Different from Before

by William Hethcock

Most of us learned early in our careers as Episcopalians that ours is not a "covenant church." What we take that to mean is that apart from the creeds we are not bound by a set of doctrines or disciplines to which we commit ourselves when we are baptized or confirmed. Members of other communions are, and we think that this makes us Anglicans unique. We honor our kind of intellectual, theological, and spiritual freedom all this implies. We might even say that we are proud of it, and we want to keep it as it is.

So, when our Communion begins to talk in earnest about our need for a covenant, we flinch. That doesn't sound like what we had in mind. It doesn't sound like who we are. But our Archbishop of Canterbury made clear in his third and closing address at Lambeth that a covenant among our provinces is the direction we must go, and so appointed persons are working to devise one to be considered by our bishops. Is Anglicanism in danger of becoming something it never has been before?

If it is, what was meant by the Archbishop and our other bishops is that we become something much better, stronger, and even more Catholic than we have been up to now. What they had in mind as they fed information from their Lambeth discussions to the Archbishop is not a newly devised means of determining who is in and who is out. Rather, they have in mind strengthening our life together so that we may become more closely united in Christ to accomplish our common mission. The Archbishop calls the covenant we are seeking "an agreement to identify those elements in each other's lives that build trust and allow us to see each other as standing in the same Way and the same Truth, moving together in one direction and so able to enrich and support each other as fully as we can." The covenant will move us away from any pretense that nothing matters enough to risk a stand that might tarnish some outward appearance of genteel unity. We are indeed not merely as he put it "an association of polite friends."

The Archbishop took a good deal of time and care in his closing address to remind the Bishops and the Church of human suffering in the world and our vocation to unite in a "covenant of faith" that will promise to our fellow human beings "the generosity God has shown us; that will honour the absolute and non-negotiable dignities of all and strengthen us to resist any policy or strategy that implies that what is good and just for me is not good and just for all my human neighbours."

Having heard from all the Lambeth bishops, the Archbishop then nourished within himself a much broader and holier understanding of covenant than we have been using as Anglicans all these years. We are learning that for us not to challenge ourselves anew would lead us into further divisions and failure in our calling. Committing ourselves to each other in a new covenant way has the promise of bringing us more closely in touch with each other and more effectively united to accomplish our mission in the world.

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The Revd William Hethcock is professor of homiletics (retd), School of Theology, University of the South, Sewanee, TN.