Covenant Number 28, May 2008

Draft Covenant Creates Instruments of Exclusion

by Marilyn McCord Adams

Actions speak louder than words! The new draft covenant speaks softly. Its text has mostly lost the strident tone of The Windsor Report and successive pro- Windsor polemical documents. It has mostly dropped the fiction that pan-Anglicanism has 'always been synodal' and the urgent recommendation that pan-Anglican 'instruments of union' be given legal teeth at least for the reason that kept the first Lambeth Conference from being a synod, that it would be illegal for the Church of England (St. Andrew's Draft 3.1.2)!

A Funny Kind of Christian

by Giles Fraser

In this essay on the actions of President George W. Bush, English author Giles Fraser discusses powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. He finds it difficult to see how torture of any kind and waterboarding specifically reflect love for neighbor or respect for the dignity of every human being. Ed.

The Truly Orthodox

by Sergio Carranza

Here we are, just a few months away from the Lambeth Conference and we find ourselves in an impasse . . .

There Are No Blue Cows

by Walter Righter

On a typical cold winter day in Vermont, in the midst of a snowstorm with both ice and snow making the going difficult, Mary Adelia McLeod was consecrated the Bishop of Vermont. She is the first woman in the Anglican Communion to be a diocesan Bishop. The preacher was Barbara Harris, since 1989, the Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts. She is the first woman in the Anglican Communion to be consecrated Bishop. Bishop Harris' words were prophetic to most of us in attendance.

Myth and Gilligan's Island

by Robin Courtney, Jr.

In the movie, Coming to America, Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall play two lead roles and several supporting characters residing in the Queens borough of New York City. Mr Hall, acting as the local parson, Reverend Brown, attends a social event where a marriage is announced. He says to the future bride, "Now I want you to know I am going to be praying for you. And God is going to be faithful to you, just as he helped Joshua fight the battle of Jericho... he helped Daniel get out of the lion's den... and just like he helped Gilligan get off the island!"

A Review

by G. Richard Wheatcroft

"Raymond L Lawrence, Jr, Sexual (The Scandal of Christendom) Liberation,  Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT, 2007, Hardback, 196 pp, $49.75"

A Reflection

by Elizabeth Kaeton

Ah, Spring. It is nothing if not unpredictable. Yesterday, the morning was cold but by 3 PM it was 71 degrees and I was driving around . . .

Editorial - Two Kinds of Faith

The Mail

Peripatetikos

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. -- Robert Frost