When Bishops smack each other down

I have often remarked that one of the great problems for Anglicans is that we are so polite that we often don't tell it like it really is.

So thanks to the Dean of Darwin for drawing our attention to recent duelling between the American and English Primates and the commentary on it by Diana Butler Bass an American religious scholar (here).

Ms BB indeed draws our attention to the different approaches that are conflicting the Anglican Communion at this time, will we have order imposed from the top...even though it is styled in the language of 'consensus' and 'covenant'...or will we continue to do what Anglicans have ever done; which is to embrace as our fundamental right the toleration of difference.

Butler Bass does a good job of bringing this into the light at a time when we are being encouraged to look at what I suspect is a poor process for Anglicans that of 'covenanting'.

I am yet to be convinced that this so-called covenant is actually one of mutual respect, and not one of control. If this is the case then it simply will not do.

I am, as I say, 'yet to be convinced'. This does not mean that I can't or won't be, but at the moment I am not so convicted.