Tear up the covenant

Jeremiah had been banned from speaking God's word in the temple, but he wasn't about to give up on his prophetic ministry. When God's word came to him in c.605BC, he called Baruch to write out the prophecy and to go and read it in the temple. The people and the officials respond appropriately to God's word and are afraid of the coming judgement (Jer 36:1-19). But they know they'll have to tell the king what God has said through Jeremiah. And here's the problem; they know that King Jehoiakim will react with fury to the prophecy that God is angry with his people. So they tell Jeremiah & Baruch to hide before they read the scroll of prophecy to the king.
Sure enough, every time a few columns of the scroll are read, Jehoiakim cuts them off & throws them into the fire until the entire scroll is consumed (36:23). Jehoiakim is not afraid of the word of the LORD (24).
But when word gets back to Jeremiah, the LORD tells Jeremiah to write out his words again as a sign to Jehoiakim that the word of the LORD stands adn will be fulfilled even if he doesn't accept it (29-31).

Last Saturday I was at a Deanery Synod meeting where we were considering the Anglican Covenant. The plan was to produce a document that would hold together the world-wide Anglican Communion, from the most liberal to the most conservative. Of course it didn't take a genius to see that this was doomed to fail from the start. Nevertheless they idealists pressed ahead and after 7 years' work (and countless thousands of pounds) produced this document. As we discussed it in Synod, it was clear that the covenant would be torn up by both the liberals and the conservatives for opposite reasons: for the liberals, it is unacceptable because it contains reference to the limits of acceptable belief:

(1.1.2) the catholic and apostolic faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation[2].  The historic formularies of the Church of England[3], forged in the context of the European Reformation and acknowledged and appropriated in various ways in the Anglican Communion, bear authentic witness to this faith.
(1.1.3) the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as containing all things necessary for salvation and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith[4].

But the conservatives aren't happy because this of the qualifications around this:

The historic formularies of the Church of England[3], forged in the context of the European Reformation and acknowledged and appropriated in various ways in the Anglican Communion, bear authentic witness to this faith.

The life of communion includes an ongoing engagement with the diverse expressions of apostolic authority, from synods and episcopal councils to local witness, in a way which continually interprets and articulates the common faith of the Church’s members  (3.1.4)

There are many other serious problems with the Covenant, not least the composition of the committees which make the 'recommendations'. But most of all, the Anglican Covenant is useless because it has no teeth. After a long description of the process of action should a church (i.e. a national anglican church) depart from whatever faith section 1 is supposed to outline, it states that:

Each Church or each Instrument shall determine whether or not to accept such recommendations. (4.2.7)

So whatever sanctions might be 'recommended', the offending church can simply tear up the letter, throw it in the fire and carry on as normal!
But the warning from Jeremiah is that you cannot just ignore God's word and carry on with no consequences. The liberals don't like this idea, but Jesus himself said the same thing in no uncertain terms (see, for example, John 3:16-21; 5:22-47; 8:12-47 - in fact the message in John's gospel is that the revelation of God in Jesus is inseparable from his redemptive purposes. In other words, to hear God's word is to receive Jesus which is to be saved. Reject God's word and you reject Jesus and are condemned).
And the result of the vote in Deanery Synod? 25 against the Covenant, 8 for and 8 abstentions (if memory serves me correctly). Not that this vote carries any real weight, it simply 'informs' Diocesan Synod whose vote could affect whether or not it is accepted here. The Covenant has, not surprisingly, already been rejected by many churches.