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Gay bishop plans civil union despite threats
It�s �what God is calling me to do,� says controversial clergyman
By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
Thurs., May. 8, 2008
Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson knows he is inviting death threats by entering into a civil union with his gay partner on the eve of his church�s biggest ecclesiastical conference. And he says it is worth it, because he is doing what God asks of him.
�When your life is at stake, you learn that there are things in life that are much worse than death,� Bishop Robinson told TODAY�s Matt Lauer Thursday in New York. �That�s the great reward of being a Christian. Not living your life � that�s worse than death. And if something were to happen to me, I would know that I am doing what I discern God is calling me to do.�
In 2003, Robinson became the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church when he was elected by the congregations of New Hampshire. Dubbed �the most controversial Christian in the world,� he faced death threats then and wore a bulletproof vest during his consecration. Now, he has announced that he will �marry� Mark Andrew, his partner of some 20 years, a move sure to outrage conservatives in his religion.
He said he is entering the civil union because he wants his partner as well as his two daughters from a previous marriage to have the same legal protections afforded heterosexual couples.
�I am simply not going to put my life in jeopardy without putting into place the protections for my beloved partner and my children and my grandchildren that are offered to me in a civil union,� Robinson said. �I think any husband or wife would want to do that.�
Banned from conference
The Episcopal Church is the American branch of the Church of England, or Anglican Church. Once every 10 years, Anglican bishops from around the world gather in England to pray and discuss church policy and doctrine at what is known as the Lambeth Conference. Robinson has been told he cannot attend the conference this July as a full participant because of protests from conservative congregations, mainly in Africa and Latin America. But he is going anyway, to stand outside the meetings and testify for others like him.
�The table that God invites us to includes everyone, and the church is going to get it wrong sometimes,� Robinson said. �I think the Archbishop of Canterbury has gotten this wrong by not inviting everyone. I�m going to go and offer myself and talk with anyone who wants to talk to someone who is unashamedly gay and unashamedly Christian.�
He knows that some people will not accept that.
�My life is under threat again for my attending the Lambeth Conference this summer, but we�re told in Scripture that it will always be costly to follow in God�s way,� Robinson said, his tone full of calm conviction. �When you try to love the world the way God loves the world, you�re going to get in trouble. The prophets of Judaism got in trouble. Jesus got in trouble.�
Conflict within the church
When he became a bishop in June 2003, he had appeared on TODAY and told Lauer that he would consider stepping down if his presence created a rift in the church. Since then, about 100 of the 8,000 Episcopal parishes in the United States have split with the American church and aligned themselves with the conservative Anglicans in Africa. Robinson pointed out that it is a very small number as a percentage of all congregations.
�It�s important to keep that in proportion,� he said. �But conflict is no surprise to the church; it�s been there from the very beginning.�
In any event, he no longer sees that he has a choice in whether to remain as bishop or not. �I�ve come to understand that this is a particular historic role that God is calling me to play at this moment,� Robinson told Lauer. �God has seemed so palpably close in this, there�s no way I could regret this. My job as a bishop of the church is to exhibit God�s love for all of God�s people, especially my enemies.�
He has written a book, �In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God,� published Thursday. In it, he writes, �It's time that progressive Christians rescue the Bible from the Religious Right, which has held it hostage and claimed it as its own private territory for too long.�
Robinson feels that people who use the Bible to condemn homosexuals fail to understand Scripture. It is called an abomination for a man to lie with another man as with a woman, but, he writes, the Bible also says it is an abomination to eat pork or shellfish, to wear clothing made of two different fibers, or to sow two different types of seed in the same field.
�We�ve often misinterpreted Scripture,� Robinson told Lauer. �We�ve used Scripture to justify slavery; the subjugation of women. And now we�re realizing that what the Bible initially seems to say about same-sex relationships is not actually what we�re talking about today � faithful, monogamous, lifelong-intentioned relationships between people of the same sex.�
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Gay bishop plans civil union despite threats
It�s �what God is calling me to do,� says controversial clergyman
By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
Thurs., May. 8, 2008
Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson knows he is inviting death threats by entering into a civil union with his gay partner on the eve of his church�s biggest ecclesiastical conference. And he says it is worth it, because he is doing what God asks of him.
