Gene Robinson's sermon
Not a great day .... Kermit isn't feeling very well, my computer is slowly perishing from some unknown aliment, received a county letter commanding me to fix the drain pipe under the driveway at a cost of about $3,000 or else, and the squirrels are into the air-conditioning ducts in the attic crawlspace and driving me insane. Also, no one is reading the blog. I guess I'll devote more space to my Anglican/Lambeth obsession. Here's part of a story in the Guardian today about Bishop Gene Robinson's sermon yesterday at St Mary's church, Putney, by Stephen Bates ....
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- Gene Robinson preaching at St. Mary's
On Sunday evening, a lone campaigner stood outside St Mary's church, Putney. Stephen Green, a haggard and unshaven figure, obsessed and weighed down by the wickedness of modern Britain, handed out leaflets warning of the consequences of same-sex love, while announcing to anyone who would listen: "Homosexuality and sexual immorality is all on a continuum with paedophilia, bestiality, adultery, child-sacrifice. You are saying it is all OK."
The Right Rev Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, is used to people like Green. Ever since he was elected - not chosen as in the Church of England, but democratically elected by his parishioners in one of the most rock-solid conservative states in the US - he has faced similar demonstrations.
At his consecration in New Hampshire in November 2003, he was required to wear a bullet-proof vest, as was his partner, Mark Andrew, and the presiding bishop, Frank Griswold. Outside, demonstrators bore placards bearing the loving message "God hates fags" and inside, an elderly priest called Earle Fox stepped forward to denounce gay sexual practices in considerable detail and with no little relish. "It breaks my heart to do this," he insisted unctuously.
The irony is that, but for Robinson's openness about his sexual orientation and his long-term association with his partner, the most controversial bishop in the world today would be regarded by fellow Christians as entirely orthodox and unexceptional. He is not the only gay bishop in the worldwide Anglican communion, of course - there are understood to be two in the Church of England, at least one with a partner, and two of the 38 primates of the worldwide denomination - but Robinson's sin is to admit it; and to refuse the calls of conservative evangelicals to repent.
This is not to mention the hundreds of gay clergy - some active, some celibate - in the church and all denominations, in Britain and around the world. Robinson is staying with two of them in London during his current visit.
Without such partnerships, the established church in many areas, particularly the inner cities and especially in London, would probably cease to function. Most of them, it hardly needs saying, keep quiet about it - so deep in the closet, it is said, that they are almost in Narnia. Their bishops turn a blind eye too, even as they accept their invitations to dine, or quietly attend their civil partnerships.
Alone among the episcopate however, Robinson has made no secret of his homosexuality and, because of his orientation, he alone of all the world's 800 Anglican bishops has been denied an invitation by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to attend this week's Lambeth conference.
About a quarter of the world's bishops are now declining to attend the gathering, not because Robinson will be there, hovering around the fringes, but because some of the other American bishops who attended his consecration and accordingly laid hands upon him will be going.
Robinson is discouraged from preaching while in Britain, but in addition to last Sunday's sermon, he will be attending gatherings of pro-gay and liberal Anglicans, will speak at a fringe meeting outside the Lambeth conference - so bishops can see what a gay Anglican looks like - and last night addressed a meeting that was co-hosted by Sir Ian McKellen at Queen Elizabeth Hall. To many Anglicans, not only gays, he is a hero.
Under Williams, an archbishop who in a past life preached that faithful gay partnerships might be more life-enhancing and loving than some abusive heterosexual ones, but who now keeps largely silent on the matter, worldwide Anglicanism is threatened with a split of historic proportions over a stance of most unheroic hypocrisy.
Small, neat and instinctively friendly, Robinson preaches an impeccably Anglican message of hope and charity - indeed, he is probably one of the most evangelical, Bible-believing, of American bishops. He has come a long way from a childhood as the son of poverty-stricken tobacco sharecroppers in rural Kentucky. He was so ill at birth that he was not expected to survive and was rapidly Christened Vicki Gene - after his father Victor and his mother Imogene. (His parents had been convinced the baby would be a girl and in their rush to name the child, apparently stuck to their original plan. Naturally, his conservative opponents usually spell out his names, presumably to emphasise his supposed effeminacy.)
