Bunch of Grapes or Bag of Marbles?
Address at Salisbury Diocesan Synod 18 February 2012
proposing the Anglican Communion Covenant
by Dr Graham Kings, Bishop of Sherborne
 Introduction
Next Tuesday is Shrove Tuesday. I love the story of a mother preparing pancakes for her two young sons, John and Mark. They were arguing about who should have the first pancake. She said, ‘What would Jesus do? I think he would say, ‘you have the first pancake’. Quick as a flash in the pan, John said to Mark, ‘Hey, Mark. You be Jesus.’
Disagreements in the family, in the Church family of this Diocese of Salisbury and in the Anglican Communion are not unfamiliar. We know they happen and they are part of being a family. In John 17: 20-21, the night before he died, Jesus prays:
I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
The communion between the Father and the Son – and it is a communion, not a federation - has been intimate since before the foundation of the world. It is this communion which is to be reflected in the way we behave towards each other, and it has huge mission implications. The world and the media are watching us.
I believe it is vitally important for our mission that both ‘Women in the Episcopate’ and the ‘Anglican Communion Covenant’ are discussed at General Synod this July. ‘Women in the Episcopate’ will be, that is clear. But if less than half of the Dioceses vote for the Anglican Communion Covenant, it will not be allowed to be discussed at General Synod. That would be tragic, for that is the forum for our final decisions.
So far, 11 dioceses have voted: 5 for and 6 against. So our vote today is very significant as to whether it will be allowed to be discussed in General Synod in July. In our Deanery Synod debates, 11 voted for and 8 against. As with ‘Women in the Episcopate’, we need to heed our Deanery Synods. In the Provinces of the Communion the voting so far is 6 for 1 against. We are in danger of being out of step with the Communion.
The Anglican Communion Covenant – and the full title is very important for ‘Communion’ is at its centre – is the proposal backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council. This is considerable backing and should not be dismissed today ‘unadvisedly, lightly or wantonly’, to use words from the Book of Common Prayer Marriage service. Sadly, some of the dismissal of it has been along those lines. I suggest it should be accepted ‘reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly and in the fear of God’.
The choice before us today is between an Anglican Communion Covenant and a No Anglican Covenant Federation. You have had two briefing papers: one from Fulcrum, with which, as you know, I am involved and one from the No Anglican Covenant Coalition. In their response to Fulcrum’s ten points, the Coalition made it clear that it thinks 'autonomy' and 'accountability' are incompatible in our Anglican Communion. I don’t believe they are. It also openly wrote about considering the advantages of Federation over Communion.
Let me focus now on answering two charges against the Covenant , and proposing one question, before reiterating the reasons for voting positively:
Charges Against the Covenant
1. Women’s ordination to the priesthood and to the episcopate would have not have happened if the Covenant had been in place
To set out another view, I draw on the wisdom of Colin Craston, who was on the Anglican Consultative Council for 15 years, six of them as chair. In his article, ‘Women Bishops and the Anglican Communion Process’, he writes:
At the next meeting of the ACC in 1973, by an overwhelming majority, it was agreed that ordaining women priests should not cause any break in communion in the Anglican family…(54 in favour, 1 against).
Craston goes on to show that, concerning women bishops, there was a similar flexibility for Provinces to act, without causing a break in communion:
At the 1988 Lambeth Conference, with ECUSA likely to appoint a woman bishop, it was resolved “That each Province respect the decision and attitudes of other Provinces in the ordination or consecration of women in the episcopate, without such respect necessarily indicating acceptance of the principles involved, maintaining the highest possible degree of communion with the Provinces that differ” (423 in favour, 28 against, 19 abstentions).
With those overwhelming majorities in favour of flexibility in 1973 and in 1988, it seems to me exceeding unlikely that had the Covenant been in place, it would have hampered this wonderful development in ministry.
2. The Covenant is not recognisably Anglican
Well, I submit that it is. It draws in particular on the Declaration of Assent, that wonderful 1975 Church of England summary of belief. In my Guardian article of November 2010, I argued that the Covenant could be viewed as an internationalisation of that elegant middle way forward.
In the Diocese of Salisbury, we rightly celebrate two of Anglicanism’s greatest writers: Richard Hooker, at Boscombe (1591-95), wrote in prose; and George Herbert, at Fuggleston with Bemerton (1630-33), wrote in both prose and poetry.
