There were once two balloonists floating along in a hot air balloon, when a big gust of wind came along and blew their map out of their hands. As a result, they got lost. They were floating along and spied a man in a field below them.

One of the balloonists yelled out to the man below, “I say, could you tell us where we are?”

“Yes,” came the reply. “You’re in a hot air balloon!” Then another gust of wind came along an blew them out of earshot.

“Well, that did us no good,” said one balloonist to another. We still don’t know where we are.

“Oh, yes. I know exactly where we are.”

“You do?”

“Yes. We’re in England. And that was an Anglican clergyman.”

“How do you know that?” asked his fellow balloonist.

“He told us the absolute truth. And it did us absolutely no earthly good!”



My prayer is that what I share with you is the absolute truth, and that it will do you some earthly good.



Anglican Discipline can mean Two Different Things
There are two senses in which that the phrase “Anglican Discipline” can be understood.

First, what are the disciplines that form Anglicans? How are we formed as Anglicans?

If that were our meaning, we would explore such as the importance of the Daily Office and daily prayer, seasons of the Church Year, the sacredness of space, and so on.

The second sense—and the one we will direct our attention to today—is “how does the Anglican Communion discipline itself?”

Some might say that, given current events in the Anglican Communion, the phrase “Anglican Discipline” is an oxymoron. (That was intended as a joke.)

In fact, the way the Anglican Communion disciplines itself is “relationally.” The Anglican Communion has always exercised discipline through mutual submission or mutual restraint.


Two Examples from Church History
I want to recount two stories at critical junctures in the life of the Anglican Communion. The first story is of the adoption of the first American Book of Common Prayer and the first non-English bishops consecrated by English bishops in England for Anglican churches outside the Church of England. The other comes from the calling of the first Lambeth Conference. Each of these series of event occurred at turning points in the life of the development Anglican Communion and set the Anglican Communion on a course that will call for the Communion to value and exercise discipline in a collegial relational way.

The First American BCP
The first example of this propensity of those within Anglican to exercise discipline by a relational means is in the development of the first American Book of Common Prayer.

In 1785 a call was issued to the various dioceses of the newly freed American colonies to participate in a convention to establish a church made up of the Anglican dioceses in the new country. There was no precedent in the Church of England for such a task. Bishops in England were appointed by the Crown. Who would appoint these bishops? These Anglican churches were all using the English Book of Common Prayer. However, this prayer book was not really appropriate for the churches in these newly independent colonies. One of the tasks of this constitutional convention was to begin to develop a Book of Common Prayer that would better serve this new situation.

So, this convention authorized a committee to develop a new prayer book. The committee was made up of one lay delegate and one clerical delegate from each diocese. They establish five principles governing the development of this new prayer book:

(1) This would be a Federal, Constitutional Church:
(2) The several states would be its units;
(3) The governing body would include both lay clergy;
(4) They would maintain a clear continuity with the Church of England, making such changes in worship and discipline only as the changed political situation might render necessary; and
(5) They would confer no powers upon the general body except those that could not conveniently be exercised by the local dioceses.¹

So, they commenced their work. The committee, working principally through Dr. Smith of Maryland and Dr, William White of Pennsylvania, proposed changes from the English Book of Common Prayer which can be grouped into five general categories with some examples:

(1) Political. Prayers for the king, princes, the royal family, etc., were, of course stricken and replaced with prayers for the President and the Congress. English days of celebration were replaced with a service for the 4th of July, “being the Anniversary of Independence.”

(2) Changes in the Interest of Taste. The phrase from the Te Deum “didst not abhor the virgin’s womb” was deemed too indelicate and was replaced with “didst humble thyself to be born of a woman.”

(3) Anti-Sacerdotal Changes. The proposed book omitted the sign of the cross at baptism; substituted “A Declaration to be made by the Minister concerning the Forgiveness of Sins” for “The Absolution or Remission of Sins to be pronounced by the Priest.”

(4) Changes in the Interest of Local Preferences. The selection of Psalms to be used as well as some of the Scripture reading would be left to the discretion of the Minister.

(5) Dogmatic Changes. The Athanisian Creed was omitted; the “decent into hell” was excised from the Nicene Creed; the number of times the Gloria Patri was used was greatly reduced.


These American Anglicans deemed that they needed three things to establish their church in the new country, and at this point they had accomplished the first two. First, they formulated a constitution. Second, they had established a liturgy appropriate to their new and more permanent setting. The third thing necessary was to establish the Episcopate in their new church and country. They had no desire simply to send another priest overseas to be consecrated by the non-juror bishops in Scotland. They wanted bishops consecrated in England whose Holy orders would therefore be above reproach.

