Vicky Gene Robinson Splits Again-- Amicably

Vicky "Gene" Robinson, the retired Episcopalian Bishop of New Hampshire, has created controversy again by splitting from his current "spouse".

Robinson married his Isabella "Boo" Martin  in 1972 when he was a seminarian chaplain at the University of Vermont before he was ordained.  Isabella bore him two daughters.  As Gene Robinson mused about marriage:

"[T]hat is inextricably tied up with having children. And since I cannot imagine my life without Jamee and Ella, it's just a completely irrelevant question for me. And I don't regret having been married to Boo, either, even if there had not been children. It's just a part of my journey, and why would I possibly regret that?"

However after receiving counseling in 1985, Robinson came in touch with his homosexual identity. So then Vicky Gene he dumped his wife of 13 years literally before the altar, while promising to raise their daughters together. Robinson rationalized with Isabella: [I]n order to live up to our vow to honor one another in the name of God, that we would let each other go."

Robinson had been elected bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.   He was the first openly gay priest who was consecrated bishop (although Bishop Otis Charles of Utah divorced his wife in 1993 after he retired to "marry" his homosexual partner in California, who he survived).

Robinson became a cause celebre in the LGBTQQ community and wrote a couple of books, an autobiography "The Eye of the Storm" (2008) and "God Believes in Love: Straight Talk about Gay Marriage" (2012).  Robinson was prominently featured in the Sundance festival film "For the Bible Tells Me So" (2007) on the perceived conflict between homosexuality and Christianity.  Moreover, a documentary "Love Free or Die", chronicled Robinson's  conflict to love God and his partner Mark Andrew.



Mark Andrew, Robinson's new love interest came on the scene in 1987 while vacationing in St. Croix.
In 1988, the former bishop of New Hampshire Douglas Theuner blessed their home, which Robinson considered a license by the Episcopal Church as a formal recognition of their "life together".  Andrews and Robinson "lived in sin" for 13 years.  Robinson said: "I always wanted to be a June bride", so Andrews and Robinson tied the knot in a civil ceremony on June 7, 2008 and  and having their "legal union" blessed at a religious ceremony at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Concord, New Hampshire.

Alas, honoring one's wife by divorcing her, shacking up with another guy as bishop and then becoming a June bride while deeply dividing the Anglican Communion is not the end of the  New Age fairy-book tale of faithfully following one's heart. Now retired Bishop  Gene Robinson announced that he is divorcing his partner of 25 years Mark Andrew.  Once again, Robinson has nothing but nice things to say about the spouse whom he is jilting.  In addition, Robinson has the temerity to claim: "Love can endure, even if the marriage cannot."  What poppycock!

Before Robinson retired in 2012, he complained about then intense scrutiny that he has endured. OK he walked away from his wife, shacked up with another guy for 25 years, was elected bishop, regaled in the Homosexual community honoring his example and then wrote books about marriage. Robinson was tapped by then President-elect Obama to give the invocation for his 2009 Inaugural Kick Off Event on the Steps of the Lincoln Memorial.   To top it off, Robinson, who now works for the George Soros funded Center for American Progress.  Hence, it was unsurprising that President Obama "spontaneously" asked Robinson to perform the closing prayer.

In these gay old times, it is not news that President Obama now embraces Same-Sex Marriage.  Nor is it earth-shattering that the Episcopal Church in America seeks to normalize such unions and incorporate them into the Anglican Communion.  What is worth reflection is the meaning of marriage based upon Vicky Gene Robinson's own terms.

This is the second marriage from which Robinson has walked away.  The first marriage was because Robinson chose to identify with his homosexual inclinations and abandoned his bride of 13 years. Now Robinson is parting with his husband Mark Andrew nearly seven years (and "living in sin" for another 13 years).  Robinson is not citing abuse or adultery charges in his public statements, so civilly it might understood as "irreconciliable differences" as New Hampshire has no fault divorce.

In the Deuteronomic Law, Moses allowed divorce as a concession to the stiff necked Israelites. As Jesus Christ shared the New Covenant, the messiah reaffirmed the covenant nature of nuptials bringing together one man and one woman to create a new life through love and establish a home church.  Catholics have tried to keep a covenental nature to marriage by making the annulment process arduous in establishing that marital parties did not have the proper capacity (or understand) of entering into the sacrament.  


