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Permalink: http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/707
Fulcrum Subjects: Anglicanism, Church of England / Anglicanism, Windsor Process Other articles by Graham Kings are available from this site Discuss this Article on the Fulcrum Forum See the 3 comments on this article Transcript of BBC Radio 4 Sunday Programme, 11 March 2012Discussion on the Anglican Communion, audio clip here
Interviewer: Ed StourtonInterviewees: Dairmaid MacCulloch, Graham Kings
Stourton The Anglican Covenant was Rowan Williams’s big idea for securing unity of the worldwide Anglican Communion after the row over the American church’s decision to appoint a gay Bishop. It lays out a set of basic principles to which all churches in the communion would be required to subscribe. In the Church of England the Covenant needs to be endorsed by a majority of the church’s 44 Dioceses. 10 [sic 6] of them have been voting this weekend and the running total stands at 17 against and only 10 for the Covenant. Dr Graham Kings is the Bishop of Sherborne and Diarmaid MacCulloch is the Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford. Stourton Good morning to you both. Bishop you are going to have to make up a good deal of ground if you are going to get this through. How do you persuade people to vote for the Covenant? Kings Yes, the momentum is against the Covenant at the moment but there are still 17 Dioceses to vote. I think we can look at the image of a bunch of grapes or a bag of marbles. A bunch of grapes is what the communion is at the moment and we want to keep it like that. It is to do with personal interdependence. A bag of marbles is about isolated autonomy that don’t actually meet together. The interesting thing about today is that I am in Bournemouth in a studio, Diarmaid is in Oxford and you’re in Manchester and we are connected. And I think that is interdependence. The danger is if we get cut off from each other we have isolated autonomy. Stourton Diarmaid you’re more of a marbles man. MacCulloch I don’t understand those images very much, I just don’t think they are very useful images at all. What is very interesting, is the way the figures have consistently built up as people have understood the arguments for the Covenant and they realise just how incoherent they are. Stourton Right, what is the argument that you think swings it? MacCulloch Well, what swings the argument against is that people realise that this is a sort of centralisation, proposed for the Anglican Communion, which has never been Anglican, which is against Anglicanism. The Anglican Communion is not an Anglican church it’s a family of churches and you don’t need some punitive, centralising, disciplining sort of process to make the churches work together. That’s not the Anglican way, and I’m delighted at the way that the Dioceses have recognised that. This is a great thing for the Church of England. Stourton Let me put that to Graham Kings, because it is a very serious charge that the idea that this runs against the fundamental spirit of what Anglicanism is? Kings I thinks it’s worth watching the Archbishop of Canterbury’s video which was put on Youtube on Monday this week. He specifically says, quote “Some people say there’s a misunderstanding that it is some sort of centralising proposal creating an absolute authority which has the right to punish people for stepping out of line!”, that’s what Dairmaid has just said, and the Archbishop says, “I have to say, that I think this is completely misleading and false”. In the introduction you said they would be required to sign the Covenant. No, this is an ‘opt in’ Covenant; nobody is required to sign it at all. MacCulloch Yes, but what happens Bishop, if you ‘opt in’, what if you ‘opt out’? You are not opting out you are forced out. If you will not sign up to a set of arguments, a set of propositions, which have been drawn up by one body and they have decided what Anglicanism is. Then you have to say, am I going to agree to something, which someone else has decided on Anglicanism Stourton Let’s just be clear Dr Kings is that right in formal terms? If you don’t sign up to this you are not a member of the Anglican Communion? Kings No. That’s not right. You are still a member of the Anglican Communion. It may be some particular committees that you cannot take part. Yes, you are still fully a member of the Anglican Communion but not in the central committees. Nobody is forced to do anything. These are recommended courses of actions. It is not one central committee that has drawn up this, it has been discussed all over the Communion and the Church of England had a huge input into it. Stourton Professor MacCulloch? MacCulloch Well, it has been discussed by those who want to discuss it. There is a curious sense in which this lunatic proposal has gone down a path. Once you start you don’t see the alternatives. Watching it happen has been like a rather slow motion version of the Gadarene Swine. Stourton A quick final word Dr Kings. On a practical point doesn’t this or won’t this, if it goes against the Covenant, as it appears to be doing, very much damage Archbishop Rowan Williams’ authority in the church because he set enormous store by this idea? Kings I think we need to look at the Provinces. Provinces have voted worldwide. So far, six in favour and only one against. A liberal province, Mexico, has voted for it, Southern ....... Stourton But, the Church of England is the Mother church in a way ........... Kings In some ways yes, we will see. The business committee have to report in July and we will see what their report is. Stourton Graham Kings, Bishop of Sherborne and Diarmaid MacCulloch Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford, thank you both very much indeed. Discuss this Article on the Fulcrum Forum Forum Posts About This Article:
Posted by: Jody
Monday 12 March 2012 - 11:07am