Hooker was defending the middle way between Roman Catholicism and Puritanism. From my study of his writings, it seems to me clear that he would have approved of the middle way of the Anglican Communion Covenant, between the Curia of the Roman Catholic Church and the Federation of both the contemporary puritan and the radically liberal movements.
Gene Edward Veith, in an article in the George Herbert journal in 1988, wrote:
the...via media was not in Herbert's day a mere compromise, a golden mean. Rather, it was a balance and an integration, an affirmation of the best of both traditions. In the sense that it was Catholic - in its sacramentalism, its liturgical worship, and in its continuity with the past - it was very Catholic. In the sense that it was Reformed - in its focus on the grace of God, in its Biblicism, in its evangelical liberty - it was very Reformed.
So I believe that the Anglican Communion Covenant is thoroughly Anglican, and would be recognized as ‘Catholic and Reformed’ by both Hooker and Herbert.
My question is: Who knows the Anglican Communion best and has the most up to date information concerning the consequences of the failure of the Covenant?
Is it Jonathan Clatworthy, who has prepared the No Anglican Covenant Coalition paper, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is strongly proposing the Covenant?
Lambeth Palace, and the Anglican Communion Office, are in direct contact with all the 38 Provinces and the various groups in the Communion.
In synods, groups and on the web, in discussions with friends who are against the Covenant, I have found that some deny that a ‘no vote’ will lead to a disintegration of the Communion. The implication is: ‘we are doing well at the moment and the Dublin Primates’ Meeting in 2011 went very well’. But they forget to mention that, unprecedentedly, out of 38 Primates, only 22 attended. Those who did not attend, worryingly included moderate Global South Anglican leaders, like John Chew, as well as the more conservative GAFCON Primates. Indeed, we have a crisis and voting for doing nothing is like burying our heads in the sands of Sandbanks.
The Summary of my reasons for voting positively today
These are set out more fully in the Fulcrum briefing paper and include:
1. The Covenant has been consistently supported by the Church of England.
2. It is faithful to Anglican tradition
3. It sets out a middle way
4. It enables Anglicanism to be recognised in a short text
5. It provides a clear framework for debate.
6. It facilitates changes in continuity with tradition.
7. It preserves provincial autonomy with interdependence.
8. It offers the only way to prevent further fragmentation.
9. It provides ways for addressing innovations.
10. The Archbishop of Canterbury has asked the Church of England to support him. In his 2011 Advent Letter to the Primates of the Anglican Communion, he stated:
It does not create some unaccountable and remote new authority but seeks to identify a representative group that might exercise a crucial advisory function. I continue to ask what alternatives there are if we want to agree on ways of limiting damage, managing conflict and facing with honesty the actual effects of greater disunity. In the absence of such alternatives, I must continue to commend the Covenant as strongly as I can to all who are considering its future.
Conclusion
I believe that, like the Declaration of Assent, the Anglican Communion Covenant is a text of breadth and concord. Our vote today concerns unity. A vote against the Covenant is a vote to do nothing. I do not believe it is helpful or Anglican to imply: 'let's leave things as they are - we are divided, so let's stay divided'.
This would result in our organic Communion being downgraded into a disparate Federation: from ‘autonomy-in-communion’ to mere ‘independent autonomies’.
Do we wish to continue to have an organic Communion, like a bunch of grapes, or a disconnected Federation, like a bag of marbles?
Do we consider each other and decide we belong together, or do we do our own thing and hang apart? What we cannot do is to stand still.
A vote for the Anglican Communion Covenant is a vote for the intensifying of our relationships across the world, to realise more fully the unity for which Christ prayed.
Discuss this Article on the Fulcrum Forum
Forum Posts About This Article:
Posted by: DavidW
Monday 2 April 2012 - 09:20am
I am really encouraged during these times to see churches more and more working together in charity and social action, and in worship and celebration. Churches of different denominations and ministries.
I dont think the body of Christ has been so united or so active in service in the community for several decades.
And although there arent the numbers of young people overall, there are in some churches, and they are radical and energetic. And the Anglican church is no exception.