Something else that his conservative opponents often stress is the lie that he left his wife for his partner, as a way of demonstrating their contention that gays are promiscuous and untrustworthy. In fact, Robinson tried very hard to live the heterosexual life that conservative Christians insist gay people should. He was married for 15 years to his wife Isabella and the couple had two daughters, even though he already knew he was gay. He underwent lengthy counselling.
Eventually Isabella met someone else and the couple divorced, holding a church service, handing back their rings, apologising to each other and pledging to bring up the children together, before they finally separated. Robinson met Andrew only some years later. His former wife supported his candidacy to become a bishop and she and their daughters have frequently spoken on his behalf.
There are those who claim that Robinson should have no role in the church, should never have been ordained and should certainly never be allowed to preach. One such, Dr Christopher Knight of Orpington, complained in a letter to last week's Church of England Newspaper: "Any action to stop it and cancel Gene Robinson's 'invitation'? No. Any action ... for allowing this nonsense to take place? No. Stop engaging in ... mindless 'modern' liberal, 'pick-and-mix' theology and return to true Anglican orthodoxy."
Robinson told the congregation: "We should not be fearful for the church, for the church is not ours to win or lose. It is God's gift to us."
They gave him a standing ovation.
****************************
****************************
- Gene Robinson preaching at St. Mary's
On Sunday evening, a lone campaigner stood outside St Mary's church, Putney. Stephen Green, a haggard and unshaven figure, obsessed and weighed down by the wickedness of modern Britain, handed out leaflets warning of the consequences of same-sex love, while announcing to anyone who would listen: "Homosexuality and sexual immorality is all on a continuum with paedophilia, bestiality, adultery, child-sacrifice. You are saying it is all OK."
The Right Rev Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, is used to people like Green. Ever since he was elected - not chosen as in the Church of England, but democratically elected by his parishioners in one of the most rock-solid conservative states in the US - he has faced similar demonstrations.
At his consecration in New Hampshire in November 2003, he was required to wear a bullet-proof vest, as was his partner, Mark Andrew, and the presiding bishop, Frank Griswold. Outside, demonstrators bore placards bearing the loving message "God hates fags" and inside, an elderly priest called Earle Fox stepped forward to denounce gay sexual practices in considerable detail and with no little relish. "It breaks my heart to do this," he insisted unctuously.
The irony is that, but for Robinson's openness about his sexual orientation and his long-term association with his partner, the most controversial bishop in the world today would be regarded by fellow Christians as entirely orthodox and unexceptional. He is not the only gay bishop in the worldwide Anglican communion, of course - there are understood to be two in the Church of England, at least one with a partner, and two of the 38 primates of the worldwide denomination - but Robinson's sin is to admit it; and to refuse the calls of conservative evangelicals to repent.
This is not to mention the hundreds of gay clergy - some active, some celibate - in the church and all denominations, in Britain and around the world. Robinson is staying with two of them in London during his current visit.
Without such partnerships, the established church in many areas, particularly the inner cities and especially in London, would probably cease to function. Most of them, it hardly needs saying, keep quiet about it - so deep in the closet, it is said, that they are almost in Narnia. Their bishops turn a blind eye too, even as they accept their invitations to dine, or quietly attend their civil partnerships.
Alone among the episcopate however, Robinson has made no secret of his homosexuality and, because of his orientation, he alone of all the world's 800 Anglican bishops has been denied an invitation by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to attend this week's Lambeth conference.
About a quarter of the world's bishops are now declining to attend the gathering, not because Robinson will be there, hovering around the fringes, but because some of the other American bishops who attended his consecration and accordingly laid hands upon him will be going.
Robinson is discouraged from preaching while in Britain, but in addition to last Sunday's sermon, he will be attending gatherings of pro-gay and liberal Anglicans, will speak at a fringe meeting outside the Lambeth conference - so bishops can see what a gay Anglican looks like - and last night addressed a meeting that was co-hosted by Sir Ian McKellen at Queen Elizabeth Hall. To many Anglicans, not only gays, he is a hero.
