General Synod and the Covenant

The schedule for the upcoming General Synod has been released with all the necessary documents. Of note is the reply to the proposed Anglican Covenant. It's worth a read, folks. The document is found here.

Of particular interest to me is the section that deals with the Thirty Nine Articles, tradition, and reason.

IV: Section One: Our Inheritance of Faith

The Church of England would have no difficulty agreeing to the affirmations of this opening section of the draft, which are consistent with Church of England teachings and largely based on the Declaration of Assent in Canon C.15. However, we suggest that this section needs to recognise the different ways in which the Thirty Nine Articles the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal have shaped and continue to shape the lives of the different Provinces.

In section 1.2 where the text briefly touches on how the Anglican inheritance of faith is worked out in various cultural contexts the material would be strengthened by a discussion of what is meant by the terms ‘tradition’ and ‘reason’ and how they relate to the normative authority of Scripture for Christian faith and life as expressed in the historic formularies. In this connection reference could usefully be made to the material on this subject in the reports of the successive Lambeth Conferences (for example 1948 and 1988), in the Virginia Report of the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission

Go give it a read and tell me what you think.