Archbishop Drexel Gomez: Delay could wreck the Communion

Indecision and delay in responding to the crisis of faith and order over homosexuality will likely wreck the Anglican Communion, the Primate of the West Indies told his diocesan synod last week.

On Oct 22 Archbishop Drexel Gomez told the 107th session of the Diocese of the Bahamas synod gathered at Christ Church Cathedral in Nassau that reform was needed now to save the Communion.“It is clear that the future of the Anglican Communion is unclear at the moment but there can be no doubt that the future shape of Anglicanism will have to undergo significant adjustments if the Communion is to remain intact,” he said.

The adoption of an Anglican Covenant would go a long way towards restoring trust and accountability within the Communion, he said. However, the crisis of gay bishops and blessings could not be papered over without dire consequences to the integrity of the Church as the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 ‘changed everything,’ he explained.

Archbishop Gomez also said the Communion must also resolve the issue of bishops acting outside their territories and the plight of embattled traditionalists in US and Canadian dioceses and restore catholic order to the church.

Chairman of the Anglican Covenant Design Group, Archbishop Gomez is considered one of the key international players whose support Dr Williams’ needs to keep the Communion going. The West Indian primate is not likely to lend his support to the ACC’s attempt to rehabilitate the Episcopal Church, however.

Speaking to The Christian Challenge magazine, Archbishop Gomez said the ACC’s joint standing committee report of Sept that gave the US church a passing grade in complying with the primates’ requests was ‘was more generous than I feel they should be.’ The Global South coalition of primates is expected to issue a statement this coming week that endorses the position of the African provinces, which held that the New Orleans statement failed to adequately respond to the requests made of the American Church by the wider Anglican Communion.

--This article appears in the November 2nd, 2007, edition of the Church of England Newspaper on page 7

    Comments & Responses

  1. Archbishop Drexel Gomez has already compromised his position as Chair of the Covenant Committee by his presence at the ordination in Uganda of American clergy - for the purpose of undermining the ecclesial territory of other Anglican bishops of the legally constituted dioceses of TEC.

    To have blatantly disregarded the degree of non-partisan chairmanship required for this important document - which seeks to bring peace and unity to the Anglican Communion - is no longer acceptable to the ‘loyal’ membership of the Communion. It does seem that Canterbury may have erred in appointing Drexel as a mediator.

    Posted by  on  11/03  at  06:23 PM

  2. “Father” Guido you still don’t get it. God never means to have “peace and unity” between the faithful and the apostate. +Drexel is doing exactly and precisely what his office and his faith requires. What TEC is required to do and steadfastly has refused to do right up to this moment is repent of its apostasy and reform itself. TEC has left the communion of the faithful. It is TEC’s place to repent and repair itself.

    Posted by  on  11/03  at  10:05 PM

  3. Ricky still doesn’t get the truth that division in the Church is not the work of Christ, who prayed that “They may be one, Father, as you and I are one - so that the WORLD MAY BELIEVE that you sent me”. What a tragedy that even some bishops, apparently, don’t get it either.

    In Arlen’s words: “ + Drexel (and maybe + Bob) is doing exactly what HIS OFFICE and HIS FAITH requires”, but is it what Christ is desiring for HIS CHURCH at this present time? Standing on one’s own dignity was never something that Jesus advocated for his disciples. Look at Saint Peter, when he refused to have his feet washed by Jesus.

    May God have mercy on us all!

    Posted by  on  11/04  at  11:56 AM

  4. “Father” Guido, Christ indeed calls us His church to be one. TEC’s apostasy has created a new and very different religion. Whatever TEC has become, it certainly isn’t a church of Christ and is thus far from what Christ would seek His body “all to be one” with. Make no mistake. I regard TEC as a non-Christian, secular humanist religion. You seem to hold a different opinion. But for all your fulmination about the worthiness of TEC your rantings remain only your opinion. Assuming you are in accord with what TEC is doing, I must, sadly, put you in the same category I put TEC. You, therefore, are no priest of Christ and all your words, in this matter, remain babble. I encourage you to repent your sin of apostasy and accept Christ’s gift of eternal life.

    Posted by  on  11/04  at  08:24 PM

  5. Dear Father Ron Smith,

    You wrote:

    … but is it what Christ is desiring for HIS CHURCH at this present time?
    I am a newcomer to this blog and, more generally, to Anglican blogs as well. Ergo the following two questions are posed from unfamiliarity with the worldviews of those who post here on a regular basis, not from having some hidden agenda. The questions are actually straightforward ones. First, are you convinced that the blessings by TEC of homosexual activity, including both the blessings of SSU and ordination of practicing homosexual clergy, is
    what Christ is desiring for HIS CHURCH at this present time?
    If you are not so convinced, then am I correct in assuming that you have been open in responding publicly against this new direction for TEC, as acting schismatically. If you are so convinced, then pray tell how you come to that conclusion?

