‘It’s harder for straights to feel Christian charity than gays’
Theo Hobson meets Gene Robinson, the only openly gay Anglican bishop, who says that homosexuals are more open to the Christian ‘message of radical change’
Once Robinson has finished, the point is taken up by Putney’s thrillingly radical vicar, Giles Fraser. His voice falters with emotion as he insists that in this church, where English democracy was born during the Civil War, Robinson would never be seen as a second-class bishop, but would be welcome to preach or officiate any time. The audience claps.
The gay issue makes liberal Christianity into an urgent, edgy cause. It brings bracing conflict, the holy smell of danger, and various strong emotions. Introducing Robinson, Fraser had cited Luther: when we Christians are getting close to the truth, then the devil gets busy. Because of this cause in our midst, Anglicanism is not harmless cultural wallpaper for the pushier parts of the middle class but a truly radical movement — vulnerable, raw, joyous, suffering, history-making, authentic.
Another London vicar wraps up the event, thanking Robinson ‘for all that you are, and all that you represent for us’. There is a standing ovation, which I’ve never witnessed in a church before — except on TV, at Princess Diana’s funeral. Come to think of it, the late Princess is not irrelevant to all this. The Anglican gay cult is all about vulnerability, emotional honesty, siding with the marginalised. Robinson invests these gentle virtues with prophetic force. In his talk he cited the passage from John’s Gospel in which Jesus tells his disciples that they’re not ready for all of Christian teaching, so the Holy Spirit will add further instalments, at a later date. ‘That’s what’s happening in our lifetime. What this is all ultimately about is patriarchy — the beginning of the end of it. The strength of the resistance tells us we’re on to something.’
His book, In the Eye of the Storm, is pinch-yourself bold in its association of homosexuality with authentic Christian faith. Being gay, he says, is his ‘little window into some of what it must be like to be a woman, or a person of colour, or a person in a wheelchair — and countless other categories the dominant culture has controlled, diminished and oppressed’. So being gay enables Christian empathy. No wonder I’ve always found it so tough. He repeatedly speaks of coming out in conversion-experience terms. He was able to accept his true self when he realised that his gayness was OK with God. ‘Just as surely as Jesus called to his friend Lazarus to “Come out!” of his tomb, Jesus called me to come out of my tomb of guilt and shame, to accept and love that part of me that he already accepted and loved.’ The Exodus story is ‘one of the greatest coming-out stories in the history of the world’. The book has its virtues — there’s a frank freshness you don’t find in much British Anglican writing — but sometimes it feels like a series of camp puns, turned into an existential theology.
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GC
May 8th, 2008 9:17amHe's guilty of picking and chosing the 'radical messages' of the Bible that suit him. I suppose that Leviticaus and Paul's letters don't count. He's also guilty of neglecting the fact that some of the most 'homphobic' people are from what he calls marginalised communities
Sister Florence
May 8th, 2008 4:42pmBy their fruits shall ye know them. The compassionate, liberal, "gay-friendly" churches are the ones in fastest decline; the nasty, bigoted, "homophobic" ones are flourishing, often in those "marginalized" communities Mr Robinson patronizes. And as you expect, he has the support of the anti-Christians at the militantly atheist and secularist Guardian, where Mr Fraser preaches regularly, converting no-one because he doesn't offer anything they need bother converting to.
Kevin
May 8th, 2008 7:09pmIn this context, the Christian message of radical change is that we should control our concupiscence in a manner that is in keeping with the procreation of sacred human life. Sodomy is manifestly in conflict with that message.
Richard
May 8th, 2008 7:12pmAs an American and not part of the Anglican communion, I wonder what part Her Majesty the Queen, as the titular head of the Anglican Church, has in all this. What has she done to propagate belief in Christ? Is she powerless? Does she approve of homosexualists in the clergy? It seems to me that the past 55 years that she has been head of the church, she has not done anything for Christ or Christendom.
john
May 8th, 2008 8:41pmSo Bishop Robinson claims special skills for getting through the Eye of the Needle. Well Sir, after you. The rest of us will have to find our own way.
Ray
May 9th, 2008 8:42amIn one sense, Gene Robinson is right: the 'marginalised' are very often more open to the message of God's forgiveness.
However, the 'Gay' lobby can no more make a Biblical case for homosexuality being acceptable behaviour for Christians than others can that adultery is also acceptable.
Therefore, Jesus' message to Robinson is exactly the same as his message to the woman caught in the act of adultery in John 8:1-11 - "Go now and leave your life of sin."
