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More to the bishop than his sexuality
Lambeth ’08 needs to reflect on this, says John Austin Baker
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| In the Eye of the Storm Gene Robinson
Canterbury Press £12.99 (978-1-85311-902-6) Church Times Bookshop £11.70 MOST Anglicans in the UK know little more of Gene Robinson than his name, that he is gay, and that his appointment as a bishop in the Episcopal Church in the United States (ECUSA) triggered a dispute that threatened to derail the coming Lambeth Conference. We are the poorer for knowing so little, and it is to be hoped this book will find a wide and open-minded readership. There are two things this book is not. It is not an autobiography. If you want the bare facts of Bishop Robinson’s life, you have to turn to the Publisher’s Note: graduate of Sewanee; ordained 1973; parish priest, director of a retreat centre, organiser of ministry to young people, and then for 18 years what ECUSA calls “Canon to the Ordinary”, that is, assistant to the diocesan, in this case Bishop Doug Theuner of New Hampshire. So, before the people of New Hampshire elected him in 2003 to succeed Bishop Theuner, they knew him well. They knew, for example, that he had been married, was supported by his former wife, and was the loving and loved father of two daughters. The other thing this book is not is a blow-by-blow account of ecclesiastical manoeuvrings. An occasional quote from the vilification he received, and the two brief passages on official efforts to make him accept “diminished status” at Lambeth 2008, and that’s about it. (He had himself at one time made this suggestion, but finally refused because the issue was not about him personally, but about all in his position and their place in the Church.) What we do have here is a moving and beautifully clear account of his personal faith and of his vision for the Church he loves. To him, his vocation is quite simple: to proclaim in word and action the unimaginable love of God for all God’s human children. This conviction has fired other work for which in his own country he is widely known, namely the design and inauguration of AIDS education programmes in the US and in Africa, and campaigns for Third World debt relief and for affordable housing for the poor. The book covers five main topics: homosexuality and the Church; “Everyday Christianity”, presenting from various angles the heart of the gospel, which is love, and what that demands of us; relations between the marginalised in society and the Christian faith community, including, most movingly, those in prison; fourth, thoughts on what the Church can do in society; and, last, the way ahead for the Anglican Communion. Bishop Robinson speaks for the “LGBT” people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered), but he is not a single-issue writer. That concern is always in the wider context of all who have been victims of injustice, notably women and people of colour. In all these reflections, too, his love of the Bible is unmistakable. To one reader, at least, what he has to say about the present dangers to the Anglican Communion, and the only hope of preserving its precious and distinctive witness, is totally convincing. Bishop Robinson may not himself be at Lambeth 2008, but his book ought to be in the mind and heart of every participant. Dr John Austin Baker is a former Bishop of Salisbury. To order this book, email the details to Church Times Bookshop (please mention "Church Times Bookshop price") |
