Second, the proposal has been made – partly stimulated by the very successful international consultations held at Coventry Cathedral in the last twelve months – of a serious and sustained piece of work for the Communion on hermeneutics, the theory and practice of biblical interpretation. Combined with the ongoing and very creative programme of the working group on Theological Education in the Communion, it has the potential to take us beyond what I called the non-labour-intensive theologies we see too much of at the moment.
Third, the group that has been working on a draft Covenant for the Communion has made far more progress than anyone expected, and was able to submit a draft for discussion to the Primates which will now be circulated for further comment from Provinces. This tries to outline what a ‘wholly consultative’ approach to deciding contentious matters might look like – with some of the inevitable consequences spelled out if this is not followed. This is not, I must stress, threatening penalties, but stating what will unavoidably flow from more assertions of unqualified autonomy. To repeat a point I’ve made many times – you may feel imperatively called to prophetic action, but must not then be surprised if the response is incomprehension, non-acceptance or at least a conviction that time is needed for discernment.
And so to the fourth element, addressed to the Episcopal Church. We have asked for more clarity as to whether a moratorium has indeed been agreed on the election of bishops in active sexual partnerships outside marriage; and we have suggested a similar voluntary moratorium by the bishops on licensing any kind of liturgical order for same-sex blessings (the understanding of the Meeting was certainly that this should be a comprehensive abstention from any public rites), at least for the period during which the wider discussion of the Covenant goes forward. And to try and encourage an internal North American solution to the bitter disputes now raging, we suggested a structure for some kind of supplementary oversight, and an agreement on both sides to back away from litigation – the explicit hope being that this would remove what some see as the need for interventions from other provinces, and would begin to do away with what all agree is the anomaly of diversity of foreign jurisdictions in the USA.
Much here depends upon goodwill and patience. The Presiding Bishop rightly won praise for her careful and sympathetic engagement with these proposals and other matters, in the course of what was undoubtedly a very testing meeting. Likewise the readiness of many of the ‘intervening’ primates to consider negotiating a new position was welcome and impressive.
So in short, I am commending the Primates’ communiqué, for all its inevitable imperfections, as representing a serious attempt to go beyond the surface problems and to give us some space to look at the underlying and neglected theological factors. I’m well aware of the way in which the imminence of the Lambeth Conference focuses some of the risks and choices. But I’m also aware of the continuing obstinate will to make the Communion work, and to work as some sort of properly Catholic and Reformed unity. I’d be sad if that will were so much eroded in this country that we felt no investment in the sort of processes envisaged in Dar es Salaam.
