Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The Anglican Covenant - Why? Revisited

I went to the meeting last night at Berkeley (that's Berkeley Seminary, or Divinity School) at Yale. It was a decent turnout. The deputies to General Convention 2012 had asked the seminary to set up a program to help them explore the proposed covenant in public. The deputation, along with all deputations in TEC, has to submit a response to the proposed covenant to Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Deputies by Easter Day of this year.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I got - an academic presentation by three seminarians, the dean and a professor on different ways to approach the proposed covenant, followed by questions from those gathered. It did begin and end exactly on time, which is a blessing.

The seminarians were from among those who had the proposed covenant assigned as their term essay. Only one of the presenters, a woman seminarian, linked the proposed covenant to her life and the life of people she knows in Africa. The rest were interesting, and mercifully short, thoughtful, but with no personal consequences.

Except for the young woman seminarian, the remaining two seminarians, the dean and the professor all seem to agree there is no harm in signing on to the covenant but to fail to do so is to cut off conversation which might cast us out into outer darkness (not their words).

The young woman, however, warned that all this covenant will do is to continue exactly that which it purports to change. It is a continuation of colonialism.

It's early on Tuesday morning after a late night and having to drive both ways to New Haven, so, more later, maybe.

2 comments:

Jeffri Harre said...

Not a very balanced presentation. In fact, it sounds more like a stacked deck.

Lois Keen said...

That's how it felt, Jeff. No outrage at the push from Rowan to a covenant in the first place. Instead, as history lesson on how things are changing and have been changing in the way the Anglican Communion works and at least with this, admittedly flawed, covenant we could remain in the conversation. It was all so reasonable.

And except for the woman seminarian, all so void of human lives and realities.

Back to reading the Chicago Consultation analysis.