Just this weekend when young people from several churches including my Anglican one were in the community, serving in social action, helping the homeless and healing on the streets, I came out of the Sunday morning service and in the next road passed the Jesus Army on the streets.
Praise God.
Posted by: User 4346
Wednesday 7 March 2012 - 12:01pm
I actually have to agree with Dave when he was saying that the "The church of England and the Anglican Communion remind me of a display at an internet flower delivery festival where many sorts of grape of different size and colour have been arranged with artistic effect, The danger with this is that it separates us from the source of Life. It is more important that Christians recognize their common lie with other believers in the next street and denominationalism is a barrier this."
People have to realize that they lose their connection to the source of Life and to their actual belief. One of the problems is that they do not realize it when people tell them constantly they have to experience and become aware of the change they go through constantly seperating further from the source.
Posted by: User 4346
Wednesday 7 March 2012 - 12:00pm
I actually have to agree with Dave when he was saying that the "The church of England and the Anglican Communion remind me of a display at an internet flower delivery festival where many sorts of grape of different size and colour have been arranged with artistic effect, The danger with this is that it separates us from the source of Life. It is more important that Christians recognize their common lie with other believers in the next street and denominationalism is a barrier this."
People have to realize that they lose their connection to the source of Life and to their actual belief. One of the problems is that they do not realize it when people tell them constantly they have to experience and become aware of the change they go through constantly seperating further from the source.
Posted by: Deleted user 4293
Wednesday 29 February 2012 - 07:51am
This is one of those rather irritating images of Graham's that sounds good but doesn't actually help at all I don't think. He sets up a flase binary at the end of his talk and just drops it on us as if it demonstrated some important truth - but I don't think it does anything of the sort.
Why? Because my and your communion with Christians around the world depends on Christ not on the ecclesial structures we inhabit. We are definitely not Roman catholics in that way - and I doubt very much that there is anyone on the Fulcrum end of things who wants to argue for a kind of mini Anglo-Papalism. After all, if you seriously do believe that then you can go and join the Ordinariate.
What our communion consists of is our participation in the life of the Holy Trinity through Christ. And that's it. And what no grape ever managed to do, was sort out, discipline, interfere in or otherwise put straight (I use the word advisedly) the life of any other grape. All every grape ever does is live on the vine, and get on with being the best grape you can. Gosh, that sounds very baptist (as if that is a bad thing). And every marble must go on living its life within the same bag - sharing our bit of the bag with those other marbles we are nestled against depends upon the will of the bag owner - where we discover the light, the brilliance of our colours and can appreciate our similarity and diversity as we are put together with others. And the bag owner moves us around according to his sovereign will. See how communiony you can make any image sound if you try!
So the binary, the dichotomy is false. Diverse - even apparently contradictory - interpretations of what the Christian life is will go on being lived out by individual parishes within the same diocese, individual dioceses within the same province, and by individual provinces within the same Anglican communion. But we all read the same Bible, we all use variants of a liturgical tradition to order our worship. We all (pace Sydney) have ordered our churches in a similar way (though clearly we struggle with girl cooties and the pesky gays in some parts). At diocesan and provincial level I see no effort being made to exercise communal pressure to make people follow a common line or to stop variants of the Christian life. Parishes know something about the way their neighbours live out their faith - lots of times they disapprove heartily of all kinds of things. But they don't invoke some piece of paper at diocesan synod to get others to behave like them. Nor do more adventurous parishes have to get the approval of their diocesan synod for everything they are going to try out. Nothing would ever change or develop if they did. Nor, while we are at it, do they ask the bishop - everyone knows the rule that bishops don't want to know - well not much, and not anything that is going to make them feel uncomfortable.
You can't make or keep people in communion by signing bits of paper. People stay in communion because they want to - or not if they want to walk. If the Yes to the Covenant people prevail it will be by a very small majority - that is clear. I think it would be the height of irresponsibility to sign up a Church divided. By contract the women bishops measure passed in all but two dioceses, and the Archbishops are twisting themselves in knots trying to accommodate those who don't like that development.
