The article states:

The ACC is the communion’s main policy-making body.

Well—there you are.  They are the people running the show.

And The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion is now making announcements in its own name.  So by Fiat, they are in charge.

The End Game has been reached.

While I agree with the original purpose of the covenant I would be happier with a simpler statement of faith similar to an updated creed with a clearer statement about the role of Christ in our salvation and the authority of scripture.  It would not need to be free of ambiguity.  In fact the art of creating any creed or agreement is having an appropriate amount of ambiguity in the right areas but it would need to clarify at a basic level what it means to be Christian.

What makes me uncomfortable about this document is it reads like a legal document.  Section 4, mentioned in the article on E Life is the main point.  Due to the length of the covenant it is not so much a record of people of “shared mind”, who have renewed their covenant to each other as it is a veil that attempts to cover deep divisions. Section 4 is a gaping loop hole just waiting to be exploited.

The biggest problem actually has nothing to do with the document.  Until the underlying structural issues of the Anglican Communion are resolved no document will solve anything.  Having the archbishop for the entire communion selected by the British monarch is an anachronism and needs to stop.

The official AC will become increasingly irrelevant until we are truly unified in vision and purpose.  When that finally happens a covenant will add clarity and focus.

The meat of this may be found in Canon Kearon’s cover letter (pdf):

To Primates, Moderators and Provincial Secretaries of the Anglican Communion

All 38 of them, according to ENS. After reviewing the history, he writes,

In accordance with ACC resolution 14-11, I am sending this text only to the member Churches of the Anglican Consultative Council for consideration and decision on acceptance or adoption by them as The Anglican Communion Covenant; and asking those member Churches to report to ACC-15 on the progress made in the processes of response to, and adoption of, the Covenant.

Well, there you have it. The Anglican Communion—at least the new, Covenanted Anglican Communion—will not consist of those who are recognized by the ABC, nor those who are invited to the Lambeth gathering. Instead, it consists of the member churches of the ACC.

The Standing Committee has decided that it will neither invite any other Churches (beyond the Schedule of members of the ACC) to adopt the Covenant (Covenant 4.1.5), ... 

i.e., don’t bother asking, ACNA. Forget it, DioSC.

... nor propose any amendments to it (Covenant 4.4.2), ...

Hmmm. Here the fly on the wall would have been valuable. Who was thinking of a possible amendment? ABP Chew? TEC’s man in the middle?

... until it has had an opportunity to evaluate the situation after ACC-15.

So don’t even think about it before 2013, ACNA, DioSC, etc.

Section 4.1.5 of the Covenant refers to the ‘procedures as set out by the Anglican Consultative Council for the amendment of its schedule of membership’. These procedures are to be found in the Articles of Association of the Anglican Consultative Council 2.2, which state ‘..with the assent of two-thirds of the Primates of the Anglican Communion (which shall be deemed to have been received if not withheld in writing within four months from the date of notification) the Standing Committee may alter or add to the Schedule’.

This may be good news for ACNA: they must be blackballed by at least a third of the primates to be kept out. Rowan is irrelevant.

The Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order will be assisting the reception process for the Covenant by developing educational materials and arranging for the translation of the text into several languages. Background materials, including previous commentaries and Provincial responses, will be posted on the Anglican Communion website (http://www.anglicancommunion.org) as they become available.

Oh good. A “Reception Process.” I wonder if they will find a way to work in an indabuntu get-together?

The question is, is this document worth signing, just to see what happens?
This will be a continuation of the Anglican Communion as spectator sport.

Nice effort to hold the appearance of unity together until Rowan’s retirement.  Beyond that, it is a farce of the first order.

I suppose that like most people, I am still trying to figure this all out, but a couple of observations seem worth making:

1.  Isn’t it telling (and telling something not very good) that, for a covenant of a supposed communion, it is first necessary to inform a number of churches and diocese that they may not join?

2.  Isn’t it also interesting that this covenant has not generated the sort of immediate heated discussion it might have in the past?  Is it just the time of year?  Or is it evidence of the increasing irrelevance of the “instruments of unity”, and the development of alternative structures like GAFCON?  Could it be that, particularly after the Jamaica debacle, the Archbishop and his machinations are no longer as important?  What will the global south primates do?  And what impact will the episcopal election in Los Angeles have?