Under Williams, an archbishop who in a past life preached that faithful gay partnerships might be more life-enhancing and loving than some abusive heterosexual ones, but who now keeps largely silent on the matter, worldwide Anglicanism is threatened with a split of historic proportions over a stance of most unheroic hypocrisy.
Small, neat and instinctively friendly, Robinson preaches an impeccably Anglican message of hope and charity - indeed, he is probably one of the most evangelical, Bible-believing, of American bishops. He has come a long way from a childhood as the son of poverty-stricken tobacco sharecroppers in rural Kentucky. He was so ill at birth that he was not expected to survive and was rapidly Christened Vicki Gene - after his father Victor and his mother Imogene. (His parents had been convinced the baby would be a girl and in their rush to name the child, apparently stuck to their original plan. Naturally, his conservative opponents usually spell out his names, presumably to emphasise his supposed effeminacy.)
Something else that his conservative opponents often stress is the lie that he left his wife for his partner, as a way of demonstrating their contention that gays are promiscuous and untrustworthy. In fact, Robinson tried very hard to live the heterosexual life that conservative Christians insist gay people should. He was married for 15 years to his wife Isabella and the couple had two daughters, even though he already knew he was gay. He underwent lengthy counselling.
Eventually Isabella met someone else and the couple divorced, holding a church service, handing back their rings, apologising to each other and pledging to bring up the children together, before they finally separated. Robinson met Andrew only some years later. His former wife supported his candidacy to become a bishop and she and their daughters have frequently spoken on his behalf.
There are those who claim that Robinson should have no role in the church, should never have been ordained and should certainly never be allowed to preach. One such, Dr Christopher Knight of Orpington, complained in a letter to last week's Church of England Newspaper: "Any action to stop it and cancel Gene Robinson's 'invitation'? No. Any action ... for allowing this nonsense to take place? No. Stop engaging in ... mindless 'modern' liberal, 'pick-and-mix' theology and return to true Anglican orthodoxy."
Robinson told the congregation: "We should not be fearful for the church, for the church is not ours to win or lose. It is God's gift to us."
They gave him a standing ovation.
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posted by crystal | 7:16 PM
27 Comments:
It's so hard to understand how people get so excited (pardon the pun) over other people's sexual orientations.
And in the case of Christianity, even if you want to pretend that the only reasonable interpretation of scripture is to pick out the few verses that reject homosexuality... talk about giving one "aspect of scripture" disproportionate attention!
I mean, it isn't even accurate to call it an aspect of scripture. The New Testament just isn't a sex and reproduction manual. Fundamentalists ought to do some introspecting and try to figure out their real motives.
But I guess they're not really listening to me or very likely visiting either of our blogs, lol...
Hi Paul,
Yes, I guess people rarely change their minds and we in blogdom are mostly preaching to the choir.
Thanks Crystal. You keep me updated on my own denomination! Godbless you Catholics. And remember, count your blessings. :/
Still reading, Crys. I've just been too busy to blog much. I'm very sorry to hear about your recent troubles and hassles.
I understand and appreciate fully what you and others are saying about Robinson, but I'd just ask also, to consider an alternate take on it. In some ways I have to confess that I find Robinson to be somewhat more of a selfish man than a heroic figure.
In an earlier post, you had some quotes from him highlighting Anglicanism's reliance on tradition as a source of revelation as well as sacred scripture. That's a principle that's held with Catholicism as well.
For 2000 years, up until about 1930, all branches of Christianity were in relative equanimity regarding these below-the-belt issues. At Lambeth in 1930, Anglicanism made a concession regarding birth control for married couples. Changes have happened very quickly across the spectrum as a result since that time. Huge changes in less than a century. For churches that rely heavily upon tradition, like Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Catholicism, this sort of thing puts them into very difficult postions. By it's very definition, "tradition" changes slowly. Churches that rely heavily upon tradition cannot change quickly without risking schism and massive upheavals in doing so. Catholicism, for example, is still dealing with the reverberations from the very modest changes introduced at Vatican II. At the same time, it is often held up as bigoted, backward, and retrograde, because it's teachings have not held pace with the changes that have been made in other denominations and in secular culture since 1930. I don't think it's really fair.
