The Anglican-Methodist Covenant now has its own website
A Covenant between the Methodist Church of Great Britain and the Church of England was signed on 1 November 2003.
After a brief preamble the text of the covenant sets out seven mutual affirmations and six mutual commitments.
The Covenant puts the two Churches on a path of ever deepening relationships and mutual trust and co-operation on the road to a richer unity involving all who call themselves Christ’s disciples.
I’m bound to say I’m sceptical about this covenant. There has been such an ecumenical instrument in Wales since 1975, but there is little sign of us being brought closer together. my own view, for what it is worth, is that it would be much more prductive for us to enter into a serious commitment with the United Reformed Church. At the local level we’re much closer to one another theologically and emotionally. I can’t really understand why that isn’t happening. I’m not certain of my facts, but my instinct is that there is far more ecumenical activity between the Methodists and the URC than there is with the Anglicans.
But I could be wrong.
Anyway, my thanks to 42 for pointing out the new website.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Randy McRoberts 11.17.05 at 6:55 pm
I’m sure John Wesley will be happy to see the two bodies have an ever deepening relationship. I’m pretty sure he never meant to form a church which would be separate from the Church of England.
Eugene McKinnon 11.18.05 at 2:35 am
That’s what every Reformer desired. They never wanted to break. They just wanted Reform. I hope that this will be possible in other denominations. But I am cautious. This has been attempted in Canada in the early 20th century with the Church Union movement which resulted in the United Church of Canada.
Kim 11.18.05 at 4:10 pm
Eugene is right: the catholcity of the magisterial Reformers is indisputable. In their own self-understanding they never rejected the medieval church, they only tried to rescue it from criminal mismanagement and renew it according to the gospel; and they never left the church, rather they were thrown out. Calvin later wrote to Elizabeth I that he would sail the seven seas seven times over in the cause of the reunification of Christendom. And the Reformers no doubt continue to spin in their graves at the subsequent of history of Protesteant fissiparousness and sectarianism. Check out Stanley Hauerwas’ fine sermon “Reformation Is Sin”. Ouch!
Nor would the Reformers consider contemporary models of “spiritual unity”, “reconciled diversity”, etc. at all adequate to their robust catholic ecclesiology. Their distinction between the “visible” and the “invisible” church, for example, is completely misunderstood when deployed to disparage the importance of institutional unity. The distinction is not between the church as real and the church as merely apparent, but between the church as divinely createded and the church as humanly embodied - and the latter was always of primary concern to the Reformers. The Reformers were not ecclesiastical Platonists, and indeed as the formidable Reformed ecumenical theologian Lesslie Newbigin once suggested, it is a “curious docetism” that dismisses visible structures of unity as secondary or “merely sociological”.
Nor, of course, is practical ecumenism a zero-sum game. Let it proceed at national and local levels, in dialogue and multi-logue. I myself am prone to Richard’s scepticism about the current Anglican-Methodist talks. “Once burned, twice shy?” The Anglicans have a history of ecumenical arson - and I myself have been scorched on committees at the institutional level. And though - yes, Randy - John Wesley never envisioned a break with the Church of England, he was profoundly influenced by no less than five Christian heritages, both his parents were Puritan converts, and by the time of his death more than half his members came from Dissenting and Nonconformist backgrounds. In short, I agree with Richard that Methodist-URC ecumenical activity holds out the more practical promise
A few final points, principles:
(1) Let us not insist on more agreement between our churches than we do within our churches.
(2) Let us always respect the intentio fidei of other communions - and move towards accepting what’s been called a common doctrine of “apostolic recognition”.
(3) Let us be careful to steer our way between what I call the “Frank Sinatra Model” of ecumenism (Do it “my way”!) and the “Dog’s Breakfast” Model of ecumenism (”Go on, bung it all in!”).
(4) Let us remember that it is Christ’s own will that his church be one, quite simply because the church is called to reflect God who is one - but God who is three-in-one, and so a church that will be pluriform, not uniform.
(5) Finally, rightly interpreting Ephesians 4:15 against all anti-ecumenists, there can be no truth that is not grounded in love, and no love that is not directed towards unity, the overarching theme of the epostle: therefore insofar as we are not ecumenical, we are not Christian.
Turbulent Cleric 11.18.05 at 5:31 pm
I struggle to relate the Covenant at grass roots level. Working ina Circuit which voted against the Covenant, I wonder if the process of Covenant has not led to greater mistrust which is hardly the aim.
I tend to see our main ecumecical opportunity as lying with URC although they seem to be a denomination with even greater problems than Methodism. However, I think there is a bais theologically, emotionally and even culturally for a unity scheme to be explored. We seem to be at present needlessly competing for the same people.
Whilst for what it is worth Mr Wesley would wish union with C of E, I think there are greater problems in finding affinity there. Of course there should be co-operation and at times there is fertile grounds for unity schemes. However, that is not always the case. I had pastoral care of a church in my lay worker days which favoured a highly informal brand of nonconformity ( even Methodism was a little marginal to some) whilst the local parish church was weddedto the 1662 Prayer Book. We did some things together but sadly worship at either church tended to accentuate the differences.
At present noticing the feuds within C of E especially over sexuality, I am inclined to echo to C of E the words a Jewish friend used to address to Christians - ‘I like you very much indeed but I have enough problems of my own without adding yours to the list which would be the case if I joined you.
I wonder if the Pauline model might best be seen as unity in diversity. That may mean for the forseeable remaining as two separate churches. However, it surely is non negotiable that we should search out the possibilities of co-operation in God’s mission.