So, they sent representatives with an “Address to the Archbishop and Bishops of England” stating that they were now separated as a result of the War for Independence; they acknowledged the benefits they had received from the Church of England; they declared their intention not in any way to depart from the doctrine fo the Mother Church; and they accordingly requested the English Bishops to consecrate Bishops for the American Church.

John Adams, Ambassador to England ably presented the case to the Archbishop of Canterbury and requested as immediate a reply as possible.

Meanwhile, in America, the convention adjourned and awaited the reply. In fact, they received two, one right after the other.

In response to the general question of whether the English bishops would consecrate American bishops for this new American Church: yes, they were willing and ready to consecrate bishops for them. However, there were a few things they wished these Americans would clear up for them. These bishops had hear “queer stories” about the Philadelphia convention, such as, they had thrown overboard all the Churches Creeds; that they had torn the Prayer-Book all to shreds; that they had adopted a Constitution which gave to the laity an unheard of power in the Church. Until
A story in the early life of our denomination reveals that this is not the first time that this sort of issue has come up. Once before the Episcopal Church did, in fact, respond to pressure from the Archbishop of Canterbury to conform to the expectations of the Communion. Of course, this pressure was couched in terms of a "request" to which we politely but humbly, conformed. Here's the story.

The draft version of the original America Book of Common Prayer prepared in 1785, called for some major changes from the 1662 version of the English prayer book, upon which it was modeled. Basically, the American version called for the deletion of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, the removal of the phrase concerning Christ's descent into Hell from the Apostles' Creed, as well as alterations to the baptismal service, matrimonial office, and other similar changes. How did bishops in England respond? Richard Peters of Philadelphia met with the Archbishop of Canterbury and filed this report:

I find that we can have no Bishop till we let the prelates see what Church we have made. I think it would be prudent in our Church, to put off any material alterations till we have Bishops consecrated; if we make any substantial alterations they will be carped at by those who will make the Bishops uneasy, and so, to keep peace at home, they will refuse to meddle abroad [that is, to consecrate bishops of the church in America]. ²

In effect, upon the objections of the Archbishop of Canterbury and other English bishops, all of the major revisions were restored in conformity with the English prayer book (except for the continued omission of the Athanasian Creed).

Here we have the beginnings of what it means to be a transoceanic and worldwide Communion: the proposed innovations of the Americans to their Book of Common Prayer so departed from the English bishops' understanding of the faith that they could not in good faith consecrate bishops for the American expression of the Church of England. Because these proposed revisions so affected the larger Communion, the larger Communion had the right to refuse to consecrate American bishops until the American church came into conformity. To use the Windsor Report language: Autonomy submitted itself to Communion.


The Colenso Affair
In 1865 there were 45 English overseas dioceses and 34 American dioceses. In addition there were five independent provinces with enough bishops to continue their own succession. It was in this year that the Canadian bishops called for a meeting of all Anglican bishops throughout the world.

What caused the Canadian bishops to call for this unprecedented meeting? The actions of the first bishop of Natal, The Right Reverend John William Colenso. He took liberal positions on polygamy and the baptism of children, much of the sacramental theology of historic Anglicanism, and he denied the Mosaic authoriship of the Pentateuch.

Bishop Colenso was declared deposed by his Metropolitan, Robert Gray of Cape Town, in 1863. Colenso appealed to the Privy Council and won his case based upon technical grounds.³ This did not end the furor, and the Canadian bishops called for all the bishops to gather to “comfort the souls of the faithful, and reassure minds of the wavering members” and deal with this issue caused by the failure of the Privy Council to uphold the discipline imposed by the Bishop of Cape Town.

Not all the Anglican bishops were enthusiastic. The American bishops were a bit on the conservative side of things and feared the influence of the more broad church English bishops. The English bishops were equally unenthusiastic, fearing that a meeting of all the Anglican bishops would push for a firmer resolution of the Colenso matter than they wanted. Still others were uncertain that such a meeting was legal or appropriate at all. Archbishop Longley soothed concerns by stating “that at this meeting no declaration of faith shall be made, and no decision shall be come to what shall effect generally the interests of the Church, but that we shall meet together for brotherly counsel and encouragement.”⁴

76 bishops attended the first Lambeth Conference out of 144. All but Colenso were invited. Despite Longley’s stipulations that the Colenso affair would not be discussed, the Bishop of Cape Town and others led the charge for a change in the schedule that called for this first gathering of bishops of the Anglican Communion to address this issue squarely.