Grapes, marbles, Marmite sandwiches - I could use the lot as an image of the Communion or of independancy if I wanted. They tell us nothing. But the nature of our real Communion in Christ tells us all. Nothing can take that away from any of us - no matter how much we do things differently from our neighbours - and limiting, controlling, disciplining, hindering or inhibiting my Christian neighbour, whose life I hardly understand, and whose shoes I have not walked hardly a mile in seems to me a very unChristian thing to do. Pray for people, argue with them, fall out if you like. But actually our Communion, whether we choose to recognise it or not, it a gift of the vinedresser. certainly not something that can be confirmed or withdrawn by a bunch of grapes.
Posted by: Deleted user 2359
Wednesday 29 February 2012 - 04:10am
The interesting thing about marbles is that you know them when you see them, as marbles, and they are played with flexible rules but similar shared all the same. Marbles have incredible varieties and yet common characteristics. So marbles is not a bad idea for a communion.
Grapes are just all the same, but leave them too long before eating and some can go funny. Marbles get a bit rough from playing but are much more resiliant and longer lasting.
Posted by: Iconoclast
Tuesday 28 February 2012 - 04:05pm
The point about a bunch of grapes is that some of them get squashed.
Posted by: Dave
Tuesday 28 February 2012 - 12:01pm
The point about a bunch of grapes is that it shares a common life. By extension, from John 15, this is the life of Christ. The church of England and the Anglican Communion remind me of a display at a flower festival where many sorts of grape of different size and colour have been arranged with artistic effect, The danger with this is that it separates us from the source of Life. It is more important that Christians recognize their common lie with other believers in the next street and denominationalism is a barrier this.
Looking at ti in a slightly different way, the brances which have been forced together are in danger of becoming entangled and strangling each other.
Dave
Posted by: Bowman
Wednesday 22 February 2012 - 07:19am
a book of individual essays rather than any one definitive view
And so it also seemed to those over here who approved it (i.e. Christian Believing, 1976)
Those who were disappointed by the book seem to me to have wanted, not one definitive view, but rather a committee report that, like the earlier Doctrine in the Church of England, was a sort of indaba with dry sherry among Church of England theologians who were never expected to agree on everything or figure it all out, but who could and did find their common ground, explain their differences, assess the pastoral importance of those, and at least hint at what had changed since the generation before. Doctrine in the Church of England was a plausible expression of the comprehensiveness of the church as we usually think of it, and its appendix on the ethics of holding beliefs at variance with the Church's received doctrine was a responsible and generous step beyond Victorian scrupulosity.
Hindsight is always 20/20. Each book would have benefited from some description that put the believer's experience of the Church's doctrine in the context of its tumultuous times. Because the earlier report was concerned with the official teaching of the Church of England, it breathes not a word about the extraordinary ferment of Chistian social thought in that generation, not least in the works of the commission's chairman, William Temple. Nor about the climate of thought in England that brought both Bloomsbury and Eliot's Wasteland, both women's sufffrage and the rise of Labour. Today, I never think of Doctrine in the Church of England, commissioned in 1922, without thinking of a similar report of the London Yearly Meeting that explained how the myriad personal experiences of the Great War had made it difficult for many Quakers to think of God in their received ways.
Although the Second Vatican Council found or retrieved the metaphor of "the Pilgrim Church" that sojourns in time, it seems to me that Anglicans, rather than Roman Catholics, are the Christians who have best accepted the historicity of their own ecclesial life. And that is what one most wants in such reports-- not a summa, or a proposal of doctrine, but a field guide to Anglicanis transcendentalis (commonly known as the yearn) and the way it sings in its natural habitat.
Posted by: Deleted user 2359
Tuesday 21 February 2012 - 07:33pm
As I understand it, Christian Believing as a book of the Doctrine Commission was roundly criticised for being a book of individual essays rather than any one definitive view, and was consistent with liberal theology coming out at that time elsewhere. Thus later on came a greater emphasis on the Church. The Doctrine Commission tended to follow rather than lead in terms of output, but it hasn't been able to match the increasingly diverse output of theology in universities and that of doctrine and dogma. It seems to have become a superfluous occasional body.