It pains me to see the right-wing reactionaries within the Anglican Communion making common cause with the right-wing reactionaries within Catholicism over this Anglican crisis. Ecumenism is hard, hard work. I wonder sometimes how seriously various religious leaders take the exhortation that "they all might be one." The actions of a Bishop Robinson not only threaten to tear the Anglican Communion apart (and I think there will be a split), but things like this also make ecumenical dialogue very difficult. Years and years of dialogue often go out the window when things like this occur. Does anyone in the other confessions care, or is Catholicism considered too deeply entrenched and out of touch to bother with?
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Hi Jeff,
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Tradition is important but what is it really - the past opinions of people about what scripture means and their feelings about how the holy spiriit moves them. It's a combination of commentary and revelation, I guess. What's happening in the Anglican Communion is tradition in the making, in a way.
I don't think they will split. I think what they are doing is healthy, actually. For sure it's honest. Sometimes I feel like a neightbor listening to the family across the street having lots of arguments, while at my house, no one dares bring up the same issues because the father will kick us out of the house.
Steve, I didn't realize you were an Episcopalian. If I was something other than Catholic, that's what I'd choose.
I am not taking sides on the Robinsin issue. It is complicated.I do believe that the RC Church is pitifully out of it, dishonest, and wrong on issues of human sexuality. Jack
Sorry to hear about Kermit and the drain. The squirrels, well, that happens. Perhaps they'll climb into the powerline transformer and blow it (and themselves) up, as they do out here sometimes.
Not to wish ill on God's creatures. I like squirrels. I had those recipes, remember? :-)
Ok, I'm in a weird mood today.
It's summer. Blog reading may not be first on everyone's list of things to do right now.
But I'm reading!
Jack,
It does seem to me that although the Robinson thing is on the surface about sex, it is also about honesty, and how the bible is interpreted and why, and about how we treat people who are different than us.
William,
Ah yes, those squirrel recipes - teeny little drumsticks. So there's a chance they might blow themselves up? There's something to pray for :)
Yes, Crystal other things are involved. But I believe ideas about sex are at the root.
Btw, I believe the Church is making some progress in this area, and , in many ways, the RC's are ahead of some of their fundamentalist 'friends.'So maybe there is hope. Jack
I'm sorry to hear you're having a tough day, Crystal.
Hi Liam,
Thanks - Kermit's better today :)
Crystal,
Some people put more weight on tradition, of course, than others. Some people feel an acute need to feel connected to the physical ancestors and spiritual ancestors who came before them. I don't think I've ever felt a need to quote Chesterton before, I'm not a big fan, but he had a point worth considering when he said...
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea.
The division of Christians is a scandal. There are very few things that are worse than causing schisms and dividing the Body of Christ. I'm just wondering if ecumenical dialogue is important to anyone anymore. Maybe it isn't. Maybe everyone else considers the Catholics to be intransigent and hopeless partners in dialogue, and are content to go on their merry way in pursuit of progress. It may very well be the case. As someone who's spent a good amount of time defending Vatican II from traditionalist Catholics who think that the only kind of ecumenism worth talking about is the "ecuminsm of return to the Catholic Church", I guess it miffs me a bit when Protestant and Anglican groups keep moving the yardsticks and dismiss ecumenical dialogue concerns vis-a-vis Catholicism out of hand. There's a lot more at stake here than just the Global North/Global South split within Anglicanism.
I'm learning... I'm always looking to be more open-minded... I'm appreciate what you are saying. I don't understand homosexuality for the life of me, so I usually refrain from discussing it because (most of the time) I'm loathe to voice opinions about things I don't understand. I also have the common decency to realize that in the scheme of things, it's irrelevant whether I understand it or not... My post isn't really about that. I know that Gene Robinson didn't "leave his wife in order to take up with a man" as his critics allege, but at after 15 years of marriage, two daughters, and at the age of 38... taking the steps he did? Was that courageous and did that earn him the right to do what he's doing? I don't think so, but hey, I'm not him and he's not me.
