The Anglican church in The Bahamas and worldwide is faced with a serious challenge, and Archbishop Drexel Gomez says he hopes and prays that they find a collective way forward to avoid the route of a split. This came from Gomez during his charge at the recent 107th session of the Synod, at Holy Trinity Conference Centre.
“Paul singles out homosexual intercourse for special attention because he regards it as providing a particularly graphic image of the way in which humans distort God’s created order. God the Creator made man and woman for each other, to cleave together, to be fruitful and multiply.
“When human beings ‘exchange’ these created roles for homosexual intercourse, they embody the spiritual condition of those who have ‘exchanged’ the truth about God for a lie.”
AB GOMEZ: “The split — if it occurs — will be about the most fundamental of all questions: the nature of reality.”
I LIKE that! What IS the “nature of reality”? Why do some have trouble with a true definition of reality?
I have, many times in the past, said that Existentialists did not like reality (“The Tree” 1999 http://www.faithmineralpoint.org/Don/tree.htm).
It is amazing to me that after 100s of years of giving up superstition and such that in the last 100 years we, as a broader society, have managed to find a way to embrace it all again. We have, indeed, traded the truth of God for a lie. But we Christians are called to accept truth at all costs and it is this fact that creates martyr saints.
[blockquote] At that last session, Gomez provided Synod with an update on the response of the Episcopal Church in the United States to the questions raised in the Windsor Report. [/blockquote]
Was the reply from the Bahamas to Archbishop Williams’ request for responses received by him in time (Nov. 30) to be included in the ACC’s extremely partial and biased “summary”? If so, was its response reported as “mixed”, i.e. a “pass” on consecration policy and a “fail” on SSB policy? I suspect that +Gomez’ response would be a “fail”: if the HoB response fails one part, they have failed the whole of the question.
“”In this regard the pledge of the bishops “not to authorize for use any public rites of blessing” fails to remove the ambiguity between the non-authorization of public rites and the acceptance of local pastoral provisions,” said Gomez.”
No ambiguity there. HOB did not make the cut in language. ++Gomez is no doubt well aware of the ECUSA/TEC “in for a penny, in for a pound” modus operandi. Too bad none of the HOB “affirmers” would be bold enough to stand openly for their intention and belief. But this waffle is called for what it is by ++Gomez.