    Blessings and regards,

    Posted by  on  11/05  at  06:33 AM

  6. In answer to Keith Topfler (above comment), I am convinced that TEC have acted according to its collective conscience on these issues, and am not, therefore, convinced that they have acted schismatically. That, I think, has been my consistent point of view on this web-site.

    My point of view has been formed through intensive dialogue with other Christian people - some of whom happen to be homosexuals - whose spirituality, I am convinced, is genuine, and earthed in the reality of their specific response to the Gospel in their lives. This has meant, of course, that they are open to the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, Who did not limit God’s teaching to the publication of the Scriptures, but Who has progressively opened their eyes and their hearts to the Good News of Christ’s love and rdeemption for all.

    After all, we all accept that Christ ‘came into this world to save sinners’ - and that’s every one of us homosexual and heterosexual alike.

    Posted by  on  11/05  at  07:37 AM

  7. Father Ron asserts,

    Archbishop Drexel Gomez has already compromised his position as Chair of the Covenant Committee by his presence at the ordination in Uganda of American clergy - for the purpose of undermining the ecclesial territory of other Anglican bishops of the legally constituted dioceses of TEC.

    He is also

    ... convinced that TEC have acted according to its collective conscience on these issues, and am not, therefore, convinced that they have acted schismatically.

    Perhaps +Gomez was acting according to his apostolic conscience on these issues, and did not, therefore, compromise his position.

    As to the purpose of the Covenant being to bring peace and unity to the Communion, I rather thought that its purpose was to bring such peace and unity by ejecting the principal source of theological error and cynical political manipulation, namely TEC.  But perhaps that’s just my conscientious view on these issues…

    Posted by  on  11/05  at  08:49 AM

  8. Dear Father Ron Smith,

    Thank you for your thoughtful response to my questions. You and I agree on Christ’s purpose, but my viewpoint differs from yours in some other basic ways. Because all of us on earth “see as through a glass darkly,” I don’t know, i.e., with certitude, what the answers are. However as both a Christian and as an INTJ, I find it very useful to have working hypotheses for those important issues and questions about which I cannot be certain. My working hypothesis based on scripture as it has been commonly understood, and particularly where that understanding is in accord with the plain meaning of the words, leads me to the opinion that TEC is being schismatic, whether or not those who would that TEC turned around are also acting schismatically—after all, the fact that I may be wrong in some regard on a matter about which we disagree, does not logically establish that you are not equally in error. I believe that those who think that scripture must be interpreted strictly in the cultural context in which it was written are placing God in no less “small a box” than are those who assert that Christ is “the Way, … and … no one comes to the Father save by” Him. (This comment assumes you will be aware of +Jefferts-Schori’s having been quoted as using the small box argument with specific reference to that latter group.)

    First and foremost, I am not convinced that TEC are acting in good conscience, although I believe they think they are, or perhaps more accurately, that they are acting in sincerity. Unfortunately, the trash heap of history is full of people who made horrible choices out of completely sincere beliefs. This is not meant as an invidious comment, nor am I equating TEC with the exemplar I am about to name, but one A. Hitler was, if nothing else, sincere in his belief that the Jews were the cause of Germany’s problem. Sincerity is neither a moral, intellectual, nor theological standard, insofar as I am aware.

    But I also see in TEC several other indicators that bespeak an absence of Christian love and concern for those who are having difficulty accepting this new teaching. In my humble opinion, that does not speak well for TEC—after all, we are talking about Christian brothers and sisters across the divide, every bit as much as we are when we only consider one side of that divide. I was always taught that an essential of Anglicanism was “living in tension,” in large part because we will not know many of the answers until we are raised from the dead. It seems to me a key element in this is the charitable provision of space between two sides of the divide, and a willingness to suspend categorical decisions so long as there is substantial doubt and disagreement. I have not seen that happening in far too many jurisdictions within TEC, many, if not most, of them that can only be accurately categorized as progressive.