Posted by: John Waldsax
Tuesday 21 February 2012 - 09:24am
Surely we are making some assumptions in the liberal analysis that the "church" (let's say denomination) is similar to any other kind of association, like the National Trust or the RHS. These have worthy aims for the general benefit and establish specific programmes for their members. So far, so C of E (at least as Adrian would have it). They expect nothing in common of their members other than a weakly articulated belief that built and natural beauty is a self-evident good. A church is more, much more. It's beliefs are much more precisely articulated, interpreted, researched and its organisational behaviours and procedures aim to be designed with integrity, i.e. to be consistent with those beliefs. It does this for many reasons, but mainly two. Firstly because their understanding of the church is historically founded and builds on the experience of two thousand years of the practise of life and faith; their doctrine demands unity because it worked. Secondly, like any other organisation, they will fail to achieve their goals unless they have shared values (refer to any school of government or business school, or read about successful organisations in the business pages).
Sadly the Anglican Communion appears to be in a much closer condition to that of the British political parties. They claim to have beliefs and express them in policies which they then use in a beauty parade to win votes. They change these cynically and their leaders' behaviour often fails abjectly to live up to their own standards. They are amazed and worried when their easy and powerful lives are threatened by steadily increasing public cynicism, easily measured by non-particiation in the political process; party membership is replaced by corporate corruption, public duty is expresed in falling attendances at polls.The one characteristic they all lack is integrity (actual, but more importantly perceived). We are going the same way.
On Maunday Thursday, and later in ordinations across the land our clergy will make promises and swear oaths which every person witnessing it knows they do not mean and have no intention of keeping. And this is Christ's body on earth!
We desperately need a Clause 4 moment where we will eliminate our lack of integrity, our mismatch of Word with deeds and sermons, and revise our constitution to promote integrity and enable the mission which Jesus demands. What we replace our Clause 4's with is open to prayer and debate, but until our members' lives reflect the constitutional promises we make we will lack all public credibility and our churches will die. Eating too much fudge BTW will kill just as effectively.
Posted by: Bowman
Tuesday 21 February 2012 - 01:03am
It occurs to me, as I read the thoughtful posts of Pluralist, Clifford, and others, that I do not know what any of the villagers of Fulcrum think of The Church of England's two best-known modern efforts to be clear about belief--
(a) Doctrine in the Church of England: The report of the Commission on Christian doctrine appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in 1922.
(b) Christian Believing: The nature of the Christian faith and its expression in Holy Scripture and Creeds: A report.
Or even, after all that has been said about power, money, and sex on these threads--
(c) Being Human: A Christian understanding of personhood illustrated with reference to power, money, sex and time.
Why do these never come up in our conversations about how Anglicans can, do, should, or shouldn't think about doctrine? Pluralist and Clifford, among others, have both alluded to the tension between the "tradition and the individual talent," but I hesitate to reply before understanding an English view of this.
Personally, I have admired (a) for years, regretted that (b) encouraged some over here to be even more resolutely self-absorbed, and had never even heard of (c) until I just googled the other two.
And what of the Thirty-Nine Articles? They must surely be the only document in Christendom that is nearly always mentioned as The Confession That Nobody Actually Has To Believe. They have, at least, the virtues of the Reformation, and I do not see that they pose any difficulty that does not reflect their time and provenance. Nor is it obvious to me that Anglicans need more freedom from their articles than, say, Lutherans need from the Book of Concord. After a fight, the main body of Presbyterians here decided to retain the Westminster Standards, but in a collection that included other Reformed confessions and a fresh one of their own composition. All churches of the Reformation have those who don't quite see things with 16th C eyes, but others seem to complain less about the tastes of their ancestors. The Episcopal Church published a new Catechism and a collection of Historical Documents in The Book of Common Prayer (1979)
In all of this it is clearest, I think, to distinguish a church's duty to articulate its belief as a part of its work, and an individual's appropriation of that belief in the course of a lifelong development.
Posted by: Deleted user 2359
Sunday 19 February 2012 - 05:04pm
I think you raise an important point, Bowman, about Anglican Churches meaning what they say and saying what they mean. The fact is that within each Anglican Church there is a high level of negotiation about what people mean despite a high level of fixedness about what people say. But the fact is that for many an Anglican, the beliefs they hold are not simply equatable to what they say collectively. That's why, in the end, I went. There is so much understood flexibility, but after a point the collective expression misrepresents what you do actually believe. And this is my criticism of a number of liberals. I think those who believe in a kind of alternative history of an incarnation and resurrection, even if they doubt details like the virgin birth and bodily resurrection, ought to stay where they are, in the Church of England, and exploit its flexibility in so far as it still exists. But those who just see Jesus as an exemplar, say, with a mild theism, are pushing at the limits. Any further and there comes a point of personal misrepresentation.