I'm not so sure there won't be a schism. People can say that others might be the ones who wind up walking away and causing the split, but he's the one challenging the status quo ante, so he bears some responsibility.
As for the healthiness of these discussions, yeah, I take your point about our unwillingness to talk about dead elephants in the middle of the room. By the same token, I do think there is something to be said for a willingness to live with tensions and having the forebearance and patience to stay together regardless of our differences. We all know what they are.
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Jeff,
Sorry - I keep writing a reply and then thinking what I wrote was dumb and deleting it :)
I don't understand exactly why it is bad that not everyone is Catholic - the schism thing. I can't seriously believe that the Protestants will ever come back, but I don't see that as a bad thing.
I don't understand homosexuality for the life of me,
I don't understand or know about it any more than you do but my views were formed long before I became a Catholic and I didn't see anything wrong with homosexuality. Now that I'm a Catholic, I still feel the same and it makes me cringe to see my church treat a whole group of people like second class citizens, so to speak, for something beyond their control and which harms no one else. I can't make myself believe that God holds anything against them for being themselves,. It hasn't escaped me that "there but for fortune" could have gone me or anyone I love.
Jeff, the most eloquent defense of tradition is by Edmund Burke. Jack
Hi Crystal. I've not been reading many blogs lately and am just catching up. Also, I'm exhausted by the whole 'gay debate'.
Hope things get a bit better soon chez toi
Love, Pam
Hi Pam,
I'd thoughht you'd given up on me .... glad to know we're still blog buddies :)
Jack,
I'm not sure which quote you mean...
History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn...
People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors...
... or something else, but I believe you. Burke was a more impressive character and a better wordsmith than Chesterton.
Crystal,
I'm not saying that everyone should become a Roman Catholic; that would be "ecumenism of return". I'm advocating something more along the lines of unity with diversity. If ecumenism is going to be taken seriously at all, everyone is going to have to give up some kind of sacred cow, some kind of cherished notion that they've developed and elevated on their own, and that includes us.
On the other hand, there are things going on today under the label of Christianity today that aren't even vaguely Christian at all.
As far as homosexuality goes... I'm a middle-aged dad. I'm don't feel comfortable going around lecturing people on sexual ethics one way or the other. With everything else that's going on in the world, I guess I don't think about this sort of thing very much, although I appreciate your concern from a simply decent and fair equal-rights perspective.
Being interested in history, I guess the things that I struggle with reagrding the faith are of sort of a different nature. Was Jesus all about the inclusion that we put on his shoulders in our post-modern way of looking at things? I struggle with things like:
Is Jesus everything we say he was, or...
Was Jesus an apocalyptic, messianic prophet, solidly in the Torah tradition of his own people, calling sinners to repentance in anticipation of the coming Kingdom of God? A this-worldly kingdom in which the righteous (both living and dead) would be resurrected in transformed bodies and living in a transformed world of justice and peace? A Kingdom expected within the lifetime of his disciples, heralded in by the imminent return of Jesus? Was the religion of Paul a Hellenistic co-opting of Judaism, which morphed the Messianic figure into the dying and rising Savior God commonly heard about in the Greco-Roman world?
I cling hard to the Incarnation, a God who shares our plight seems the only one worth believing in for a world with so much suffering in it, but wrestling with this stuff makes the Robinson flap seem pale to me.
Jeff,
Who/what Jesus really was/is is the issue and I think it's reflected in all these other issues.
I think about that too, pretty much every day, especially when I'm trying to have a relationship with someone who part of the time I don't really believe exists now as "risen" ..... it's a struggle and a challenge and a labor of love and a scary weird thing too :) If he is real in the way I hope he is, he might be as interested in the Lambeth Conference issues as me.
Almost all of Burke's writing are a paean to tradition which you abviously know. Jack
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