New AntiCovenant Developments

Lots has happened in the struggle against the proposed Anglican Covenant over the past couple of days.

On Wednesday, we announced the appointment of three new patrons.

• Bishop Jim White is the Assistant Bishop of Auckland in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia;
• Dr. Muriel Porter, OAM is a widely respected journalist and author and a laywoman in the Anglican Church of Australia;
• Dr. Sarah Coakley is the Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge.

They join:

• Bishop Peter Selby, retired Bishop of Worcester in the Church of England;
• Bishop John Saxbee, retired bishop of Lincoln in the Church of England;
• Dr. Diarmaid MacCulloch, Kt, Professor of the History of the Church and Fellow of St. Cross College, Oxford;
• Dr. Marilyn McCord Adams, Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and former Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford.

One of that august group, Professor McCulloch, has produced a video in support of the Coalition's work.

In addition, Professor McCulloch has written a blogpost at Comprehensive Unity commending an excellent online paper by Canadian Archdeacon Edward Simonton which uses the history of the Scottish Episcopal Church to undercut the implicit Anglican history incorporated into the proposed Covenant.  Professor MacCulloch draws out two of the most salient points in his blogpost, but the entire essay can be found here.


 
Finally, well-respected Church of England open evangelical blogger Benny Hazelhurst points out that the progress of the Anglican Covenant through the diocesesan synods of the Church of England demonstrates that it simply is not the unifying instrument its backers claim.  (Note that the term "evangelical" has a much different meaning in the Church of England than it does in North America.)

At the end of the day, the Anglican Covenant has shot itself in the foot. Even if somehow the Church of England and others adopted it, it would simply leave the Communion limping along nursing its wounds and looking for someone to blame. The divisions which it has engendered make it precisely the wrong solution to the problems facing the Anglican Communion.

This weekend, six more dioceses will be voting on the Anglican Covenant (Ripon and Leeds; Bath and Wells; Southwark; Carlisle; Coventry; Worcester).  We are likely to know the results of all six votes by mid-afternoon here in Saskatchewan.  And those results will tell us if the pro-Covenant propaganda assault of the past week has borne any fruit.