The Guardian carries a report by Stephen Bates concerning the forthcoming visit to England by the Bishop of New Hampshire: Williams may meet gay US bishop during London trip.
The visit details can be found here at the website of Changing Attitude which is observing its 10th anniversary on the weekend of 5/6 November.
Lord have mercy, if the gun control laws weren’t *so* much saner in the UK, I’d be advising +Robinson to wear his bullet-proof vest again – like he did at his consecration 🙁
“Dr Williams has no objection to meeting the bishop “…
Good, because if he had, I’d be saying he were of weak faith and there were no hope for “correcting” said bishop… as if such were necessary. Ie, not only do his opponents disagree with him, meddling in affairs outside their own church, but those who won’t even meet with him, well, says a lot about said opponents.
Egads!
Has no one warned the Archbishop it’s *contagious*? (Worse, he could be *recruited*!) 😉
Bishop Robinson may not be eligible to be a bishop in the Church of England but he remains a priest.
There are many parish priests openly in same sex relationships in the CofE, and many priests from the Anglican Communion who are in a similar position to Gene who are still welcomed as celebrants and preachers in English parishes (myself among them).
I might just understand Gene being refused permission to ordain whilst in the UK, but I fail to understand why he cannot function as a priest.
. . . but there are also some serious things, within the Guardian article: * “Gene Robinson, the gay bishop of New Hampshire”: a major disappointment in Guardian standards. +GR is the *Episcopal* bishop of NH, not the “gay bishop” * “Bishop Robinson has been told in the past that he . . . will not be invited to the next gathering of the rest of the world’s Anglican bishops at the Lambeth conference in 2008.” If true, that’s one “disinvitation” that deserves to be *lost in the mail* (*Christ* is the banquet host, not any man—not even the ABC).… Read more »
Is a meeting with the ABoC the same as a meeting with Fred Bloggs?
I don’t think so.
I can see lots of people would think this meeting is symbolic.
I guess if the ABoC were to issue a press statement afterwards to the effect that he had called this unrepentant sinner to repentance, it might be clear what he was saying.
But the chances of that are rather slim so my vote goes against this meeting – and I think Rowan is not being wise in having it.
Golly! Do you suppose the Archbp of Canterbury will now be asked not to attend the Global South meeting later this month, for consorting with the enemy?
Abigail
Sorry to fall short of JCFisher’s high standards but unfortunately many of the Guardian’s readers have no idea who Gene Robinson is, despite all I’ve written about him in the last two years, and it is necessary when writing for a general readership to flag up why it might be a bit controversial for the Archbishop of Canterbury to meet a passing US diocesan bishop.
Unfortunately in an article of 600 words shorthand has to be used occasionally, otherwise lengthy circumlocutions end up explaining that…err…it is because the bishop is gay.
If invited by His Grace, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rt. Rev. V.Gene Robinson will not have been the first or the last gay bishop to grace the hallowed halls of Lambeth Palace with his presence. Diarmaid MacCulloch in his history of the Reformation (2003), p.500 mentions the homosexual leanings of an Archbishop, whose martyrdom the Anglican Communion recalls on 10 January, William Laud. Writes Prof. MacCulloch: (William Laud) “was also a lonely little man, confiding his erotic dreams about the duke of Buckingham and others to his private diary. Laud’s homosexual leanings showed none of the extrovert cheerfulness of… Read more »
Stephen, it is *exactly* “shorthands” like “gay bishop” which KEEPS this otherwise unremarkable meeting “a bit controversial.” While the Guardian is certainly better than most, the mainstream media’s complicity in *sensationalizing the lives of LGBTs for public consumption* (people who would just like to be *left alone*—in this case, to serve Christ as shepherd of the NH flock) is not something that can be brushed aside with a simple “sorry to fall short…” It’s not my “high standards” anyone in the media need answer to: it’s whether you can look yourselves in the mirror. [And why not cover the controversy… Read more »
Stephen Bates may be surprised to see my second defence (here and on Ekklesia) of his terminology, since poor old Batesy seems to think I’ve got it in for him. The fact is that he’s dead right. Most readers of the Grauniad would neither know nor care who +Robinson is. I’m vaguely aware that New Hants is somewhere in NE Yankland, but wouldn’t guarantee that some people don’t think it’s in Australia or Canada.
JCF wröte: “Egads! Has no one warned the Archbishop it’s *contagious*? (Worse, he could be *recruited*!) ;-)” Dear JCF, you don’t need to worry – the current ABofC is a closet liberal, and is always finding ways to “give messages” to support the cause. Last year he let your PB preside at Canterbury Cathedral when all the controversy was in full flow among the Primates. The only things he’s gone along with in opposition to the liberal agenda were when he had to (PM resolution / Reading debacle). I’m sure that he will ‘continue to do everything he can’ to… Read more »