Gene Robinson's Offer and Challenge to Rick Warren: Beliefnet's Interview

So this man isn't going to say a "Christian" prayer. Why should that come as a surprise?

So very lost. The harm that he has caused the Episcopal denomination, now the fastest declining, is stupefying. So many lies from this man

"All I could think of was If I were a Jew, a Christian, a Hindu I would feel so excluded. I would be screaming at the tv set - hey what about me!"

Probably, the same reaction I have when I hear a Hindu or Muslim praying...I quietly and respectively disagree. No shouting at the TV. What a ridiculous notion.

"I've been the reparative therapy route. I did that. My own experience is it doesn't work. I think what it does it that it teaches gay and lesbian people to become so self loathing that they are willing to not act in a natural way, and deprive themselves of the kind of love and support that makes life worthwhile, that makes sense of our own lives and being."

Exodus International, which has recently doubled in size, boasts a "cure" rate of 30-50%. No where near 100% but much higher than substance abuse programs which are in the single digits.

"The church got it wrong about slavery for 18-19 centuries."

Slavery only raised its head for a couple centuries in the past two millenium and it was the church (Wilberforce and the abolitionists) that put it down.
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And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
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For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

I'm a Lutheran, a commissioned lay minister in my congregation, and a lesbian. I was happy to see Bishop Robinson included in the Inaugural celebrations (and irritated when his pre-Obama-concert prayer was "disappeared" by HBO). I also -- and I say this as someone who's been called to say prayers in groups that include persons of other faiths and nonbelievers -- understand the desire to be as inclusive as possible in a context that seeks to bring all citizens together. But if it were me saying the prayer -- I would have, somehow, acknowledged my own Christian faith even as I sought to gather up all the prayers of all the citizenry in my own...not because I need it or that God needs it, but because of people like the first three respondents to this post, who will use any opportunity to dismiss and disrespect the faith of their sisters and brothers in Christ who happen to be gay or lesbian. As a female Canadian politician, many years ago, noted in her own struggles to be taken seriously by the male-dominated political system, "Sometimes you have to work twice as hard to be thought half as good as a man. Fortunately, this is not difficult." While I know that those of us in the Christian G/L faith community will never be accepted by some of our coreligionists...we also don't need to give our detractors extra ammunition in questioning our Christian faith.

May God anoint Bishop Robinson and make him fruitful in all that he does, and may he be an instrument of hope to all the LGBT people who love Jesus but who are told by their churches that they are abominations.

Let us not reject those whom God has declared clean. Amen.

I hope Pastor Warren stays out of this. He is NOT the "anti-gay" Pastor. He simply support Prop 8 during the last election cycle by emailing his congregation and some other associated Pastors expressing his views (as he should). There are so many more important issues to deal with as evangelical Christians.

This was such a beautiful article, thank you so much.

God bless Gene Robinson and bless those poor, sad people above who have read his kind, loving, open-hearted words and still struggle to find reasons to hate. God bless them the most, they need Gods love the most.

Gene Robinson is a truly sad and needy sinner. Jesus, who came as the light of the world and brings freedom and life to those who are captive and dead in their sins, has become a marginal, ineffective player within his misguided ministry. I am not gay, but have spent much of my life under the oppression of the indwelling sin of lust. Praise God that I am set free. This freedom is available to all sinners. You too can be free! Allow the light of the Gospel to illuminate your dark world.

I just wish more people would actually educate themselves on the issues that are brought forth in the Bible. While Leviticus says that homosexuality is wrong it also says not to eat pork or shellfish. I noticed at an early age that the Christians surrounding me simply would pick and chose what to follow. While Paul, Saul of Tarsus also wrote against homosexuality his opinion is not the opinion of Jesus. In fact, he was a persecuter of Christians before miraculously finding the light (or possibly the ability to take away anything factual about the religion by almost single handedly changing the rules).

I'll be interested in the Christian point of view on homosexuality when I find a Christian that lives up to the rest of their holy book. For some reason they pick homosexuality to zero in on. Then again, we see how huge critics of homosexuality like Larry Craig end up :D