VOL: Yes, Nones are not only highly suspicious of organized religion, they are staying away in droves from all churches and the nation is no longer technically Protestant. We are a nation in spiritual free fall and bishops like Gene Robinson are not an incentive to return when the message of people like him is "come as you are, stay as you are." The world system of values has more to offer than the values of bishops like Robinson who pretend to be Christian when what they offer is just a mirror reflection of the world.

ROBINSON: Like it or not, the fact is, religion is at the heart of many of the issues that face us as a nation. Separation of Church (synagogue, mosque) and State may be the law of the land, but religion affects almost everything we say, do and legislate in America, positively or negatively. My own opinion is that we have seen the conservative Religious Right exercising an undue and unhelpful influence on those who legislate on our behalf. They have virtually claimed the airwaves as their own, espousing their understanding of God and God's will for us, attempting to bring the laws of our nation under the aegis of their particular discernment of God's will-often with disastrous effect. Most days, I'm pretty sure God is weeping over what is done and said in God's name.

VOL: Religion is indeed at the heart of many of the issues of our time. The Religious Right has money, influence, power--and they turn out to vote. "They" are groups like Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, and Concerned Women for America--all parts of the Christian Right. But are they a serious threat to religious liberty, bent on creating a theocratic state, or the last defenders of religion and family values in America? They expanded through George W. Bush's second administration, but with the rise of Barack Obama, their power in Washington has in fact declined. They are not nearly as powerful as Robinson would lead us to believe. Many have grown weary of the fight because many of its leaders have fallen off the wagon over bad morals and the misuse of money. It is always healthy in a democracy to have opposition, otherwise something like the gay lobby -- though less than 2 percent of the nation -- might just turn a whole nation on its head over sodomy and gay marriage, redefining the very ontological nature of marriage. And yes, God might be weeping over what the left has done in promoting a non-salvific social gospel that saves no one and nothing.

ROBINSON: Today, I begin a regular column (appearing most every weekend) for The Daily Beast on the topic of religion and its effects on our understanding of ourselves, our laws, and the issues that face us as a nation. Much of what we face as a nation involves religion-either overtly or as a none-too-subtle subtext: abortion, contraception, the inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, the mandate to care for society's most vulnerable, welcoming (or not) the stranger/immigrant among us, the growing rift between rich and poor, and countless other issues. All of them involve how we see ourselves as a people and how our religious/spiritual views shape that self-understanding.

VOL: Okay, so let's see where this goes.

ROBINSON: In this introductory piece, perhaps it will be helpful to state right up front who is doing the writing. I am a Bishop of The Episcopal Church, having served as the Bishop of New Hampshire for a decade, before retiring in January 2013. You can't get much more "bought into" religion than being a bishop, and I will write as a critical insider. I have (almost) never not been a part of the Church, growing up in a conservative, tiny congregation of the Disciples of Christ denomination in rural Kentucky. By high school, I had largely rejected the narrow and exclusivist view of my little parish church, and then found an expansive and inclusive home in The Episcopal Church in college. After serving a northern New Jersey parish right after seminary, I moved to New Hampshire and served the church there until my retirement.

VOL: That's because Robinson began to build his entire worldview around his sexuality and not around Scripture and the Gospel. It's been downhill from there. He may despise his Jesus lovin' hick from the hills of Kentucky background and settled for the sophisticated climes of New Hampshire, but somewhere in between he lost the plot and lost sight of Jesus as Lord and Savior, and bought into (homo)sexual salvation.

ROBINSON: In 2003, I was elected Bishop of New Hampshire, causing a veritable storm in The Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion, being the first openly gay and partnered priest ever to be elected Bishop in the historic succession of bishops. While that drama is fairly settled in the American Episcopal Church (Mary Glasspool became the second gay bishop in The Episcopal Church in 2010), the controversy still rages within the Anglican Communion. A similar struggle is under way in the Lutheran, Presbyterian and Methodist denominations. Despite clear teachings about the limits of belief and action by LGBT people, that struggle is also evident in the Roman Catholic and evangelical communities as well.

VOL: The "veritable storm" in The Episcopal Church over his consecration has led to the "torn fabric" of the Communion and a total realignment of the worldwide Anglican Communion including the formation of the Anglican Church in North America. Where is the win for The Episcopal Church or North American Protestantism, pray tell? Yes the struggle IS underway in the other Protestant denominations where we are seeing massive breakaways, fights over properties among Presbyterians, Methodists and more. The Episcopal Church has spent some $40 million in property battles, with years of litigation still lying ahead. In the meantime parishes age, wilt and die and the Nones are still not coming back to church despite his message of inclusion and diversity. That's what Robinson's sexual revolution has done. He has screwed everything up and he won't take responsibility for what he has done. The leaders of the Anglican Communion even passed a resolution condemning sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman, and Robinson has now married his same sex partner.

ROBINSON: I believe in Christianity but seldom see it put into practice. Much of what you will read here will be critical of organized religion, since along with Chesterton, I believe in Christianity but seldom see it put into practice. Love is the central theme of the Bible, and yet we find it so hard to live lives of love. The enemy of love is not hate, but fear. When confronted by those who seem filled with hate, I try to ask "What are they afraid of?" with as much sympathy as I can muster. Responding to hate with love is one of the most daunting tasks of those who claim to follow Jesus.

