Anglican Covenant: Unity and Diversity in the Anglican Communion
Chapman, Mark D., ed.
Mowbray, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-5670-3253-9

This book is a collection of essays by leading theologians and church leaders on the implications of the proposed Anglican Covenant, which has been offered as a solution to the recent crises facing worldwide Anglicanism. At the Anglican Primates' meeting in February 2007, a draft Covenant was commended for study by the constituent churches of the Anglican Communion. This book presents a sober and dispassionate discussion of the theology and politics behind the Covenant. The writers represent a number of different theological traditions and disciplines within and beyond Anglicanism. What unites them is a desire to understand other opinions and to listen to different views. The contributors include theological educators, church historians, ethicists, biblical scholars, and canonists from different parts of the Anglican Communion and from ecumenical partners. While the book aims to be dispassionate and to stand apart from the rhetoric of ecclesiastical parties, it also offers original and thought-provoking discussions based on detailed and thorough scholarship. Affirming Catholicism is a progressive movement in the Anglican Church, drawing inspiration and hope from the Catholic tradition, confident that it will bear the gifts of the past into the future. The books in this series aim to make the Catholic element within Anglicanism once more a positive force for the Gospel, and a model for effective mission today.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: What's going on in Anglicanism / Mark D. Chapman
Baby's first steps: can the covenant proposal ever walk? / Gregory Cameron
Unity and diversity, communion and covenant: theological, ecclesiological, political, and missional challenges for Anglicanism / Andrew Goddard
The dull bits of history : cautionary tales for Anglicanism / Mark D. Champan
The Episcopal Church in the USA and the covenant: the place of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral / R. William Franklin
'From all nations and languages' reflections on church, Catholicity, and culture / Charlotte Metheun
The Anglican covenant: an African perspective / Victor Atta-Baffoe
Towards an Anglican covenant a Roman Catholic persepective / Paul McPartlan
The Methodist idea of covenant / Kenneth Wilson
Covenant in the Bible and today / John Barton

Reviews:

Verbum et Ecclesia
"Written under the auspices of the Affirming Catholicism Movement, the authors provide readers with a relatively unbiased and thought-provoking study of the draft Covenant ... what makes this book unique is its attempt to work towards a resolution of the issue using practical, theological and ecclesiological approaches. While focussing on one branch of the Christian faith, it offers much food for theological reflection to those of us coming from other branches."

John Riches, Glasgow University
"This is a useful collection of essays... It presents a helpfully diverse range of views... provides substantial food for thought and reflection."

Richard Geoffrey Leggett, Sewanee Theological Review, Vol. 52:4, 2009
"This collection of essays remains a valuable resource in the ongoing discussion of whether or not an Anglican covenant is the way to address the Communion's so-called 'ecclesial deficit' spoken of by the present archbishop of Canterbury."