From More than Via Media: As I read Bishop Mark Lawrence's address to the clergy of South Carolina, the sermon of one of the candidates for the suffragan of Los Angeles was also on my mind. The comparisons are stark. The candidate for Los Angeles suffragan declared the Old Testament narrative of the relationships between Yahweh, Saul, Jonathan and David as "erotically charged" and "homoerotic in its expression". +South Carolina, by contrast, outlined a vision of what he termed "a deeper and generous catholicity" - reaffirming catholic teaching on the Trinity, the Incarnation, the authority of Scripture, the life of the baptised, the understanding of marriage, and the Church as communion.

Which vision for TEC is faithful to Anglicanism's reformed catholic tradition? The answer is, of course, startlingly obvious.

Particularly significant in +South Carolina's address was his call for the diocese to affirm the draft Anglican Covenant:

"I believe we have a unique role to play within the Anglican Communion. If at present we play that role by being in but not of the mainstream of TEC is it any less important? We passed at our Diocesan Convention in March a resolution which asserted our authority as a diocese to sign onto the Anglican Covenant ... The Archbishop has expressed in section 25 of Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future his strong hope that 'elements' (dioceses?) will adopt the Covenant. I believe we ought to sign on to the Ridley Draft of the Covenant as it presently stands in all four sections ... Therefore we need to begin the process of studying the Ridley Draft in every deanery and parish and be prepared to vote on it either in the special convention in October or, if that’s too ambitious a time frame, no later than our Annual Diocesan Convention in March 2010".

If the diocese does so, it will be giving expression to a TEC that respects and upholds what +South Carolina describes in the address as "the moral authority and role of the Instruments of Unity". It will, in other words, be a sign of hope for those committed to unity, love and truth within the Communion. Against separatists of left and right, +South Carolina - in accordance with +Canterbury's post-GC reflections - is offering an authentically Anglican future, in communion with the See of Canterbury, for those within TEC who reject the GC's exercise of radical autonomy.

Where I do have some misgivings about +South Carolina's statement is in the references to gay Anglicans: