Saturday, December 27, 2008

+Gene on Warren

An interview with Bishop Gene Robinson on the Religion News Service website by Kevin Eckstrom

The Rev. V. Gene Robinson blesses the congregation after being consecrated as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church on Nov. 2, 2003. Robinson's June election by New Hampshire Episcopalians touched off fierce contention within the U.S. Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion. Photo courtesy Episcopal News Service. Openly gay New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson has spent the last five years seeking reconciliation with those who saw his election as immoral, unbiblical or, as one Nigerian archbishop put it, a "satanic attack on God's church."





A: No, not at all. I have just total confidence in Barack Obama and I think he will be the greatest friend to the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) community we've ever seen. This is about the religious person you put in front of the world to pray for the nation and for the new president.

Q: So let's cut to the chase. What's wrong with Rick Warren offering the invocation at the inauguration?

A: I actually have a lot of respect for Rick Warren; amongst evangelicals, he's taken a hit for his compassionate response to AIDS, his commitment to alleviating poverty. He's done some good things. The difficult thing is that he's said, and continues to affirm, some horrendous things about homosexuality -- comparing it to incest, bestiality, that kind of thing. This is not a choice that really represents everyone. This choice was just really, really unfortunate.



A: No, I absolutely am. I would sit down with Rick Warren this morning if I had the opportunity. I would love to engage him. In some ways he's a very brave person, but he's woefully wrong about the issue of homosexuality. He needs to be confronted about the lies he told about gay people to the people of California.


A: That's right. It's about this particular venue and the role that he has in praying for all of America, and I'm just not sure he'd pray to God the same way I would.

Q: You told The New York Times that "the God that he's praying to is not the God that I know." What God do you think he's praying to?

A: I think he is praying to a God, at least around this issue, that calls upon God's homosexual children to deny who they are, to deprive themselves of love and intimacy that is permitted every other one of God's children. He's praying to a God who calls on me, as a gay man, to change, to submit myself to the power of Jesus so I can be healed of this `infirmity' of mine.


A: The God I know says to me, just like we hear God saying at Jesus' baptism, that you are my beloved, and in you I am well pleased. That's a very, very different God. Imagine the difference between a parent who loves you for you who are, and one that says I'll only love you if you change.

Q: If Warren hadn't endorsed Proposition 8, would this be such a big issue?


Q: Obama and Warren have both said that Warren got heat for inviting Obama to his church. So, isn't it appropriate for Obama to return the gesture?


Q: Are you coming down for the inauguration?

A: I am. I wouldn't miss it for the world.


DavidJustinLynch said...

Gene Robinson and Rick Warren are both children of God. The lion CAN lay down with the lamb. A place exists for both Gene and Rick at God'a altar. Let them concelebrate!

FranIAm said...

God bless +Gene... he instills such wisdom into every word.

seraph said...

Gene dearest...there is only One God, not one for you and one for Rick!

As far as Christians go, throughout the millenia, more have had opinions similar to Rick that to Gene as far as marriage and family is concerned! Some very bad , others very holy people! Did they pray to a different God too?

Frankly on some things I think Gene is a hoot, but I would never dare question the God he has come to believe in and trust! I wonder how some liberals can sound so fundamentalist about their belief when not agreed with?