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CANTERBURY, UK, August 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Gene Robinson has castigated a fellow Anglican bishop for publicly disapproving of his crusade to inculcate "gay" values into the Anglican Communion. In an interview with SXNews, an Australian homosexual news website festooned with explicit sexual advertising, Robinson complained that the Sydney archdiocese is "bigoted" because its archbishop, Dr. Peter Jensen, boycotted the Lambeth conference, held this month in Canterbury, England. Gene Robinson is the active homosexual whose consecration as Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire caused a crisis in the global Anglican Communion. He called the Sydney archbishop's defence of Christianity "ironic" given...

CANTERBURY, England -- Gene Robinson's bodyguard didn't have to worry this time. The 40-year-old man who rushed over to Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the worldwide Anglican church, just wanted to shake his hand. "Thank you for bringing the church into the 21st century, for moving things forward," said Martin MacCiarrain, a government employee. The bodyguard, a retired policeman who trails the American bishop because of death threats, eased back. On Sunday during a sermon Robinson delivered in London, a long-haired man had suddenly leapt up screaming at the American bishop: "Repent! Repent!" Since Robinson, 61, was consecrated...

History's humongous wheel turns and turns and turns again. Over time, mud and sludge accumulate on even the sprucest institutions. Take the 500-year-old Anglican family of churches, Christianity's third-largest, after Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy. With Anglicanism's biggest family event under way - the every-10-years gathering of bishops and archbishops in England - what the world sees, accurately or not, is a family in moral and spiritual disarray. --snip--For all that, Anglicanism's public troubles proceed from the takeover of Western Anglicanism by theological activists whose purpose is the remolding of Christianity into something less like the old-time religion than like the...

The gay bishop of New Hampshire should resign in order to save the Anglican Communion, a senior African archbishop said today. The call came from the Rt Rev Dr Daniel Deng, the archbishop of Sudan, and followed a strongly worded statement that accused the US Episcopal church of exposing Anglicans to ridicule and damaging their credibility in a multi-religious environment. African bishops who signed the statement rejecting homosexual practice said they could not accept it as part of their church. They reiterated their opposition to developments in the US and Canada, where gay clergy are ordained and where same-sex relationships...

He maintains he is following the Holy Spirit in calling for this radical revision of Christian orthodoxy. Yet, he argues against the clear teaching of the Scriptures and unbroken teaching of the Christian tradition that reserve sexual activity to the loving, lifelong marriage bond between a married man and woman. Clearly, Bishop Gene Robinson views himself as a liberator, and he is doing more to foster the splintering of the Anglican Communion worldwide singlehandedly than anyone else. He seems to take delight in both his celebrity and his self appointed task. Now, the controversialist crusader for homosexual equivalency with marriage...

Hardline Church leaders have formally declared the end of the worldwide Anglican Communion, saying they can no longer be associated with liberals who tolerate homosexual clergy. The traditionalists dealt a serious blow to Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, by claiming that he can no longer hold the Church together. They warned that the Church was gripped by its most serious crisis since the Reformation. It could only be saved by the repentance of the Americans who triggered the row by ordaining a homosexual bishop, the Rt Rev Gene Robinson, five years ago. The formal pronouncement of the schism...

BOSTON (Reuters) - The openly gay U.S. Episcopal bishop at the center of the Anglican church's global battle over homosexuality, has entered into a civil union with his longtime partner at a private ceremony. About 120 guests gathered at St. Paul's Church in New Hampshire for Saturday's ceremony for Bishop Gene Robinson and his partner of more than 19 years, Mark Andrew. The event was kept private out of respect for next month's worldwide Anglican conference, Robinson's spokesman, Mike Barwell, said on Sunday.

LONDON, May 16, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Anglican Church is the perfect vehicle for creating a new “gay” Christianity by virtue of the fact that it is the only church that accepts the logical contradiction of asserting both the sanctity of human life and the existence of a right to abortion. Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson, whose ordination to the episcopate has precipitated the ongoing schism between traditionally Christian Anglicans and its ultra-liberal, secularized branches, is in London to talk about his vision for the homosexual future of the Anglican Church. He was visiting and promoting his cause in preparation...

In a new book the Anglican clergyman explains why he wanted to formalise his 20 year relationship. “I always wanted to be a June bride.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew there'd be trouble. I'd just delivered an hour-long lecture on the relationship between religion and public discourse, and why religious fervour over homosexuality plays such a large and negative role in the securing of full civil rights for gay people. During the question-and-answer period, someone asked me about the forthcoming civil union between me and Mark, my partner of 20 years. The audience...

