+Gene on Rick Warren

[furrbear]

An interview with Bishop Gene Robinson on the Religion News Service website by Kevin Eckstrom

The Rev. V. Gene Robinson blesses the congregation after being consecrated as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church on Nov. 2, 2003. Robinson's June election by New Hampshire Episcopalians touched off fierce contention within the U.S. Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion. Photo courtesy Episcopal News Service. Openly gay New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson has spent the last five years seeking reconciliation with those who saw his election as immoral, unbiblical or, as one Nigerian archbishop put it, a "satanic attack on God's church."

Yet the choice of megachurch pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration left Robinson deeply disappointed after Warren campaigned for Proposition 8, a California constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages.

Robinson talked about seeking reconciliation with those who, like Warren, take a more conservative view against homosexuality. Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.

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Q: You endorsed Barack Obama before the New Hampshire primary. Does his choice of Rick Warren make you second-guess your support for his campaign?

A: No, not at all. I have just total confidence in Barack Obama and I think he will be the greatest friend to the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) community we've ever seen. This is about the religious person you put in front of the world to pray for the nation and for the new president.

Q: So let's cut to the chase. What's wrong with Rick Warren offering the invocation at the inauguration?

A: I actually have a lot of respect for Rick Warren; amongst evangelicals, he's taken a hit for his compassionate response to AIDS, his commitment to alleviating poverty. He's done some good things. The difficult thing is that he's said, and continues to affirm, some horrendous things about homosexuality -- comparing it to incest, bestiality, that kind of thing. This is not a choice that really represents everyone. This choice was just really, really unfortunate.

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Q: You've talked a lot about reconciliation, and bringing disparate sides together, in your own divided Episcopal Church. Are you not willing to do the same with Rick Warren?

A: No, I absolutely am. I would sit down with Rick Warren this morning if I had the opportunity. I would love to engage him. In some ways he's a very brave person, but he's woefully wrong about the issue of homosexuality. He needs to be confronted about the lies he told about gay people to the people of California.

Q: So this is really about the forum of the inauguration, not necessarily Rick Warren per se.

A: That's right. It's about this particular venue and the role that he has in praying for all of America, and I'm just not sure he'd pray to God the same way I would.

Q: You told The New York Times that "the God that he's praying to is not the God that I know." What God do you think he's praying to?

A: I think he is praying to a God, at least around this issue, that calls upon God's homosexual children to deny who they are, to deprive themselves of love and intimacy that is permitted every other one of God's children. He's praying to a God who calls on me, as a gay man, to change, to submit myself to the power of Jesus so I can be healed of this `infirmity' of mine.

Q: And how is that different from the God that you pray to?

A: The God I know says to me, just like we hear God saying at Jesus' baptism, that you are my beloved, and in you I am well pleased. That's a very, very different God. Imagine the difference between a parent who loves you for you who are, and one that says I'll only love you if you change.

Q: If Warren hadn't endorsed Proposition 8, would this be such a big issue?

A: It's a little bit difficult to separate the two. It would have been better had he been silent on Prop 8, but his stated attitudes on this, and his views on gay and lesbian people, are a matter of record that predate Prop 8. The reason this has hit the LGBT community so hard is that the wounds are still awfully raw for us following the vote on Prop 8.

Q: Obama and Warren have both said that Warren got heat for inviting Obama to his church. So, isn't it appropriate for Obama to return the gesture?

A: Again, it's the specific thing and the specific event that he's been invited to do. This particular choice (of Warren) is not about having everyone at the table for a discussion or some sort of general forum. Every choice related to who does what at the inauguration is highly symbolic, and I think the transition team failed to ask the question of what, symbolically, this might say to some of our citizens.

Q: Are you coming down for the inauguration?

A: I am. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Comments

[teddyb.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting that. I think there is a lot of wisdom in what Robinson says, and I am glad he added his thoughts to the discussion.

Thanks for sharing that interview here. I probably wouldn't have seen it otherwise, and I'm really glad to have Bishop Robinson's perspectives on this issue.

My VERY last word on the subject:

[anziulewicz.livejournal.com]

I am NOT any sort of an apologist for Rick Warren, but the fact remains that he has broad appeal amongst a LOT of mainstream Americans. His book, The Purpose-Driven Life, apparently sold a bazillion copies and has been inspirational to a lot of people. He HAS, to his credit, placed considerable emphasis on environmental issues and climate change, something that has NOT exactly endeared him to the Dobson/Wildmon/Robertson faction. As someone who routinely monitors a variety of theocon websites, I can tell you that Warren has been getting plenty of flak from those who think he is being too accomodating.

Now it may very well be that he thinks Gay people who fair to repent are doomed to Hell, just as he may think that Muslims and Jews and Atheists and any other non-Christians are doomed if they fail to surrender to Jesus. This is a pretty doctrinaire position amongst conservative Christians, but Rick Warren doesn't strike me as the sort to get all fire-and-brimstone about it, and I would be willing to bet he isn't going to say anything during his invocation that is going to piss off non-Christians. And I WILL be listening.

Furthermore, can you imagine the uproar if Barack Obama had selected his OWN pastor to deliver the invocation? Talkradio and FoxNews STILL salivate over those incendiary soundbites from Rev. Wright.

As I've said previously, this is just an invocation. Rick Warren was chosen in an effort to extend a hand of reconciliation to a lot of the folks who voted against Obama because they didn't consider him Christian ENOUGH ... or even worse, some sort of "Stealth Muslim." But Warren isn't going to be a member of Obama's Cabinet, nor do I think Warren is going to have Obama's ear in any significant way. Ultimately what REALLY matters is what President Obama says during his first State of the Union Address.

I'm just doing my best to be politically pragmatic here.

[mister-don.livejournal.com]

Amen

[cimarrondfw.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing Gene Robinson's interview. He has some very valid observations. I wish I could still find Michael Piazza's editorial and post it, but I was not able to relocate once I thought I understood how to do it.