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AN OPEN LETTER TO V. GENE ROBINSON
Dear Gene;
It has been a disastrous four years since your election as a bishop-disastrous for TEC, disastrous for the worldwide Anglican Communion, disastrous for the hundreds of orthodox parishes which have either left TEC or curtailed their financial support for TEC, and disastrous for the thousands of former Episcopalians who have left TEC (many of them embittered to the point of leaving the church altogether). And if your recent announcement of treatment for alcoholism is any indication, it has been a disastrous four years for you personally also.
The traditional practice of bishops respecting the diocesan authority and autonomy of their fellow bishops has now ended-thanks to your election. More and more dioceses are experiencing conflicted relationships between their bishop and many of their clergy and congregations-thanks to your election.
Our Anglican ability to live with a wide range of theological differences, and our ability to differentiate between essentials and adiaphora, is now impaired if not completely lost-thanks to your election.
Whatever sense of unity and community there was in the House of Bishops of TEC is now gone-thanks to your election. The symbolic headship of the Archbishop of Canterbury within the Anglican Communion is seriously at risk-thanks to your election.
The worldwide fellowship of Anglicanism is fractured and in danger of becoming irreparably lost-thanks to your election. The expression of that worldwide fellowship in the decennial Lambeth Conference is likewise in serious jeopardy, and may not occur again-thanks to your election.
This is your diocese's legacy to TEC, to the worldwide Anglican Communion, and to the church's history. This is the burden your election has laid on the backs of all Episcopalian and Anglican Christians, and not least upon your own shoulders. What you have done by accepting election, and what the members of the Diocese of New Hampshire have done by electing you in the face of the knowledge that said election would be problematical for their church and for the worldwide Communion, can never be undone. TEC, and the Anglican Communion, can never be the same again.
But all this can and will be used by our Lord to reform and renew His Church, and we have already seen signs of this renewal. Your choice now is to continue to stand in the way of this renewal, or to repent of the widespread damage your election has triggered by resigning, thereby mitigating the spiritual and ecclesiastical damage that has ensued from your election. May God grant you the grace so to do.
Rev. G. R. Cain (ret.),
Tampa FL & Wolfeboro NH