Citing fears of creating a controversy, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury has refused to grant Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the right to preach or preside at the eucharist in England. Robinson received the news in an email yesterday morning. Sources familiar with the email say Williams cites the Windsor Report and recent statements from the Primates Meeting in refusing to grant Robinson permission to exercise his priestly functions during his current trip to England, or during the trip he plans during the Lambeth Conference in July and August. The Windsor Report does not discuss the ordination of...

I can't decide if Gene Robinson should be made an honorary member of Herman's Hermits (second verse same as the first) or just be named Crybaby of the Decade. Sure does a lot of book tours for someone who wants to just be a simple country bishop. Can't you just hear the heavy sigh? Robinson is in London to promote his new book, In The Eye of the Storm. It is a spiritual memoir aimed, he says, at showing that he is more than "a one issue guy". The last of its five sections, however, sets a course for the...

From the time Anglican pilgrims arrived in Jamestown, it's as if America and the Episcopal Church have been soul mates – for better or for worse. Now come the country's culture wars over sexuality, conservative versus liberal, change versus tradition. And the 2.4-million-member denomination that has given us more U.S. presidents than any other, along with its first-ever woman leader, is not being spared. Nearly five years after a gay priest was elected bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, the fallout continues. One diocese has seceded from the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Dozens of congregations,...

The first openly gay Episcopal bishop announced he will have no official role in a meeting this summer of world Anglican leaders, saying restrictions that organizers wanted to place on his involvement had caused him "considerable pain." New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson had been told last year that he could not fully participate in the once-a-decade gathering in England, called the Lambeth Conference, as the world Anglican Communion sat on the brink of schism over his 2003 election. Still, Episcopal leaders had been negotiating with the Anglican Communion Office to allow him to join the event in some capacity....

LONDON - Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori says her church has been unfairly singled out for criticism because it is honest about consecrating gay bishops. Jefferts Schori told BBC Radio 4's "PM" program that the New York-based church, which is the Anglican body in the U.S., is far from the only Anglican province that has a bishop with a same-sex partner. In 2003, Episcopalians elected the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, causing an uproar that has pushed the Anglican family toward a split. "He is certainly not alone in being a gay bishop; he's...

It was the last Sunday service at Christ Church. Unable to go "further in a church that continued in a false gospel," the entire congregation, including the rector and church leaders, will sever ties with the national Episcopal Church and reform under a new name: New Hope Anglican Church. One of the "Connecticut six," the half-dozen churches in the state diocese that disagree with national leadership on departure of scripture, including the appointment of a gay bishop, the congregation will trade its historic building on the town green for a free community room at the Thomaston Savings Bank around the...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. Episcopal Church faces major tumult this week when an entire California diocese with more than 9,000 members decides whether to secede in an unprecedented protest over gay issues. The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, based in Fresno and consisting of nearly 50 churches in 14 counties, would be the first diocese to bolt from the U.S. branch of the 77-million-member global Anglican Communion if Saturday's final vote passes. The U.S. church and Anglicanism generally have been in upheaval since 2003 when the Episcopal Church consecrated Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as the first bishop known...

In the lefty U.K. Guardian, columnist Andrew Brown laments the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury has failed in his attempt to keep the language of controversy cloudy enough to avert schism. He hankers after those bygone days when liberal ecclesiocrats were not subject to interrogation by importunate evangelicals, when doctrinal disagreements could be assigned to study groups and buried in endless committee work, and when (as he claims) people were obliged to "pretend to accept each others' viewpoint." No more. The Church of England consists almost entirely of people who think that many of their fellow Anglicans aren't real...

On the issue of same sex unions, I argued that our statement be reflective of what is true right now in the Episcopal Church: that while same sex blessings are not officially permitted in most dioceses, they are going on and will continue to go on as an appropriate pastoral response to our gay and lesbian members and their relationships. Earlier versions of our response contained both sides of this truth. I argued to keep both sides of that truth in the final version, providing the clarity asked for by the Primates. Others made the argument that to state that...

The mere fact that the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson is the Episcopal Church's first openly homosexual bishop ensures that he will be a media celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic. To a great extent, he has become a symbol to both conservatives and liberals in contemporary Christianity. To conservatives, Bishop Robinson represents a near-total theological meltdown. An entire universe of the theological principles and doctrines of orthodox Christianity must be jettisoned or redefined before an openly homosexual bishop becomes imaginable. In order for this to happen, the tradition of the church must be sidelined and the authority of Scripture...

I n a move that may be unprecedented for a New Hampshire religious leader, Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson yesterday endorsed Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Robinson, the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop and among the best-known religious figures in the state, said he was endorsing as a private citizen and would not bring politics to the pulpit. "I'm looking for a healer, and I believe that Sen. Obama can be that," said Robinson, of Weare. A registered independent, Robinson said he had never before waded into politics publicly, but he said that in recent years, he's become convinced...