Dear Friends you can now see the transcript of the interview here. please do continue to use this thread for discussion. blessings, Jody Posted by: Bowman Monday 12 March 2012 - 07:46am "I agree with you on all of this, except the part that asks me to take the risk of listening to you." From afar, I am more intrigued that 10 English dioceses have supported the quiet, belated, and rather abstract case for the ACC than I am surprised that 17 of them have followed the loud, impulsive and emotional opposition. God bless them. But why do they swim upstream? The Archbishop's case for the Covenant, like the text itself, is utterly Christian, but, just so, it is utterly visionary. He asks the listener to care so much about the provinces far from England that s/he will vote to interrupt the interminable but comfortable politics of home and instead turn the Church of England toward a global conversation. Those who had expected to win those familiar contests have a natural antipathy to such a change of game, but less polarized churchfolk may also find that it is hard to want to be so openminded, even if they can sense that they ought to want to try. My guess is that most of the present generations of the Church of England, like their American cousins, have thought through their Christian commitment so completely in terms of their own society and class that this vision is hard for them to get their heads around. When Episcopalians at a recent General Convention were offered the choice of disappointing their friends in New Hampshire or plunging African Anglicans into a difficult confrontation with militant Islam, it was a flabbergasting dilemma. What was meant to be just another simple lovely Martin Luther King-had-a-dream civil rights moment, this time for gays, was suddenly a foreign policy issue endangering people they did not know in places they could not find on a map. Traditionalists, whose usual job it is to believe backward things to be sacred so that forward-moving Liberals can enjoy profaning them turned out this time to have a life and death point to make about Christianity in the 21st C. It wasn't fair. While the Covenant does summarize Anglican belief in a succinct way, its raison d'être is the lengthening list of things we are not so sure we all see the same way. One imagines a million souls around the globe discussing them with new acquaintances, and asking themselves, "Where were these people when I was making up my mind about this stuff? I know that I should be more open-minded, but I just don't feel like changing it now!" Though the mind can be persuaded, the heart, especially when feeling righteous, can be terribly lazy. The simplest and easiest way is to start from common ground, and to try first what all can do with one mind, before starting on a journey alone that others cannot follow. Preconceptions are useless-- one cannot both abandon others and persuade them, and nothing we can say is more persuasive than a journey we share. All that makes this hard is pride. But Christians do what they do, not from their own brilliance, but in "the true Light that gives light to every one" (St John 1:9). In seeing his light in others, consensus becomes possible. Some profess to be shocked to find that, after spreading the gospel for four centuries to peoples in the most remote parts, the Church of England has voices, bishops even, who insist that all must now listen to their brothers in the Lord as well as preach to them. The posturing over the fourth part of the Covenant by persons who, being literate, surely know better than they say is surprising. Perhaps it is the polite proxy for a less admissible argument: though they know as well anyone else that Anglican Christianity is now a global faith-- in no small part because generations of the Church of England sacrificed much to make it so-- they don't have the heart to grow up to that reality. Is their odd indignation the wrath of those made to face something about themselves that they would rather not? "Oh Lord, make me an ecumenical Christian. But not yet!" However the votes go in England-- they will not happen in America for years-- they will not be the end but the beginning of a beginning. What is needed everywhere is a new heart for the world, like the one that fought the slave trade, translated the scriptures, tended the sick and dying, and carried the gospel to the planet's farthest regions. If this is a struggle not only for broader sympathy but against unworthy inertia and prejudice, so be it. And as the Archbishop of Canterbury tactfully implies, it would be very sane for a complex world if it were a heart informed, not by another authoritarianism, but by Anglicanism's enlightened threefold cord. For those who believe with St John in "the true Light that gives light to every one," there is no person on earth--and certainly no Anglican Christian-- that we are afraid to hear. It really makes no sense to say to millions around the globe, "I agree with you on all of this, except the part that asks me to take the risk of listening to you." 
Posted by: Graham Kings
Sunday 11 March 2012 - 12:36pm
Edward Stourton interviewed Professor Dairmaid MacCulloch and me, concerning the Anglican Communion Covenant, on the Sunday Programme of BBC Radio 4 this morning, 11 March 2012. It may be heard again here (beginning 13 and a half minutes into the interview). Yesterday, 6 Diocesan Synods voted on the Anglican Communion Covenant. 2 voted in favour (Coventry and Carlisle) and 4 against (Southwark, Bath & Wells, Worcester, and Ripon & Leeds). The total so far is: 10 dioceses for and 17 against. The total number of votes cast, interestingly, are quite close and in four dioceses (Hereford, Chelmsford, Sodor & Man, and Leicester) there were only one or two votes in it. There are still 17 dioceses still to vote in their synods. For the Anglican Communion Covenant to come back to General Synod in July this year, 13 more dioceses need to vote in favour. For the Covenant not to come back to General Synod, 5 dioceses need to vote against it. Whatever the outcome, the Business Committee of General Synod will give a report in July which will be discussed. The Archbishop of Canterbury set out 'Why the Anglican Communion Covenant Matters' in his video last Monday. The video, and the text of it, may be seen here. For other articles on the Anglican Communion Covenant, see the Fulcrum index page here. |
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