Per the Book of Common Prayer, sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace."  Matrimony is included as one off these sacraments.  But these words seem like window dressing as Episcopalians countenance and glorify a bishop who has twice abandoned his beloved spouses, each for spurious reasons.  But, at least Vicky Gene Robinson can split again amicably.

Rector's Reverence for Washington National Cathedral?

Last month, the Washington National Cathedral removed all of its pews for several days for what was billed as a special and unique event--"Seeing Deeper".  The event was promoted by as:

Seeing Deeper builds upon and visibly brings to life many facets of the Cathedral’s core mission. By juxtaposing the spiritual and the artistic, practice and hearing, silence and song, the Cathedral opens the doors of this landmark and national treasure to be experienced in new ways while fulfilling our calling to be a spiritual home for the nation. As a place known for its art and iconography and its setting for musical performance, this week of introspection, reflection, and transcendence transforms the Cathedral’s living stones for thousands of worshipers, concert-goers, pilgrims, and visitors.

Washington National Cathedral's long-time  Music Director Michael McCarthy explained emptying the nave to allow visitors to experience the worship space in solitude and silence as well as offering a couple of free classical concerts by the Cathedral Choir.

All of this religious rhetoric sounds very noble project for the world's sixth largest Cathedral, which also doubles as the Episcopal Church's Washington Cathedral.  But the execution of Seeing Deeper along with some comments that it engendered may shock some sensibilities of religiously centered Christians. 

To aid in Seeing Deeper, the Washington National Cathedral promised to have "prayer mats, yoga mats, zafu meditation cushions and mandalas to draw and color available as reflection tools.  So a nominally Christian Cathedral opens itself to zafu meditation for Hindus worshiping thousands of gods or Buddhist mandala meditation to no god.  While religious liberty should be prized in America as well as religious tolerance, it is questionable to open the Cathedral doors and facilitate worship of other deities in the Lord's house.

What was more shocking was the quip by the new Rector of Washington National Cathedral, Reverend Gary Hall.   Hall quipped: "I want to skateboard down it — or have a paper airplane contest," as he watched about 100 people practice tai chi in open nave."

Hall believes that not enough was being done with Washington National Cathedral, so Seeing Deeper would get the place back to its roots.  However, Rector Hall conscientiously would not proselytize.   "If I get people together and say, ‘Let's talk about God,' we'll get an argument. But if I say, ‘Let's all pray together and experience the divine together in our own way,' people can enter that in a much more creative and less-judgmental way."  That is pretty weak tea for proclaiming the Gospel .  However joking about playing with paper airplanes or skateboarding down the nave truly impeaches Hall's reverence and piety towards a sacred space of which he is rector.

Opening the doors of Washington National Cathedral to celebrate faith may be well intentioned but misguided for a Christian sanctuary, but when a rector's lack of reverence is revealed by wanting to play in the sanctuary of his own Cathedral Church underlines why Dr. Scott Hahn is so committed to the New Evangelization as society has become notably de-Christianized

Acts of Unorthodox Episcopal Exegesis

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori

During a sermon given at Saints Church in Curaçao, US Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori offered an interesting interpretation of St. Paul’s encounter with a demonic slave girl described in Acts of the Apostles.

Jefferts Schori prefaced her scriptural commentary by noting the history of slave trade by the Dutch on the Caribbean island which did not see the beauty in others’ skin color or the treasure of culture that they did not value or understand.  She waxed philosophically:

Human beings have a long history of discounting and devaluing difference, finding it offensive or even evil.  That kind of blindness is what leads to oppression, slavery, and often, war.  Yet there remains a holier impulse in human life toward freedom, dignity, and the full flourishing of those who have been kept apart or on the margins of human communities.

Jefferts Schori argued that just as the forces of historical inevitability lead to the end of slavery, the march of progress will also liberate attitudes towards homosexuality.  For Jefferts Schori, just because something is different is not the same thing as wrong.

