The Episcopal Lead points to an essay by Savi Hensman that explores the disciplinary regime laid out in Part 4 of  The Anglican Covenant. Beginning with the baptismal vow to resist evil, she asks whether individuals or a church resisting evil (e.g., the oppressive treatment of GLBT persons) must submit if other churches object:

This might imply that member churches seeking to be faithful to their Christian calling, and to experience and reflect the love of the Holy Trinity, should never do anything to which certain other churches strongly object, if those objecting can convince the Standing Committee that the action would be wrong or harmful to unity.

But is achievement of a ‘common mind’ – or appearance of this – and greatest possible degree of communion always the highest good? In a world where evil can often seem plausible, even moral, there are many occasions when this is not so.

She goes on to cite the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who resisted Hitler and was martyred for it. More importantly for her purposes, Bonhoeffer was among the leaders of those German Protestants who refused to participate in the German Christian movement. She quotes the Archbishop of Canterbury writing about Bonhoeffer:

[I]f we ask about the nature of the true Church, where we shall see the authentic life of Christ’s Body – or if we ask about the unity of the Church, how we come together to recognise each other as disciples – Bonhoeffer’s answer would have to be in the form of a further question. Does this or that person, this or that Christian community, stand where Christ is? Are they struggling to be in the place where God has chosen to be? And he would further tell us that to be in this place is to be in a place where there are no defensive walls; it must be a place where all who have faith in Jesus can stand together, and stand with all those in whose presence and in whose company Christ suffers, making room together for God’s mercy to be seen.

That is how Bonhoeffer had already come to the paradox of saying – as he did in 1936 – that unity between Christians could not be the only thing that mattered – if all it meant was good will towards everyone who claimed the name of a believer or everyone who satisfied some limited definition of human decency and fluency in religious talk.

One of the things that I was trying to get at in my previous post on Hooker is the issue of coercion. Coercion operates on many levels. Historically, as in the case of Elizabeth I and the other Tudor monarchs, coercion takes the form of state action to enforce conformity. In contemporary institutional Christianity, state action is not an option. However, there are other means at hand in some churches. The Vatican can suppress dissent by silencing theologians, but in other denominations, excommunication has become a rarity.

Part of the struggle in Anglicanism is a struggle over definition–What is it? Who are the members of the Anglican Communion? Since its beginning in the 19th century, the Anglican Communion has lacked clear boundaries, a clear definition of what it is and what it isn’t. The Covenant is part of a process aimed at defining boundaries, and certainly distinguishing members of the Anglican Communion from those churches that do not belong to it. Defining boundaries and membership involves enforcing conformity, at least on some level. And enforcing conformity requires coercion.

Hensman’s question comes down to “At what cost conformity?” At the cost of resisting evil? Or breaking our baptismal vows to “respect the dignity of every human person?” And here’s where Hooker comes in. Elizabeth and Hooker both were saying to nonconformists that they had to submit to doctrine and practice which they regarded is evil. Conformity was more important than faithfulness to the truth of the Gospel. The disciplinary  measures of the Anglican Covenant make the same argument against those who accept the ordination of Gays and Lesbians (and women, and perhaps the presidency of laypeople at the Eucharist in the Diocese of Sidney).