Gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire last week declined the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury to attend the Lambeth Conference of all Anglican bishops worldwide as a partial participant, allowing him only to be hosted at the conference's 'marketplace,' or exhibit area, but declining to allow him to participate in closed-door meetings, Bible study or worship services.
Robinson said he will go to London and be present in the Marketplace—which is open to the public—but will not accept the offer to host a workshop or hold a media event. 'But I will be there in the marketplace, willing to talk with anyone who wants to talk, especially with those who disagree with me,' he stated.
The result of negotiations among between three U.S. bishops, representing the Episcopal bishops, and staff of the Archbishop of Canterbury's office was that 'a full invitation is not possible for' for Robinson, Instead, the Archbishop's office offered that if Robinson 'still wishes to be present throughout the conference that the location best suited for that is the Marketplace where he could be hosted by one of the groups.'
The Lambeth Conference, hosted once every 10 years at the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth Palace in London, traditionally is a meeting of every bishop in the global Anglican Communion. The decision was announced at a meeting of the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops in Navasota, Texas.
Speaking to his fellow U.S. bishops, Robinson said, ' … my mind boggles at the misperception that this is just about gay rights. It might be in another context, but in this context it is about God's love of all of God's children. It's a theological discussion, it's not a media show. I have been most disappointed in that my desire was to participate in Bible study and small groups, and that is not being offered. It makes me wonder: if we can't sit around a table and study the Bible together, what kind of communion do we have and what are we trying to save?
'I am dismayed and sickhearted,' he said, 'that we can't sit around a table, as brothers and sisters in Christ, and study scripture together. In my most difficult moments, it feels as if, instead of leaving the 99 sheep in search of the one, my chief pastor and shepherd, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has cut me out of the herd.'
Robinson urged all the other U.S. bishops to attend, however, despite the offer of some to boycott the meeting if he did not receive a full invitation. 'I want to say loud and clear—you must go. You must find your voice. And somehow you have to find my voice and the voices of all the gay and lesbian people in your diocese who, for now, don't have a voice in this setting. I'd much rather be talked to than talked about. But you must go and tell the stories of your people, faithful members of your flock who happen to be lesbian and gay.'
Robinson said he had hoped to 'focus on the community of bishops at Lambeth, making my own contribution to its deliberations. But now, I think I will go to Lambeth thinking about gay and lesbian people around the world who will be watching what happens there. I will go to Lambeth remembering the 100 or so twenty-something's I met in Hong Kong this fall, who meet every Sunday afternoon to worship and sing God's praise in a secret catacomb of safety—because they can't be gay AND Christian in their own churches. I will be taking them to Lambeth with me. They told me that the Episcopal Church was their hope for a different, welcoming church. They told me they were counting on us. Yes, the things we do in the Episcopal Church have ramifications far, far away—and sometimes those ramifications are good.'
Robinson's election and consecration in 2003 as the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion raised the specter of schism in the global communion of independent churches deriving from the Church of England, as well as within the U.S. Episcopal Church.
