We had a fabulous service this morning in St Mary’s. The place was full of people, good preaching, gorgeous music (Haydn’s Little Organ Mass with organ, full choir and strings) and a glorious time was had by all. We ran out of service books and consecrated hosts (again).
At the end of the service, I made the following announcement:
“I have been giving much thought as to how we should mark the Lambeth Conference this summer. All the duly consecrated bishops of the Anglican Communion have been invited to Canterbury for a conference with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Well, all bar one – the Rt Rev Gene Robinson, the first bishop to acknowledge that he is living in a gay relationship will not be there as he has not been invited.
I have been invited several time to go to Lambeth, to campaign and wave banners and speak and generally campaign. I have decided not to do this. We must simply be who we are.
However, that has left me wondering how we can mark this Conference at St Mary’s. My response to this consists of 4 events:
Firstly, Bishop Idris has kindly agreed to meet with members of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans) group which meet here at this Cathedral.
Secondly, The Most Rev Fred Hiltz, the Primate of All Canada has agreed to come and to preach here at St Mary’s on the Sunday before the Lambeth Conference (13 July 2008).
Thirdly, on the same day, those bishops who will be enjoying the hospitality of the Diocese will be invited here for Evensong. This will be an opportunity to greet them, pray with them and send them on their way to Lambeth with all our best wishes and goodwill.
Finally, it seems to me to be desirable to have someone at the end of the conference to come and preach to us. But who would the best person to have be? After all, all the bishops of Communion will be busy with Rowan Williams in Canterbury at the Conference. Well, all bar one. I’m delighted to announce that the Rt Rev Gene Robinson, the Bishop of New Hampshire has agreed to come and celebrate the Eucharist and to preach the gospel on 3 August 2008 at 1030 here in St Mary’s.
I have met Bishop Gene, prayed with him and heard him preach. He is well worth hearing and I invite you all to bring your friends along on that Sunday to hear him.
Further details will be announced in due course.”
I believe that +Gene will be in Edinburgh after his visit to you over ‘on the other side’. He will be speaking at the Festival of Spirituality and Peace at St John’s Church, Princes Street. And he may even be in a certain church presiding at mass later that week.
As Kelvin said, while he’s in the country…
That’s a point. Wondering, any chance the sermon and/or service could be recorded? 🙂
Yes Tim, I will be asking +Gene whether he would mind the service (or at least his sermon) being recorded.
The thing is, we vastly oversimplify our attitude to scripture. I HAVE met a few purists, who do hold to the non-speaking women with heads covered who may not teach males who are past puberty – which is the standard that the letters to Timothy teach. But they are few in number. Most of the rest of us actually accept that much scripture is directed at one time and one place, and that the authority of it is (as Luther so firmly believed) weighted, so that some passages have more authority than others.
The NT condemnation of homosexuality comes against the context of a society where men and women were married without it being a question of choice in the way we understand choice today. Expectation was an iron rod, and we all know of those young Christian women who chose desperate paths to escape a marriage they dreaded. In this society virtually all homosexuality was, ipso facto, adultery. There was no concept and no possibility of a consenting partnership of same sex individuals.
And there is no scriptural voice against paedophilia. Young Roman girls, peri puberty, were frequently forced into marriage. A Roman paedophile had no difficulties. And it is possible to see the prohibition of homosexuality in the early Christian world as being directed against the forcing of young boy salves into their master’s bed, will they nil they. Because in the Roman world that was what homosexuality frequently meant.
The past is truly another country, we do well to attempt to understand its strangeness before we speak from the base of all its mores.
God bless you all. This conversation has been an eye opener for me. I thought (hoped?) it was just us here in the ECUSA but no, the entire Anglican community seems to be splitting over this. Alot of people here seem to be taken in by poor, persecuted +Gene. This is a leader? Someone our children should look up to and strive to be like? How many of you know anything about him besides he’s gay? I am heart broken at what this is doing to our Church, and while I would never condone excluding anyone from His worship, I can’t accept a person who left a wife and two pre-teen daughters for another man as my spiritual and moral leader. When you add the other leadership issues his election has brought it leaves a sour taste. I pray our communion continues and I pray for Bishop Rowan in his efforts to maintain this and if +Gene needs to sit on the sidelines to help in this effort he should do it. Instead, he will be over there letting everyone know he wasn’t invited it. This is a leader?
In my humble opinion, this does not compare to question of women in the clergy. Apples and oranges. I don’t know what the stink is over women. As a man though, I do know it’s my job to provide an example for my son to follow. Our church had always done a good job of that too in picking it’s leaders, men and women, until recently.