    Lastly, at least as far as this comment is concerned, the attempt by the progressives in TEC to cast this issue as one of equal rights and inclusiveness has, ultimately, the ring of half truth to it. I am a divorced man who has remarried. In my mind this completely disqualifies me from the ordained priesthood. If I want to be fully included in the life of the church, and if I choose to define that inclusion as being only satisfied if the possibility of both ordination and elevation to the episcopate are available to me, then, again in my humble opinion, I have misunderstood the very nature of Christ’s church.

    In the final analysis, I believe that just as some who are evangelically fundamentalist are not fully in touch with the traditional mode of Anglicanism, so are those who are impatiently and impetuously progressive. To that extent, there is some justice in an attitude of “a pox on both their houses.”

    Blessings and regards,

    Posted by  on  11/05  at  10:17 AM

  9. Dear Keith, being myself an ENTJ type, I think I understand where you are coming from, and I do respect your quality of argument.

    However, I question your thesis of qualification for Christian ministry. I do believe that the Christian life is all about trying and failing, picking one’s self up off the floor and trying again. By our very nature as flawed human beings we are incapable of perfection in this life, but certain of us have attained to as near as is possible to that goal by identifying ourselves more consistently with the life of Christ. (See the Apostle Peter’s many failings in his life).

    Triumphalism is best left to the fundamentalists, whose lust for blamelessness is a hindrance, rather than an aid to sanctity - to my mind. Our Lord’s commendation to his disciples: “Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”, for me has become a goal, that I, through long experience, have realised, has become my hope for the future - almost like Saint Augustine’s plea: “Lord, make me good, but not yet”. Actually, I feel that such an admission of one’s own inability to make it without God’s help ought to be one of the signs of being a Christian.

    If that sounds in any way defeatist, it speaks of my own experience of a great longing to be good, while knowing that it is almost humanly impossible, in this world, to live up to the standard that God rightly expects of his human children. Consequently, my life is full of falling, getting up and dusting myself off, asking forgiveness for wrongs committed against God and my fellow human beings, and, fortified with the Eucharist, starting out on pilrimage again - hoping for the very best.

    One simply cannot live in this world without to some degree being tainted by it. And yet, one has to stand back and remember that God created this world and loves it. What is necessary, I believe, is for us all to become involved in the ministry of reconciling one another to God. This is my ministry as a priest, and I do believe it should be the ministry of every individual Christian. We cannot do this without a disciplined life of prayer and sacramental participation in the life of Christ as given to us in the Eucharist. I was not ordained to consign anyone to hell, but to encourage them on their pilgrim way to God.
    Blessed be God!

    Posted by  on  11/05  at  06:19 PM

  10. What must be remembered is that the Word of God was not meant to remain between the covers of a book - holy as that book might seem to be - especially to certain scholars of the Church. In other words, the Book is a guide only to the ultimate reality of the God who has - according to orthodox Christian theology - been revealed to us once ands for all at the Incarnation of his Blessed Son, Jesus Christ - Word-made-flesh (Father Ron Smith on 07/29 at 10:05 AM)!

    “...holy as that book might seem to be...”

    “...might seem to be...”

    “...might seem...”

    “...might...”

    “...seem...”

    Posted by  on  11/07  at  01:13 AM

  11. At long last, Gary, it seems you have got IT!
    By repeating my message about God not being limisted to biblical exegesis, you have (perhaps all too unwittingly) acceded to my argument.

    If this is not indeed the case, then you need to learn that it is not helpful just to parrot the writings of other people - especially when they seem to confound your own position.

    With Love and Sympathy, Fr. Ron

    Posted by  on  11/08  at  05:31 AM

  12. Like I said before Ron--you can’t escape your own words. “...holy as that book might seem to be...”
    Good try in trying to wiggle out of your deep held beliefs.

    With Love and Sympathy to you and that you find your way back to the Word.

    Posted by  on  11/08  at  07:49 PM

  13. God’s definitive, inescapable Word:

    “The WORD was made FLESH and dwelt among us”

    from the gospel of John, first chapter.

    Posted by  on  11/09  at  05:27 AM

  14. But, the Flesh was still the Word-God’s Word, Laws and Commandments did not change.

    Posted by  on  11/09  at  06:08 PM

  15. You are right, Gary. The Ten Commandments are still our to obey. However, Jesus did say to his followers:

    “A NEW COMMANDMENT I give to you: ‘That you love one another, as I have loved you’

    “By this will all men know that you are my disciples: that you love one another, as I have loved you” (Gospel of John 13:34-35)

    Note: Not just a re-iteration, but NEW! - in the light of what was to follow: ‘the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace and with the hope of glory.’ Alleluia!

    Posted by  on  11/12  at  06:26 AM
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