Our Passions and the Promiscuous Church
by David V. Hicks

I

The only time I ever heard the now Bishop Gene Robinson speak was at a Vespers service at St. Paul’s School in the fall of 1992. His topic appeared to be God’s gift of love, a phrase he often repeated in his talk, but his point conflated love with sex, and he urged the girls and boys of St. Paul’s to share their sexual gifts “either with someone of the same sex or someone of the opposite sex.” He said this more than once, and I jotted the phrase down in the book of prayers at my desk. No mention of marriage or even of commitment. He did close his talk, however, with a disarming suggestion that God would be well pleased if His gifts were shared safely. “Please use a condom.”

I approached Fr. Robinson after the service, and in the presence of our School Chaplain I expressed strong disapproval of his message and told him that he would not again be welcome in our pulpit as long as I remained Rector at the School. Not only was he, from my traditional perspective, preaching sin, but because of the nature of his audience, he was encouraging our students to break the rules of the School and the laws of the State of New Hampshire, where I believe it is still illegal for an eighteen year old to have sex with a fourteen year old. Fortunately for us both, my Rectorship lasted less than four years, and I was not in New Hampshire to question his elevation or, in the event, to suffer the fate of being out of Communion with my Bishop.
The rest at Stand Firm-excellent!