February 12, 2008
Design
The latest broken news is that there is now another version of the so-called Anglican Covenant. It is also-called as the St Andrew’s Draft. It was prepared by the Covenant Design Group, itself, after a round of golf in Scotland. An earlier version was called the Nassau Draft in their continuing and often failed attempt at inclusiveness.
When I learned of this still newer version, I called OoN’s UK stringer to see if she could find out more. By sheer coincidence, she had already been following the Design Group across the continent, anticipating the possibility of a momentary news item. As it was, I collected her in the very same clubhouse where they were and where she was playing a round of Texas Hold ‘Em. She had just heard the news about the revised version and had already cornered the CDG spokesperson for an interview which she was about to phone directly to our stateside newsroom as soon as she had played her hand.
She said that he had told her that designing a covenant is not all that easy impeded as it was by there already being so much contention about the process. He was clearly annoyed by her questions as, when she found him, he was turning his scorecard over to his caddy for a proper accounting by the club handicap officials.
He spoke adamantly and reemphasized how we should understand and show more appreciation about how hard is revising a Covenant. He went on that she should know how the Judaeo-Christian tradition already lays great stock by the so-called idea with the Old and New Covenants, which are also called the Holy Bible, but that they are somewhat dated and obviously not all that easily understood. Nor did he seem to appreciate what he called “you errant Americans” who are continually arguing that God makes all things new as if you had some special revelation of the Divine Plan not readily available to the rest of us. For an example, “take that liturgy that you presumptuously insist on calling the Baptismal Covenant.”
Nothing could be more confusing, he said, as the Group is becoming inundated with enquiries about just how many covenants can the Anglican Communion bear. At this point, our reporter suggested that maybe what we need is another Elizabethan Settlement. We could call it a “middle way,” a via media, she said, a novel idea that should make everyone happy, or should at least avoid infuriating any more people than was absolutely necessary.
This would mean, of course, still another and perhaps newer edition of the Book of Common Prayer rather more like the older one that continued the tradition of being as vague as possible. This motive of achieving maximum inclusiveness with minimum change was once an important, even defining aspect of Anglicanism, at least until recently. One would think that the Covenant Design Group is heralding a move to understand God as making all things old.
By this time, other members of the Group were attempting to join the conversation. It was becoming clear to her that she had trapped herself in breaking the first rule of investigative journalism never to become an apologist. This, of course, had successfully ended the interview just as her reporter’s handbook had suggested it would. So naturally, she apologized, not to the spokesperson, but to our international desk’s editor with whom she usually filed her reports. Being of strong will, however, she returned to finish playing her hand in Texas Hold ‘Em, this fascinating new game which was sweeping Scotland.
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