Episcopalians Bummed to See Bishop Gene Go

via The Boston Globe, by Janet Walsh

Across the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, congregants and clergy today reacted with heavy hearts to word that Bishop V. Gene Robinson is retiring.

Robinson, 63, whose consecration seven years ago as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church divided the Anglican Communion worldwide, yesterday announced at the annual convention of the New Hampshire diocese that he plans to retire in January 2013, short of the mandatory 72-year-old retirement age for Episcopal bishops. He cited death threats and the considerable strain that the worldwide rift has placed on him, his family, and the church.

"The fact is, the last seven years have taken their toll on me, my family, and you," Robinson told the convention. "Death threats, and the now-worldwide controversy surrounding your election of me as bishop, have been a constant strain, not just on me, but on my beloved husband, Mark, who has faithfully stood with me every minute of the last seven years."

Read the rest.

Q&A with Bishop Gene Robinson

Bishop Gene Robinson is the first openly gay, non-celibate priest to become bishop in a major Christian denomination.

He chats it up with Jackson Hole Weekly's Ben Cannon.

….“God’s love is broader, deeper, wider than anything that we can imagine and God’s love for us really knows no bounds. And I think the history of Christianity is really about whether or not we can believe in something that‘s miraculously wonderful, and what kind of a difference it makes in our lives…”

Read the interview.

Bishop Gene Robinson - "Don't show me with your words show me with your actions."

[excerpt from interview, posted yesterday]

"But I have to say the hope and change was so exuberantly in the air yesterday I think almost everyone there from the most exalted to the most humble thought they were present thought we present for the beginning something that we could know was a turning point. And for gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgendered people, we had that sense as well...[Obama] has indicated in virtually every possible way that he would be the gay friendliest president we've ever seen..."

Read the whole article on Belief.net

Bishop Gene Robinson to Give Innaugural Prayer

[Yes, we know we are late to putting this up on the blog, but LifeLube has been busy...]

via Huffington Post

New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, a vocal gay rights leader, will open President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration with a prayer on Sunday's kick-off event at the Lincoln Memorial.

"I am writing to tell you that President-Elect Obama and the Inaugural Committee have invited me to give the invocation at the opening event of the Inaugural Week activities, We are One, to be held at the Lincoln Memorial," Robinson wrote in an email to friends.

The announcement comes after weeks of outcry from the gay community over Obama's choice of evangelical, anti-gay pastor Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation.

"It's important for any minority to see themselves represented in some way," Robinson said in an interview with the Concord Monitor. "Whether it be a racial minority, an ethnic minority or, in our case, a sexual minority. Just seeing someone like you up front matters."

Robinson is the first openly gay diocesan bishop in the Anglican Communion. "God never gets it wrong. The church often takes a long time to get it right. It is a human institution, but one capable of self-correction," Robinson told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "I believe in my heart that the church got it wrong about homosexuality. There is great excitement in my heart to be living in a time when the church is starting to get it right."

Robinson said he would love to sit down with Rick Warren but believed that the California pastor has "perpetrated lies about the gay, lesbian and bisexual community."