The Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Rev John Gladwin, said he was “weary” of the covenant, to which the Bishop of Lincoln, the Rt Rev John Saxbee, appeared later to respond: “It is important that we don’t get weary but that we get excited with this process. We can make it better. We're enriched by these kinds of exercises and opportunities."
The Rev Brian Lewis of the Diocese of Chelmsford said it would be “a mistake to introduce a formalised method of division into the life of the Communion”.
“When you have an institutionalised method of division it is much more difficult to come back together again,” he told Synod.
The Rev Canon Ann Stevens of the Diocese of Southwark added her concern over the prospect of the Anglican Consultative Council having the authority to “deem that a particular province has relinquished the ‘force and meaning of the Covenant’s purpose’”.
The Archbishop of York maintained, however, that a covenant would not exclude churches of the Anglican Communion.
The covenant "is not erecting a great Anglican wall of exclusion”, Dr Sentamu told Synod members. “As I see it, its purpose is to hoist the sails to empower the boat of Communion to sail again unafraid of the storms. It is a clarion call to hear again God's invitation to us to participate in Christ's death and resurrection."
The Archbishop of Canterbury expressed his support for the Anglican Covenant by reminding Synod members of the need for self-giving.
“A covenant relationship between Christians is a promise to be willing to be converted by each other. I think that works ecumenically and in the Communion as well. But that’s why I think the word ‘covenant’ is not so wildly inappropriate,” he said.
Dr Williams continued, “I think we ought to be excited and enthused by the notion that our Anglican family might just find new life and new vigour if it were prepared very consciously and prayerfully to make the sort of commitments to each other within the family that involved the willingness to be converted by each other, and therefore to see our relations within the Communion not as a constant struggle of power and leverage but something deeper.”
The latest draft covenant has now been offered to the provinces for wider reflection until the Lambeth Conference.