�When your life is at stake, you learn that there are things in life that are much worse than death,� Bishop Robinson told TODAY�s Matt Lauer Thursday in New York. �That�s the great reward of being a Christian. Not living your life � that�s worse than death. And if something were to happen to me, I would know that I am doing what I discern God is calling me to do.� Oh please give me a break! This horse's excrement is brought to you by the same people who present Pro-Life people as crazed 'Clinic' bombers and 'Doctor' murderers! I can see it now: the Christian lynch mob planning ways of murdering poor St Gene for his 'obedience' to the Gospel of Love (excuse me while I lose my breakfast!) Fr David Straut (feeling more fiesty than usual this A.M.)
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Jessup B.C. Deacon Member
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Jessup B.C. Deacon Member
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Interesting how we can mix up categories, like sodomy v.s. eating pork, when it involves lifestyle justification.
Dn. Robert
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Fr. David,
You're at your best when you're feisty. I'm glad we have you here in NJ, where feistiness is really called for!
Best,
Michael
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Horse's excrement can be used for beneficial purposes. I would not be so generous.
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Father David: Christ is Risen!! Indeed He is Risen!! Father bless!! I have often wondered if I'd fallen into some kind of Twilight Zone when I here or read these kinds of arguments. Then I reread this: The Prophecy of Saint Nilus
Describing the Plight of the World and the Church during the 20th Century
Written By
SAINT NILUS
(d. circa AD 430)
Preliminary Remarks
St. Nilus was one of the many disciples and fervent defenders of St. John Chrysostom. He was an officer at the Court of Constantinople, married, with two sons. While St. John Chrysostom was patriarch, before his exile (398-403), he directed Nilus in the study of Scripture and in works of piety. St. Nilus left his wife and one son and took the other, Theodulos, with him to Mt. Sinai to be a monk. The Bishop of Eleusa ordained both St. Nilus and his son to the priesthood. The mother and other son also embraced the religious life in Egypt. From his monastery at Sinai, St. Nilus was a well-known person throughout the Eastern Church; by his writings and correspondence he played an important part in the history of his time. He was known as a theologian, Biblical scholar and ascetic writer, so people of all kinds, from the emperor down wrote to consult him. His numerous works, including a multitude of letters, consist of denunciations of heresy, paganism, abuses of discipline and crimes, of rules and principles of asceticism, especially maxims about the religious life. He warns and threatens people in high places, abbots and bishops, governors and princes, even the emperor himself, without fear. He kept up a correspondence with Gaina, a leader of the Goths, endeavoring to convert him from Arianism. He denounced vigorously the persecution of St. John Chrysostom both to the Emperor Arcadius and to his courtiers. St. Nilus must be counted as one of the leading ascetic writers of the fifth century. His feast is kept on November 12th in the Byzantine Calendar; he is commemorated also in the Roman Martyrology on the same date. St. Nilus probably died around the year 430 as there is no evidence of his life after that.
[copied from "TheCatholic Encyclopedia," 1911 copyright edition]
The Prophecy of Saint Nilus
After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century, the people of that time will become unrecognizable. When the time for the Advent of the Antichrist approaches, people's minds will grow cloudy from carnal passions, and dishonor and lawlessness will grow stronger. Then the world will become unrecognizable. People's appearances will change, and it will be impossible to distinguish men from women due to their shamelessness in dress and style of hair. These people will be cruel and will be like wild animals because of the temptations of the Antichrist. There will be no respect for parents and elders, love will disappear, and Christian pastors, bishops, and priests, completely failing to distinguish the right-hand way from the left, will become vain men. At that time the morals and traditions of Christians and of the Church will change. People will abandon modesty, and dissipation will reign. Falsehood and greed will attain great proportions, and woe to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, homosexuality, secret deeds and murder will rule in society. At that future time, due to the power of such great crimes and licentiousness, people will be deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which they received in Holy Baptism and equally of remorse. The Churches of God will be deprived of God-fearing and pious pastors, and woe to the Christians remaining in the world at that time; they will completely lose their faith because they will lack the opportunity of seeing the light of knowledge from anyone at all. Then they will separate themselves out of the world in holy refuges in search of lightening their spiritual sufferings, but everywhere they will meet obstacles and constraints. And all this will result from the fact that the Antichrist wants to be Lord over everything and become the ruler of the whole universe, and he will produce miracles and fantastic signs. He will also give depraved wisdom to an unhappy man so that he will discover a way by which one man can carry on a conversation with another from one end of the earth to the other. At that time men will also fly through the air like birds and descend to the bottom of the sea like fish. And when they have achieved all this, these unhappy people will spend their lives in comfort without knowing, poor souls, that it is deceit of the Antichrist. And, the impious one! -- he will so complete science with vanity that it will go off the right path and lead people to lose faith in the existence of God in three hypostases. Then the All-good God will see the downfall of the human race and will shorten the days for the sake of those few who are being saved, because the enemy wants to lead even the chosen into temptation, if that is possible... then the sword of chastisement will suddenly appear and kill the perverter and his servants. Asking for your blessing and your continued holy prayers for my brethren here and myself, BOB
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I have been sitting here holding myself in check .
