Giles Fraser doesn’t like the Anglican Covenant because it attempts to define what an Anglican is by asserting what an Anglican must believe. Since being a Christian is defined by what one believes, this doesn’t seem like a particularly unreasonable limitation – but, then, for the anti-Covenant anti-confessional muddled middle ground brigade, Christianity may well not be a prerequisite for Anglicanism.
What is important to Fraser and his ilk is to eschew all things binary – a perversely obtuse eccentricity in the digital age. There must be no Either/Or, no Black or White no certainties, no definitiveness. No truth; instead, let there be Common Ground.
From here:
The reason why the Covenant is such a terrible idea is that it replaces the search for common ground with a fear that the Other is out to get me. It gives the Other a means of my exclusion, and thus turns the Other into the enemy.
The Covenant contains the idea of a two-tier Communion — those who signed up being on the inner tier; those who do not being on the outer tier — which is not quite the ecclesiastical equivalent of outer darkness. The idea that the C of E itself might be in the outer tier makes a nonsense of the whole Covenant idea. Communion with the see of Canterbury has always been the defining feature of what it means to be an Anglican.
But there should be “common ground”, not just for Anglicans but for all Christians. And that “common ground” should be what God has communicated to everyone through His Holy Bible. This should not be a surprise to us Anglicans. After all:
VI. OF THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES OF SALVATION.
HOLY Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of the holy Scripture we do understand those Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.
Of the Names and Number of the Canonical Books
* Genesis,
* Exodus,
* Leviticus,
* Numbers,
* Deuteronomy,
* Joshua,
* Judges,
* Ruth,
* The First Book of Samuel,
* The Second Book of Samuel,
* The First Book of Kings,
* The Second Book of Kings,
* The First Book of Chronicles,
* The Second Book of Chronicles,
* The First Book of Esdras [Ezra],
* The Second Book of Esdras [Nehemiah],
* The Book of Esther,
* The Book of Job,
* The Psalms,
* The Proverbs,
* Ecclesiastes or Preacher,
* Cantica, or Songs of Solomon,
* Four Prophets the greater,
* Twelve Prophets the less.
And the other Books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth not apply them to establish any doctrine; such are these following:
* The Third Book of Esdras [I Esdras],
* The Fourth Book of Esdras [II Esdras],
* The Book of Tobias,
* The Book of Judith,
* The rest of the Book of Esther,
* The Book of Wisdom,
* Jesus the Son of Sirach [or Ecclesiasticus],
* Baruch the Prophet,
* The Song of the Three Children,
* The Story of Susanna,
* Of Bel and the Dragon,
* The Prayer of Manasses,
* The First Book of Maccabees,
* The Second Book of Maccabees.
All of the Books of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we do receive, and accont them Canonical.
Of course we must be exceedingly careful which Version of God’s Holy Bible we read as there are many that have deliberately translated the Manuscripts in such as way as to be “politically correct”, which in my opinion is nothing short of a blatent attempt to edit God and that would be heresy. Such versions include the new revised standard version (nrsv).