Evangelicals urged to attend Lambeth
From George Conger, Church of England Newspaper
The Archbishop of the West Indies has urged the evangelical wing of the conservative Global South coalition of provinces not to boycott the Lambeth Conference.In an interview broadcast March 12 on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Archbishop Drexel Gomez urged evangelicals to reconsider their position. “I prefer to be at the table where the discussion is taking place than to view it in absentia,” he said, “and the future of Anglicanism - to a large extent - will be determined by the outcome of Lambeth.”
His remarks came the same week as the Diocese of Sydney reaffirmed its decision to boycott the conference, with the Dean of Sydney arguing that the reputation of any bishop who went to Lambeth “knowing that unrepentant homosexual activity is wrong’ would ‘always be tarnished.”
Archbishop Gomez told ABC the Lambeth Conference was the sole vehicle for coming to a “communion-wide consensus” on the issues dividing the church. “If a significant number of bishops stay away from it, then a consensus would be impossible.”
There remained a “need for us to meet together to try and forge a way forward,” he said.
Archbishop Gomez stated that he and Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen were united in their opposition to the innovations in doctrine and discipline taken by the American and Canadian churches on the question of homosexuality. However, Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals were divided on how to address the challenge.
On March 14, the Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen called upon all orthodox Anglican bishops to boycott Lambeth. “I would urge those bishops who believe that unrepentant active homosexuality is wrong not to compromise their own beliefs, the scriptures, the church of God and the holiness of Christ” and accept the Archbishop of Canterbury’s invitation.
To go to Lambeth and be present with those bishops who consecrated Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire is to have “fellowship with false teachers in their wicked work. It cannot help but diminish faithful Christians’ confidence in you as a leader. To believe otherwise is a further illustration of the naivety, which leads you to attend,” he said.
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