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Gay churchman says God called him to be a bishop
By Elizabeth Day
The Telegraph
November 06, 2005
speaks about his homosexuality
Gene Robinson, the first openly homosexual bishop in the Anglican church, claimed yesterday that he had been "called by God" to become a gay bishop.
Bishop Robinson's comments, which were made during a controversial visit to Britain, were dismissed as "spiritually dangerous" by a leading evangelical organisation.
The bishop, consecrated in the American Episcopalian diocese of New Hampshire, in the United States, two years ago, said that after 13 years of a conventional, heterosexual marriage he had "begun to deal with the fact that I just could not suppress this [his homosexuality] any longer".
"I've got to be honest," he said at a church service to mark the 10th anniversary of the gay and lesbian Anglican group, Changing Attitude, in central London. "I felt God was calling me out ... God is always calling us to a place of integrity."
Later, he told the congregation that God had also "pursued" him to become a bishop, flying in the face of the traditional Anglican doctrine that does not allow the ordination of practising homosexuals.
"About 10 or 12 years ago, God began to pursue me about the episcopate," he said. "I've often compared it to a little yapping dog biting at your heels. He wouldn't leave me alone. It seemed that God wanted me to be in this process."
The ordination of Bishop Robinson, who admits to being a practising homosexual, sparked a worldwide crisis in the Anglican communion and prompted 22 provinces to break off relations with the Episcopalian Church in America.
Last night Dr Philip Giddings, a spokesman for the British evangelical organisation Anglican Mainstream, said that he was "saddened" by the comments. "We know that all of us sometimes hear the echoes of our own thoughts rather than God's," he said. "Gene Robinson talks a lot about inclusiveness and hardly at all about holiness. What he's involved in is a denial of Anglican orthodoxy, a denial of scripture and the holiness of God - indeed a reversal of it. That which the Bible calls sinful is being called good and he is in a spiritually dangerous position."
Bishop Robinson, who was given a standing ovation at the end of his hour-long talk, also spoke of the support given to him by Jeffrey John, the Dean of St Albans.
Dr John, a celibate homosexual, provoked such an outcry from Anglican traditionalists after he was proposed as the new Bishop of Reading in 2003 that he felt forced to step down.
Although Bishop Robinson's trip has been condemned by evangelicals within the Church of England, he enjoyed a meeting with Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, on Thursday.
A spokesman for Dr Williams insisted that the meeting "came as part of the Archbishop's commitment to listening to the voices of all concerned in the current challenges facing the Anglican Communion".
The controversy surrounding Bishop Robinson's election prompted the Archbishop of Canterbury to set up a commission last October to investigate the legal and theological implications of the ordination and the performing of same-sex blessings. The subsequent report castigated the 53 bishops who supported the appointment and suggested that they stand down. Yet no American bishop has done so and no apology has been forthcoming.
The Church of England, unlike the Episcopalian Church in the United States, does not elect its bishops but appoints them after official approval from the Queen.
Bishop Robinson, 58, was married to Isabella, a riding instructor, and has two grown-up daughters. He has been with his partner, Mark, since meeting him on a beach 18 years ago.
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