Covenant is to be used as litmus test of Anglicanism

From the Church Times (England)

CONSERVATIVE BISHOPS in the United States are preparing to challenge their church hierarchy over the Anglican Covenant, it emerged this week.

A group of conservatives, known as the Anglican Communion Partners, met in Houston earlier this month and agreed a statement that is expected to be published this week.

In it, they express concern that the the Episcopal Church as a whole will resist signing the Covenant — the document that has been drafted to regularise belief and practice in the Anglican Communion in the wake of the consecration of the Rt Revd Gene Robinson, an openly gay bishop, in 2003.

The statement asserts the right of individual dioceses to sign the Covenant. Failure by the Church to sign the Covenant, or any attempt to prevent dioceses’ signing, “would be decisive”.
At the same time as producing this statement, the Anglican Communion Partner bishops have been planning to test the waters of diocesan autonomy. In a series of emails, they have discussed a potential request for alternative episcopal oversight by a priest in the diocese of Colorado, where the Bishop is a liberal (see further news).

The Anglican Partner bishops have declared themselves to be loyal to the Episcopal Church and to the Anglican Communion. Their move can be seen as an alternative path to that taken by the Common Cause Anglicans in the United States, who last year established the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) under the deposed Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Rt Revd Bob Duncan.

None the less, their latest move to use the Covenant as a test of orthodoxy parallels moves by the ACNA last week. The Covenant has been criticised by conservatives in the past, and the first version of a communiqué issued by the GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) Primates in London last week appeared to be sceptical about the latest draft of the Covenant (the “Ridley draft”, News, 17 April): “While we support the concept of an Anglican Covenant . . . if those who have left the standards of the Bible are able to enter the Covenant with a good conscience, it seems to be of little use.”

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http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=74103