As interesting as this weltanschaaung is, Jefferts Schori sought to illustrate her point through exegesis on the slave girl of Phillipi in Acts 16:16.   The Presiding Bishop pontificated:

There are some remarkable examples of that kind of blindness in the readings we heard this morning, and slavery is wrapped up in a lot of it.  Paul is annoyed at the slave girl who keeps pursuing him, telling the world that he and his companions are slaves of God.  She is quite right.  She’s telling the same truth Paul and others claim for themselves....

But Paul is annoyed, perhaps for being put in his place, and he responds by depriving her of her gift of spiritual awareness.  Paul can’t abide something he won’t see as beautiful or holy, so he tries to destroy it.  It gets him thrown in prison.  That’s pretty much where he’s put himself by his own refusal to recognize that she, too, shares in God’s nature, just as much as he does – maybe more so!

The New Testament account shows that St. Paul was imprisoned after exorcising the demons from the slave girl.  Bishop Jefferts Schori argued that the Apostle realized the error in his ways of casting out the spirit of divination.  She claimed that St. Paul reaching out to his frightened captor was an act of compassion instead of annoyance (with the spiritual girl) and “expands the company of Jesus’ friends to include a whole new household.”

The Presiding Bishop ended her lesson with a last paean to diversity.  “Looking for the reflection of God’s glory all around us means changing our lenses, or letting the scales on our eyes fall away.  That kind of change isn’t easy for anyone, but it’s the only road to the kingdom of God.”


So let’s discern the messages from Jefferts Schori’s sermon: 1) The inevitability of ending slavery is like being freed of the shackles of homophobia 2) St. Paul is a misogynist who was fiercely protective in guarding male superiority 3) Despite traditional scriptural teaches and practices of exorcisms, we should embrace the many forms of divination 4) Diversity reigns over the Gospel of Jesus (whose name means "Yaweh saves").

In case this Episcopal exegesis sounded eschew to some of the faithful, they were chided to   "If human beings are going to flourish on this planet, we’ll need to learn to see the glory of God at work in all its parts.”   St. Ignatius of Loyola’s charism is to find God in all things, however it requires a discernment if those influences draw one toward or away from God.  What Jeffert Schori seems to be saying as it connected to St. Paul and the Slave Girl  it is worship diversity lest one be bereft of the Holy Spirit. No matter what the genesis of the difference, even if the Church for two millennia considering the action an exorcism of demonic spirits.

But this is not the first time that Jefforts Schori has demonized those who do not agree with the Episcopal Presiding Bishop.  During a special convention held in Charleston, South Carolina in January 2013, Jefferts Schori denounced her opponents as terrorists and murderers and those who opposed her vision of church order as “wolves in sheep’s clothing”.

No wonder so many bible believing Episcopalians have become Anglicans under traditionally minded African bishops (sometimes at the cost of their physical church), swam the Tiber and reunited with the Catholic Church under Pope Benedict XVi's motu propio  Anglicanorum Coetibus   or even converted to Orthodoxy. This sort of sermon epitomizes why the Episcopal Church in America has radically dwindling membership. 

Religion is a not always a feel good proposition.  Sometimes preaching the Good Word of the Gospel can challenge the faithful.  But judging from the comments from the right reverend’s official website, this message does not even seem tangentially connected with traditional scriptural understanding.

Since the Presiding Bishop gave us so much to think about, allow an attentive listener to offer a challenging conundrum– Is an empty church diverse?   How about a church that is empty of biblical virtues?

Deteriorta Inspirational (sic)

In 1927, the little known American poet Max Ehrmann wrote Desiderata, a prose poem which epitomized the past perfect Latinate etymology of  "desired things". The text became widely known when the pastor of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Baltimore used Desiderata in a devotional poem. In fact, Adlai Stevenson, the former Democrat Governor of Illinois and two time failed Presidential candidate, had the Desiderata at his bedside.

Yet despite the storied history of the Desiderata, I find more ironic inspiration in the 1972 National Lampoon  parody Deteriorata. The surreal straight rendition of this reductio ad absurdum jeremiad is oddly inspiring. In fact, Les Crain, won a Grammy for his reading of the Desiderata, yet he admits that he prefers the parody Deteriorata over the original.