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.

Author Biography

Mark Chapman is Vice President of Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford and a member of the Faculty of Theology, Oxford University. He has written widely on modern church history, ethics and theology. His books include Ernst Troeltsch and Liberal Theology (Oxford), The Coming Crisis (Sheffield), Blair's Britain (DLT) and Anglicanism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford). The Rev. Dr. R. William Franklin, Ph.D., is Visiting Fellow and Associate Priest of the Anglican Centre in Rome and Associate Director of the American Academy in Rome. He is Dean Emeritus of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University, and he was a Consultant at the 1998 Lambeth Conference. Canon Gregory Cameron was ordained in the Church in Wales in 1983. After years in Parish and Youth ministry he was he was appointed to the post of Director of Ecumenical Affairs at the Anglican Communion Office in 2003. As Director of Ecumenical Affairs and Studies, he is co-secretary of all international Anglican ecumenical dialogue commissions of the Anglican Consultative Council, and is additionally Secretary to three Commissions of the Anglican Communion, including the Covenant Design Group.