Sir, I would like to think that your news story about an Anglican covenant (28 June) will prove premature and that nothing will come of this proposal. For one thing, I wonder whether the Archbishop of Canterbury has the authority to sign away the Church of England’s independence.

Unfortunately, the proposed covenant is only part of a larger package of measures recommended in the Windsor Report. The total package would result in the Anglican Communion changing from an informal association of independent churches to something like the Roman Catholic Church, with the primates forming the equivalent of the College of Cardinals and the Archbishop of Canterbury exercising a papal-like role. Dr Williams specifically charged the commission that produced the report with establishing the circumstances in which he could “exercise an extraordinary episcopé” in the internal affairs of other churches. The Archbishop’s role would recreate a neo-colonial situation that the conservative African churches are least likely to find acceptable.

The report recommends a total of four “instruments of unity” that would dictate not only the doctrine of the Church of England but also its internal discipline. For example, the prerogative of the Church’s Supreme Governor to nominate bishops would be subject to approval by this new extra-territorial church. The Church of England would change in fundamental ways from being the established Church and both “catholic and reformed” to being a missionary outpost of a southern hemisphere-based, Protestant and covenantal denomination.

This will prove unacceptable to conservatives and liberals. Those members of the Church of England who are conservative in their theology will often be the same people conservative in their views about Britain’s surrender of sovereignty to the EU. They are unlikely to want to see their beloved CofE surrendered in the same way.

TERENCE DEAR
Bournemouth

Sir, In any negotiation for a proposed covenant it is likely that most of the provinces of the Anglican Church would push a conservative line, seeking to exclude not only gay clergy but women bishops too. The more serious point, however, is that such a covenant would affect the status of the Church of England “as by law established”, forcibly unchurching a sizeable number of faithful Anglicans here in England who could not subscribe to it and a consequent redistribution of assets and buildings.

While the General Synod might pass the necessary legislation to achieve this, would Parliament wish to rubber stamp such legislation? If Parliament refuses, or if the Church insisted on pursuing such a course, would this not inexorably lead to disestablishment?

REV DR A. R. MIR
London W6

Sir, Canon Chris Sugden, the executive secretary of Anglican Mainstream, is quoted as saying that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s letter “rightly recognises the priority of Scripture and that the Church must respond on the basis of the Bible and historic teaching rather than cultural or rights-based views”.

I recognise without reserve the priority of Scripture. In my ministry and in my family life, I seek to respond to everything that happens on the basis of the Bible and the teaching of the Church.

However, I also recognise the story of the New Testament to be that of a still astonishing and creative engagement of the earliest Christian community with the intellectual and cultural life of the first century, an engagement from which we can now learn so much.

Above all, I believe that human-rights-based arguments are given their ultimate ratification — to an extent unavailable from secular thinking — from the supreme dignity confered upon humanity by the incarnation of the son of God.

Away from the noise of argument and in the quiet beauty of the rural churches which it is my privilege to serve, I pray that there will be no split.

REV DR JOHN GILLIBRAND
Llangeler, Carms

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