In answer to Robin as to who is being persecuted. There are over a hundred congregations here in my country and in Canada that are fighting to remain part of the Anglican Communion while the ECUSA throws us out of our Churches. While churches sit empty people like me and thousands of others worship Him in theaters and shopping malls. I hope while +Gene is there he explains why it’s so important that he push this issue at this time. I have to wonder which is higher in priority – the strength of our communion or his agenda. I also have to wonder if this is selfless or selfish. If we are to be truly progressive we have to find a way to pray and understand each other and we will never do this the way we are doing it.
I hope you will forgive me here for rambling on. I just find it hard to accept that people will go out of there way to disparage poor Kenny while at the same time praising someone they know nothing more about than he’s a gay American Bishop.
Thank you for your comment John.
Gene Robinson did not leave his wife for his male partner. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3208586.stm). There does seem to be something of a irony in your saying that people here know nothing about Gene Robinson whilst at the same time repeating something about him which is not true.
Also, those who comment here are not all local.
More than that – let us hypothesise a straight bishop who had, in the past, caused the breakup of his marriage through unwise or downright wrong behaviour. Would it cause this degree of rumpus? No. The debate would be over the matter of forgiveness.
The fact of this matter is that the debate is not over the propriety of the election of one man (if it were the rift would be easily healed) the debate is over the role of gay people in our church. That is why the issue is so deeply felt. Were the Anglican communion to declare that it could never accept a divorced bishop who was now in a new relationship, it would be one thing. But what is being forbidden is all same sex relationships, no matter how committed, how loving, how life enhancing.
Those of us who, like me, have fought for full and equal acceptance of same sex relationships all our lives have seen, too often the damage done by trying to force gay people into a straight – well a straight jacket. Gene Robinson’s life was quite plainly de railed by this – so have many others been, some dear friends, some who finally broke free and found happiness, and some who did not.
Trust me, those on the side of the debate who support Gene Robinson are doing so because of concern for the wholeness of life of those who are currently forced to live a lie or to face opprobrium. Wrecked lives is something is is particularly hard for a Christian to compromise over.
> In answer to Robin as to who is being persecuted. There are over a hundred congregations here in my country and in Canada that are fighting to remain part of the Anglican Communion while the ECUSA throws us out of our Churches.
But nobody made you leave your churches! They still have valid sacraments and valid priests, just as they always did. Nothing has changed. To say otherwise would be Donatism, and a contradiction of Article 26 of the 39 Articles (“Of the Unworthiness of the Ministers, which hinders not the Effect of the Sacraments”). Leaving the churches and worshipping in theatres, etc, was your own free choice, not any kind of persecution.
> I hope while +Gene is there he explains why it’s so important that he push this issue at this time. I have to wonder which is higher in priority – the strength of our communion or his agenda. I also have to wonder if this is selfless or selfish. If we are to be truly progressive we have to find a way to pray and understand each other and we will never do this the way we are doing it.
Why was it important for Rosa Parks to sit at the front of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, on 1 December 1955? Was her action selfless or selfish? Which was higher in priority for her – the strength of the Union or her agenda?
Wasn’t it just a simple, clear, urgent and overwhelming matter of justice?
“He will be with us on that particular date because he happens to be in the country at the time.”
Hi Kelvin! To me it seems that the above implies a certain nonchalance or coincidence about the arrangement, and this seems to add a layer of ambiguity to your initial announcement. Is this a bit of backtracking? Or is all church politics necessarily marked with such ambiguity, to protect the hides of those with the temerity to disagree with the authorities?
Let’s not veil this with suggestions that he is merely a passer-by to whom we are extending a hand of Christian welcome, or a handy “+”.
To invite him to preach the gospel (that is, the very heart of everything that we are as Christians) is to make an aggressive political statement. Like it or not, he is not just a random +, he is a political figurehead, therefore wherever he is engaged in an official capacity, it becomes a political statement.
So what exactly is the statement being made? I know there will be plenty of people who are hurt by what they think you might be saying by inviting this controversial figure to preach the gospel. So your clarification of what you think are the rights and wrongs in this matter would be appreciated.
Beat – thanks for your comments.
What I said was meant to be understood in the simplest way possible. When I originally invited +Gene to preach in Glasgow, I did so without a specific date in mind. The date that was chosen fits in with his diary and is a date I was delighted to confirm as it will allow us to reflect on the Lambeth Conference which will by then almost be over. +Gene has commitments to other events (some of them in Episcopal churches) in Scotland at that time.
Thus, he will indeed be with us on that date because he happens to be in the country at that time. I think that it is important that people get to hear +Gene’s own reflections rather than simply hear the things that are said about him.
He is a good preacher and has been invited to preach the Good News.