J.C. Ryle
May 9th, 2008 6:41pmThis issue isn't really to do with sexual organs. The real division within Anglicanism is between those who want to sit under the Bible and those who wish to sit over it. People like Gene Robinson and Giles Fraser are in the latter category because they take on board only so much Christian doctrine as conforms with their own progressive outlook. Gene Robinson, from his comments, seem to believe in revelation from God that goes beyond the written word of the Bible, something that is expressly forbidden by the Bible.
‘The Anglican tradition is uniquely capable of holding two seemingly contradictory ideas together,’ says Gene Robinson. That is the problem. Fudge might come naturally to Anglicanism, but Biblical Christianity demands clarity - because light can have no fellowship with darkness. Ironically the best argument for this came from, of all people, Matthew Parris, writing a few years ago in The Times. After declaring he was an atheist, he admitted that the Bible could not be honestly read so as to give a Christian imprimatur to a gay lifestyle. But Bishop Robinson, Giles Fraser et al seem intent on reinventing Christianity in order to distance it from Scriptural doctrines with which they disagree.
It's time for Anglicanism to split.
Roy
May 10th, 2008 3:27amWhy can't homosexuals just keep quiet about their sexuality? Is there any need to spread to all and sundry what they do behind closed doors? After all, didn't we all hear the Archbishop of Canterbury's wishes for the adoption of sharia law. If this was bringing a constructive accommodation with Islam, surely some constructive accommodation could be found in the hearts and minds of the church hierarchy to turn a blind thought as to whether someone could be, or whether someone can't possibly be.
MRG
May 10th, 2008 3:33pm@JC Ryle "The real division within Anglicanism is between those who want to sit under the Bible and those who wish to sit over it. People like Gene Robinson and Giles Fraser are in the latter category because they take on board only so much Christian doctrine as conforms with their own progressive outlook."
Rubbish. I'm tired of hearing these argument that the dispute within Anglicanism is between those who wish to obey scripture and observe the traditions of the Church, and those who want to overturn them. This is a damned lie. Both sides are sincere Christians, who honestly disagree about the meaning of Scripture and the best way to live as a Church. It seems to me that both sides in this dispute are too much moved by heroic narratives to imagine themselves Little Luthers and latter-day defenders of the faith of the saints. Thou art in parlous state! To deny that your neighbour is a sincere and humble Christian is a terrible sin against the Holy Ghost.
Octavian
May 10th, 2008 5:40pmIt's not true at all to say that homophobic churches are the successful ones: I know A Con Evangelical church that has been emptied by a vicar with a monomania against gay people. I think the chickens of Christia homophobia (and sexism) are coming home to roost when no sane young people want to go near our churches any more.
J.C. Ryle
May 11th, 2008 1:32pmI believe that a Christian is someone who has been made alive in Christ by the grace of God. That is a question between God and the individual. I also accept the Bible when it says that Godly living, literally a way of life founded on Scriptural teaching, is the sign of a converted life. I accept that converted Christians can differ over matters such as baptism or gifts of the spirit. But when the point of difference is over something as important as the supremacy of Scripture, then there is a clear injunction that Christians should contend for truth against error.
What Gene Robinson and people like him are preaching is a different gospel to the one laid down in the Bible. That's the same Bible in which Almighty God, through the Apostle Paul, says in Romans 1, that homosexual practice is one manifestation, although only one, of humanity's rebellion. That's why those in church leadership who condone unbiblical practices need to be confronted, albeit with politeness and dignity.
Pr. PW
May 23rd, 2008 6:41pmIf Bishop Robinson and all the LGBT crowd were truly open to radical change/transformation, they would repent of their immoral "lifestyle." It used to be called SIN. God's Law has not changed. Jesus said that not one jot or tittle would go away. Of course, if you're Postmodern, "Love means never having to say you're sorry..."
The Bishop thinks the Father should apologize to Sodom--of course his God is in his pants...
Jules Akers
June 9th, 2008 1:42pmWho hates gays more than fundamentalist Christians and people from ethnic minorities? As far as I know, nobody. Most straight white men like myself could not care less about a person's sexuality and certainly do not engage in any of the 'oppression' that the vicar is so keen to charge us with. As it is, there is only group in society that is the subject of unchecked ridicule, demonisation, institutional and legally sanctioned discrimination. Fathers. All straight men bar a handful. Done with the full approval of the bishop and his liberation theology mates.