Before the Conference, there had been much debate about the matter in the British press. Among the traditionalists who supported Archbishop Gray in his defense of orthodoxy and his actions in excommunicating Bishop Colenso was, had the Colenso-Gray controversy in mind when he wrote a hymn, based on the ninth article of the Apostles’ Creed - “the holy Catholic Church,” for a collection known as Lyra Fidelium. It is usually sung today to the tune, “Aurelia.” The third stanza echoes Stone’s concern:

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!

What came out of the first Lambeth Conference? First, a commitment to a long-term solution to challenges posed by such as the Colenso Affair: a strong endorsement of the synodical way of governing the Church for the sake of good order. Secondly, concern for the faith and unity of the whole Communion. When the faith and unity of the Anglican Communion is at risk, those bishops, by their actions, declared that it is incumbent on the bishops to take whatever measures are necessary to guard the faith and unity of the Communion.

The bishops gathered at Lambeth declared Colenso’s see vacant. Although they had no legislative authority to do so, they essentially excluded Colenso from their fellowship. Once Colenso ceased serving as bishop of Natal, the locally establish succession envisioned by the Lambeth bishops determined the next bishop of Natal, who was welcomed into the fellowship of the World Wide Anglican Communion.


The Windsor Report: Autonomy in Communion
The Anglican Communion is now at another critical juncture. Events in 2003 have caused the Communion as a whole to have to reflect on the nature of Anglicanism, and particularly to deal with the need of the Communion as a whole to discipline one or more of its provinces that have, by their actions, “torn the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level.”

These actions are, as we all know, (1) the consecration of The Rev. Gene Robinson—then living in a sexual relationship outside marriage—as bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire with the consent of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church; (2) approval of the blessing of same sex unions by dioceses in the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, appointed a Commission to develop a process to deal with this crisis, specifically to make recommendations to maintain or to repair the communion that has been strained as a result of these actions.

The Commission published a report called “The Windsor Report” articulated the theological underpinnings on the Purpose and Benefits of Communion and the Fundamental Nature of Anglicanism. It then made recommendations for how the Anglican Communion should deal with such significant breaches of communion in the long term as well as with short term responses to the current crisis.
The Windsor Report discussed at length the contrapuntal notions of autonomy and communion and how they relate to each other within the Anglican Communion. It described the nature of “autonomy in communion” in this way:

A body is thus, in this sense, ‘autonomous’ only in relation to others: autonomy exists in a relation with a wider community or system of which the autonomous entity forms part. The word ‘autonomous’ in this sense actually implies not an isolated individualism, but the idea of being free to determine one’s own life within a wider obligation to others. The key idea is autonomy-in-communion, that is, freedom held within interdependence. The autonomy of each Anglican province therefore implies that the church lives in relation to, and exercises its autonomy most fully in the context of, the global Communion.⁵

Short-term and Long-term Solutions
The Windsor Report made specific recommendations for both long-term and short-term solutions for maintaining communion when major conflicts occur. The long-term recommendations, namely the adoption of a Covenant binding all of the Anglican Communion ⁶ were not intended to deal with the Robinson and blessing of same-sex unions, per se, but were intended to structural changes to the Communion in the event of future such occurrences—such as the approval of lay presidency by the Diocese of Sydney. The Final section of the report then made specific short-term recommendations for dealing with the conflict at hand, precipitated by the consecration of then-Canon Gene Robinson and the authorization of blessing of same-sex unions.

The Windsor Commission stated that the adoption of a Covenant which will articulate the basis for communion within the Anglican Communion was needed and the case for it “overwhelming.” This is how they described the Covenant they were recommending:

This Commission recommends, therefore, and urges the primates to consider, the adoption by the churches of the Communion of a common Anglican Covenant which would make explicit and forceful the loyalty and bonds of affection which govern the relationships between the churches of the Communion. The Covenant could deal with: the acknowledgement of common identity; the relationships of communion; the commitments of communion; the exercise of autonomy in communion; and the management of communion affairs (including disputes).⁷

At its meeting in May 2006, the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to establish a Covenant Design Group to develop a Covenant and process for adopting same as recommended by the Windsor Commission. This group gave a preliminary report to the Primates Meeting at Dar es Salaam in February 2007. The report included the Nassau Draft—a draft for the Covenant on which initial consultation was taken in the course of 2007. The Covenant Design Group met again at the end of January 2008, and produced a second report and draft, called the St. Andrew's Draft.

