Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner

In the midst of an increasingly exhausting and exhausted ecclesial struggle, we are now once again hearing the plea, "Why can't we just get along?".  It is a question many have long raised, but its renewed urgings, from leaders within TEC or recently from e.g.

Many, including those opposing its content, have praised the recent House of Bishops Statement for its "clarity". In what follows, I want to dispute that evaluation. The Statement is unclear in numerous important respects, except one, viz. its animus against the Anglican Communion's Primates' Meeting. The reasons for that animus, however, are hardly spelled out, are often contradictory, and are lodged within a tissue of assertions that are without stated rationale. This is not clarity at all.

It is a maddening time within American Anglicanism. Even in the last few days, there is a new restlessness born of the energies of sorrow and hope both, as they seek some resolved path ahead. A few days ago, I wrote about the need to take this time seriously indeed. I wrote in terms of conservative presence within the Episcopal Church, and its now apparent incongruity with the official structures of our leadership. "Normative Christianity" (as one friend has put it) has been demoted and even banished: the Episcopal Church has declared independence. We must take our stands.

I want briefly to say something about the Covenant's origins in a practical sense, and then move on to its rationale and content. As most of us know, the proposal for an Anglican Covenant derives almost exclusively from the Windsor Report itself (see e.g. par. 118-120).