is a wiser guide than doctrine. Absolutes are alien to us. We know that absolute equality would extinguish liberty; that absolute liberty would demolish order…The Reasonable Society is not, as may be thought, merely a convenient idea to play about with in argument. It is fundamentally indispensable to the practical working of the British system of democracy. This is because we have no written constitution, no fundamental law to be applied, no judicial review by a supreme court, no basic rights engraved in marble… Such a constitution has only worked, and can only work, with the accompaniment of the conventions, traditions, customs, compromises, voluntary restraints and the national sense of fair play, all of which go to make up the Reasonable Society.”

The pettifogging minutiae of the Anglican Covenant couldn’t be further removed from the society described by Robin Day or the pragmatic arrangements hitherto governing the role of the Church of England in British society.

It therefore seems reasonable to ask whether it threatens, not just Anglicans, but all English people. And not just English people, but all residents in the United Kingdom who choose to live here precisely because of its long tradition of civil liberties and give and take.

To paraphrase John Donne:

The Church of England is not an island entire of itself;
we are all a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
England is the less.

Tags: , , , | Category: Anglican Communion, Anglican Covenant, Church of England, Unwritten British Constitution

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Posted by at 00:59
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