But this is little to do with adding international layers, that a bunch of bishops in conference can suddenly produce 'the mind of the Communion' when that belongs to the whole of a Church population, or somehow interpret scripture when that comes with acres of theological texts and biblical criticism. That's authoritarianism and religious bureaucracy. But if the consensus of a Church (that is, an actual Church) is roughly as I've suggested, then there are points of personal tension with the collective expression.
It may be that in its sophistication, a Church becomes more obviously liberal and tolerant. Then I'd argue that it ought to be more obvious in how it treats its core documents: for example, the Church of England does not any longer demand word for word assent of the Thirty-nine Articles. If it did this for the creeds and the Trinity, say, accepting them as symbolic and non-literal expressions, then there would be greater space for liberal individualism. But it has not gone so far, and many a modernist/ radical is left at or over its boundary.
Posted by: Bowman
Sunday 19 February 2012 - 04:48am
Graham Kings inspires me with sheer professional envy-- "bag of marbles or bunch of grapes" is the best metaphor for the real choice in this odd debate that I have yet seen. It is encouraging to see advocacy for the Anglican Communion Covenant that stresses the qualitative superiority of a new Communion in which churches say what they mean and mean what they say. It is hard to see why any Anglican would oppose regular transparency and trust among churches. Those who have faith that the Spirit of God is in the churches will trust them. Those who are afraid to open their own churches to the insights of sister churches show, under a dozen self-deceptions, that they do not have the Love that casts out fear.
Posted by: Deleted user 2359
Sunday 19 February 2012 - 03:18am
You are to late, Graham. Salisbury, Portsmouth, Rochester, Leicester have all voted against. The Covenant is dying.
1. The Covenant has been consistently supported by the Church of England. [Obviously not.]
2. It is faithful to Anglican tradition. [It centralises.]
3. It sets out a middle way [It takes from it as is.]
4. It enables Anglicanism to be recognised in a short text [But superfluous.]
5. It provides a clear framework for debate. [It confuses - excludes or does not exclude?]
6. It facilitates changes in continuity with tradition. [No, it is an innovation.]
7. It preserves provincial autonomy with interdependence. [There have been indirect forms of interdependence.]
8. It offers the only way to prevent further fragmentation. [Balkanising has already happened: better to be flexible than impose points of division.]
9. It provides ways for addressing innovations. [It is an innovation.]
10. The Archbishop of Canterbury has asked the Church of England to support him. [But he demands policies others do not support - e.g. on female bishops.]
Glaciers coming down valleys meet a point lower down that is a melting point. This one is in the diocesan synods of the Church of England. The people voting are melting your 'inevitable' glacier.
Posted by: Jonathan Clatworthy
Saturday 18 February 2012 - 10:33pm
Thanks for the compliment Graham. I've been compared with the Archbishop of Canterbury before, but only because of my beard.
You are of course right that I don't flit round the world having countless meetings with primates. However this is not entirely a disadvantage. If I was Archbishop of Canterbury right now, I would be paranoid about the prospect of the Communion breaking up on my watch. To that extent, I think I'm pretty normal. So, however Rowan Williams may feel, the long-term effect of having all the big church decisions made by bishops and archbishops is that the perennial searchings for truth about God, and how God wants us to live, tend to get subordinated to the smooth running of the institution. In this instance, a genuine disagreement about the ethics of same-sex partnerships has been diverted into the Covenant proposal. Of course, any proposal to centralise power will seem a good idea to those who expect a bigger say; but it is precisely because of these all-too-human tendencies that the decisions should not be left to them.
Posted by: John Watson
Saturday 18 February 2012 - 08:57pm
Dear Friends
As the various Diocesan Synods debate and vote on the Anglican Communion Covenant, we publish Graham King's paper, presented to Salisbury Synod, on 18th February 2012, entitled Bunch of Grapes or Bag of Marbles?
Please use this thread to continue the discussion about the process and the Communion Covenant itself.
Grace and Peace
John Watson
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