Essentially, the Covenant states the basis for communion to be found in certain theological affirmations and mutual commitments. The Appendix provides a process for resolving conflicts when a certain diocese or province takes actions that cause the impairment of the communion of the whole. As Polonius says to his son Laertes in Hamlet, “Ah, there’s the rub.” That is, is it possible for the Anglican Communion to discipline itself?

The Covenant is an attempt to prepare the Anglican Communion ahead of time for future conflicts without resorting to a six year process of dithering and fretting over who can or cannot impose discipline among a Communion where the historical and traditional exercise of self-restraint has given way to provinces demanding their rights to autonomous decisions without regard to the effects of their actions on the wider Communion (not to mention the effects of such actions on the Communion’s ecumenical partners).


Question: What is the appropriate level or entity to adopt the Covenant?
The question follows, then: What is the appropriate level or entity to adopt the Covenant? In other words, what happens if an individual province in the Anglican Communion rejects the Covenant? Is it possible or appropriate for an individual diocese to adopt the Covenant and submit itself to a Communion-wide discipline of autonomy-in-communion, regardless of whether the province of which it is a member does?

Two views of how the Communion holds together: Direct/Attenuated
The answer to this question depends upon ones view of how the Anglican Communion holds together. Is the Communion a collection of provinces with the dioceses being subsidiarily members of the Communion by virtue of the individual diocese being a member of the larger province? Or, is the Communion a collection of dioceses, where a collection of individual dioceses covenant together in a province for the sake of good order?

Stated another way: is an individual Anglican bishop’s relationship to the Archbishop of Canterbury direct or attenuated? In other words, does the individual bishop derive his or her identity and legitimacy as being truly Anglican directly to Canterbury, or is that identity and legitimacy based upon the individual bishop and diocese being a part of a province that is a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, that is, attenuated?

Certainly and clearly the former view, the direct relationship view, is held by Dr. Rowan Williams, the current occupier of the See of Canterbury. In a letter dated 14 October 2007 sent from Archbishop Rowan Williams to John Howe, bishop of Central Florida in The Episcopal Church, Dr. Williams states: “any Diocese compliant with Windsor remains clearly in communion with Canterbury and the mainstream of the Communion, whatever may be the longer-term result for others in The Episcopal Church. The organ of union with the wider Church is the Bishop and the Diocese rather than the Provincial structure as such. ⁸ The various dioceses gather together as provinces for the sake of good order and common missionary endeavors, but the provinces are not the structures that confer Anglican legitimacy, so to speak, on the individual dioceses. Rather, it is their relationship with the See of Canterbury.

In addition, this direct relationship view is also articulated in the Preface of The Constitution of the Episcopal Church. This is how the Preface begins:

The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, otherwise known as The Episcopal Church (which name is hereby recognized as also designating the Church), is a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, a Fellowship within the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted Dioceses, Provinces, and regional Churches in communion with the See of Canterbury, upholding and propagating the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer.

In other words, it is the dioceses in The United States that are in communion with the See of Canterbury which comprise the Episcopal Church. It is their being in communion with the See of Canterbury that makes the individual dioceses collectively to comprise the Episcopal Church, not the Anglican province known as The Episcopal Church which authorizes individual dioceses to be recognized as in Communion with the See of Canterbury and, therefore, legitimately Anglican.

The final principle of Anglicanism that guides us in determining the appropriate level for adopting the Covenant as binding is the principle of subsidiarity, namely, that “matters should be decided as close to the local level as possible.”⁹

Ephraim Radner has described the significance of subsidiarity as articulated by the Windsor Report: "Subsidiarity" in this context is not so much a "right" to determine locally as many things as possible, but rather represents the "principle" that "consent" must work its way down to the deepest and widest levels and ranges of the Church 's life, so that all the "parts" can indeed be drawn through a "common mind" into the life of the whole. Further, The Windsor Report says that each church is free to make decisions at the local level, but only with respect to issues that are adiaphora, that is, things that don’t really matter.

Adiaphora refers to those things “upon which disagreement can be tolerated without endangering unity.” ¹⁰ The Windsor Report says that core doctrines are not adiaphora.

Thus, if the Covenant deals with the very core of communion and the theological basis which binds the Communion together, it would seem that the adoption of the Covenant ought to had at the lowest level where the adoption of the Covenant by the larger province is in doubt. While a province is certainly free to adopt the Covenant at the provincial level, any individual diocese ought to be free to adopt the Covenant as well, thus insuring their continued participation in the communion and fellowship of the Anglican Communion as a whole.