VOL:Bishop Robinson has been an integral part of "organized religion" from the get go. The Episcopal Church, once the doyen of American denominationalism where presidents and politicos came to worship, has paid him handsomely. He has fed at the teats of TEC for over 30 years, drawing a salary and a pension despite the fact that he couldn't lead a Muskrat to Christ.

When he talks about "love" is he talking about agape love, philia love or Eros love? We know it is about Eros love, a love that once dared not speak its name that is now heralded from pulpits and the White House. And no, people don't hate him, they hate the way he behaves and denies reparative therapy (as hate) for people who want to leave behind their same sex attractions. Furthermore, they don't like the fact that he has so twisted American minds and the courts, that a baker who refuses to bake a wedding cake for two queers will lose his business. That's fascism from his side. It is treading on peoples freedom to choose to say no to certain behaviors they don't want to practice or see their children practice.

ROBINSON: This column will also go far beyond Christianity. God is infinite, and it comes as no surprise to me that there have developed, over time, many credible and faithful approaches to understanding God. In the end, no religion holds a lock on the reality of God. Each religion grasps only a part of the infinite God and offers insight into God's reality, and we would do well to exercise a good measure of humility in claiming we know God's will. Better to begin each pronouncement we make about God with "In my experience..." or "From my perspective..." or simply "For me...." At the end of the day, no matter how much we believe we know God's will, we must acknowledge that each of us is only doing the best she/he can.

VOL: Rule No.1 when you don't believe in the uniqueness of your own religion's founder, have the courtesy to leave and go into the used car business. Jesus is uniquely the way to the Father or He is not. If not, pick another religion or pick your nose, but please don't call yourself a Christian. It's an insult to the rest of us who actually believe that Jesus is uniquely one with the Father, came to earth, was incarnate as a man, went to the cross for our salvation and a whole lot more. If you really have a problem with grasping the infinite, you are not ready for the next chapter of Ghostbusters.

Yes, we see through a glass darkly, but we're not talking about Bass Ale. What Paul is saying is that the glass is a mere reflection of what things are like. It is through the imperfect that we now see, to the perfect that we will see. We now see the mere shadow of objects (or rather, shadows of copies of real objects), but we will one day see the objects themselves and in their true light.

What it does not mean (but what you would like it to mean) is that because we cannot know the truth, in the whole, about sexuality, we are free to experiment with other sexualities till we can see clearly and thus know the mind of God which presumably, once the glass is cleaned, will include all manner of pansexual behaviors.

Your idea of humility is a faux humility. It's a cover for ignorance or allowing you to do anything you want because we can't really know right from wrong because it might just interfere with the gay bar hopping scene in Washington DC where you now reside.

ROBINSON: Some things seem certain, no matter the perspective from which we view the Creator: God cares more about justice than about rules. God loves all of God's children-from the most holy to the most despicable. God especially cares for the poor, the needy, the imprisoned, the disabled, and the most vulnerable among us. As Dr. King was fond of saying (paraphrasing 19th century Unitarian minister Theodore Parker), "The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." That theme will permeate everything you read here.

VOL: Now we get to the crux of the matter. Make "justice" the No. 1 issue. Not mercy, grace, compassion, forgiveness, but justice because his understanding of justice is to practice homosexuality and have everybody accept that the fact that he as a gay man and needs "justice" to beat up on people who disagree with him. And oh boy, has he and his pals been successful. If some poor slob won't bake a wedding cake for two queers in Colorado or wherever, then sue the bastard and put him out of business. Now that's "justice" Robinson style. What about freedom of religious expression? What about the rights of people who believe differently from him and should be allowed to "just say no" to his homoerotic urgings and calls for "justice". What about justice for them.

Yes, God does love absolutely everybody. He loved us so much he sent his Son to die for us. WOW. What greater love is there than a man who will lay down his life for the whole universe. Here's the catch. You have to appropriate that. You don't catch it from an x-ray machine or from trying for a hook up at a gay bar. You also don't get it by being baptized. God demands something from us...it is called repentance...

The push for gay marriage that he and others have demanded and won in a number of states amounts to this: "We're going to have sex, and we demand that you accept that fact and give us the same benefits that traditional, heterosexual couples have enjoyed." In demanding this expansion of the meaning of marriage, civil marriage has in effect been destroyed. "Marriage" now just means "the domestic choices the government chooses to favor." There is no reason to favor ANY set of domestic choices once the traditional reasons for bestowing such favor have ended. Rock on polygamy and polyamory.

ROBINSON: I believe that there is a right and appropriate way for religion and religious thought to influence the issues that face us. I will attempt to do that in these Daily Beast columns, appearing most weekends. You are invited to respond, agreeing or disagreeing with me from your own perspective. My assumption will be that you (along with myself) are attempting, as best we can, to understand and discern the will of God and apply it to your everyday life and our common life as a nation.

I hope you will come along for the ride.

VOL: Wild dogs couldn't keep me away. Your profound insights and wisdom, your overwhelming brilliance, your touchie, feel-my-pain stuff, will be grist for the mill. Bring it on, Gene, we await the next chapter.

END