Evangelicals urged to attend Lambeth: CEN

http://geoconger.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/evangelicals-urged-to-attend-lambeth-cen-32808-p-8/

[Georger Conger] 1 April 2008--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.