Bishop Vicky & Bishop Gumby

Bishop Vicky came to the San Francisco Bay Area recently, and got a “Fervid Reception” — according to the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle (Jan. 28). Oh, sorry, that would be Bishop Vicky Gene Robinson, the recently elected Bishop of New Hampshire for the Episcopal Church. You know, the one who divorced his wife, left his children, and has been shacked-up with a “gay” man ever since.

As the Chronicle story tells it, three days after he was elected, “He received a note from an 18-year-old inmate at New Hampshire State Prison for Women. ‘I’m neither gay nor Christian, particularly. But your election makes me believe that there might be a community out there who can love me.'” — and he’s been repeating that story ever since. What a tearjerker!

Any normal Christian community or congregation or parish would love that woman inmate, but there would likely be some unwanted conditions — sorrow for sin, repentance, confession, working to overcome that sin, something like that. The story doesn’t say why that inmate is in jail, but it must have been something bad. That inmate is smart. She’s figured that if a Christian community can make a self-admitted, active, unrepentant homosexual a bishop, it couldn’t possibly say no to her. She can be loved unconditionally and not have to give up her sin or sins. Neat!

And Bishop Vicky has the makings of an American hero. According to the Chron story, “He talked about…the death threats, the bullet-proof vest he strapped on for his consecration and the secret plan they had devised in case of violence. If bullets rang out that day, he said, he was to be whisked out with three bishops and a photographer [got to have that photographer to record everything — Ed.]. ‘By the end of the day, if I was still alive, they would have consecrated me as bishop,’ he told the crowd.” So the insurgents didn’t pop him off, and the election was validated by means of a consecration. Another victory for democracy. Give it a few decades and Bishop Vicky will be on an American stamp.

The Chron story goes on, “The bishop…moved on to another favorite topic of late — moral values. ‘Moral values don’t just have to do with abortion and gay and lesbian issues,’ he said. ‘It has to do with all the things in the Bible: God’s preference for the poor and how every society is to be judged by how it cares for the most vulnerable.'” This utterance is gross hypocrisy. Bishop Vicky earlier said (of course, the Chron doesn’t report this) regarding active homosexuality that, “Just simply to say that it goes against tradition and the teaching of the church and Scripture does not necessarily make it wrong.” Since the Bible says that God has a preference for the poor, then to trample on the poor is not necessarily wrong either. In which case, nothing is necessarily wrong, and the Bible really has no authority.