Provinces, not individual dioceses which violate the terms of a proposed Anglican Covenant, will be subject to a disciplinary process overseen by the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), according to the third draft of the document released on April 8. The document is to be discussed next month during the ACC meeting in Jamaica.
 
Meeting from March 29 to April 2 at Ridley Hall, a theological college in Cambridge, England, the Covenant Design Group revised the second “St Andrew’s” draft of the document. The group spent time reworking the document in light of reactions received from more than 20 Anglican provinces, the bishops attending the 2008 Lambeth Conference, and other comments.
 
Those adopting the covenant should agree to “participate in mediated conversations” when disputes arise, and commit to “see such processes through.” If unwilling to abide by the covenant’s terms and judged to be acting in a manner “incompatible with the covenant,” a disciplinary process overseen by the joint standing committee of the primates and ACC may be introduced. Repercussions include the potential for suspension from participation in global church councils. However, “it shall be for each church and each instrument to determine its own response to such recommendations” for discipline, the proposed covenant stated.
 
Divided into four sections, the document restates traditional creedal beliefs from a high-church perspective, but seeks to mollify both the liberal and conservative wings of the Anglican Communion. Churches are to “teach and act in continuity and consonance with scripture and the catholic and apostolic faith, order and tradition, as received by the churches of the Anglican Communion.”
 
However, the churches are to “encourage and be open to prophetic and faithful leadership in ministry and mission” while studying the “scriptures in our different contexts,” with the aim of maintaining “the solemn obligation to nurture and sustain eucharistic communion.”
 
The document reaffirms the constitutional and canonical autonomy of individual provinces of the Anglican Communion and acknowledges that within the “life of communion” there is “an ongoing engagement with the diverse expressions of apostolic authority, from synods and episcopal councils to local witness, in a way which continually interprets and articulates the common faith of the church’s members.”
 
By giving provinces the ultimate authority in determining the meaning of the covenant, the document effectively concedes that the national churches, not dioceses, are the primary ecclesial units of the Anglican Communion.
 
Adoption of the covenant is also vested with provinces, not individual dioceses: “Every church of the Anglican Communion, as recognized in accordance with the constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council, is invited to adopt this covenant in its life according to its own constitutional procedures.”
 
Matters of doctrinal and moral innovation should be “tested by shared discernment,” by seeking the “shared mind with other churches, through the Communion’s councils, about matters of common concern, in a way consistent with the scriptures, the common standards of faith, and the canon laws of our churches.”
 
(The Rev.) George Conger
 
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