I really can't post - no matter how I dressed it up in 'polite' language I'd be banned within seconds of posting.
I'll leave my comments to your imagination
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"Unashamedly gay and unashamedly Christian"
That is obvious. We must not be responsible for our actions, even when we are not responsible for all of our propensities. Having the propensity to sin doesn't justify sinning.
Terry
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All these other things aside, I always wondered how someone whom is divorced, like Mr. Robinson, got to be a bishop?
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His interview with Terry Gross's Fresh Air ( http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89659417) made me so upset I had to stop the feed more than once. Highlights... 1. He doesn't feel he even "needs" to pray as he feels he's so close to God. 2. The Bible as written is what the people of the time could handle. He is doing the will of God in bringing "gay, lesbian, and transgender" (yes, transgender) people into the church and into the clergy. When Christ said to the Apostles that they were not yet ready for the fulness of His teaching he meant, at least in part, acceptance of sodomy. 3. The Holy Spirit was actually working through the people who elected him. There was a palpable joy brought down from Heaven especially for his moment. 4. To make sure he was ordained he wore a bulletproof vest and had a bodyguard dressed as a deacon to cover him should there be an attack. He also had a plan for a secondary location where he could be elevated should anyone try and stop him. 5. The treatment of him as a gay bishop is equivalent to the treatment of slaves, the vote for women, etc. It is a painful archaic practice to see being gay as wrong. It goes on from there for quite a while...
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All these other things aside, I always wondered how someone whom is divorced, like Mr. Robinson, got to be a bishop? That sort of thing can happen in a Church that takes no notice of Scripture or Tradition. Nick
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I think you have to realize that you're dealing with someone who is egomaniacal, and possibly suffers from delusions of grandeur. Suppose for a moment--for the sake of making a point--that his way of exegeting the various passages that prohibit same-sex acts is true, that is, the sort of exegesis that says that in the Old Testament, the point was to forbid things such as cultic male prostitution and that in the New Testament, the point was to forbid pederasty, but that the intent is not to forbid same-sex acts in the context of a life-long, loving monagamous relationship. Even if this were the case, it seems to me that if he truly had the heart of one worthy to be a shepherd of his church, he would decline to do so for the sake of the millions of faithful who are scandalized. However, those who are egomaniacs and/or suffer from delusions of grandeur tend not to take such things into consideration. On a more positive note, events in the ECUSA/TEC since his consecration have led a number of Anglicans either into Orthodoxy or Catholicism (including me).
Ryan
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According to another thread on the forum, the Vatican wants the Anglicans to choose --- Protestantism or Tradition.
Apparently, they have chosen neither of the above, denying both Scripture and Apostolic Tradition.
They have chosen self-indulgence.
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Jessup B.C. Deacon Member
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All these other things aside, I always wondered how someone whom is divorced, like Mr. Robinson, got to be a bishop? The Church of England began with divorce, afterall. Dn. Robert
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He had his proto type hero, why of course!
Henry VIII
Stephanos I
This is just another nail in their coffin.
We should prepare ourselves for the mass exodus.
Last edited by Stephanos I; 05/10/08 02:58 PM.
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