Gay bishop makes plea for 'those on margins'

The Rev Gene Robinson began his ministry as the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop by saying he wanted to bring the message of God’s love to “those on the margins”.

He said the church should speak out on issues of social justice, including the lack of access to health care for many Americans.

“How dare we in this country spend $87bn (€76bn) on war when 44 million people have no health insurance?” he said in his sermon. “It’s up to the church to lead on some of these moral issues.”

After the service at All Saints Church, in Peterborough, New Hampshire, where he was married to his former wife, Robinson said he hoped that people who disagreed with his confirmation would remain within the Episcopal Church, instead of breaking away.

“A church founded on unhappiness and anger is not going to go very far,” he said.

New Hampshire’s Episcopalians elected Robinson as bishop in June, and his selection was approved at the convention of the Episcopal Church USA in August. But his consecration a week ago has threatened to divide the Episcopal Church, the American branch of Anglicanism.

On November 3, overseas bishops who said they represented 50 million of the world’s 77 million Anglicans jointly announced they were in a “state of impaired communion” with the Episcopal Church – a step short of declaring a full schism.

In addition, conservatives within the US church have asked the Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual head of the Anglican Church, to authorise a separate Anglican province for them in North America.

In his sermon, Robinson said Jesus spent most of his time with women, taxpayers and foreigners, not with the rabbis and wealthy members of the temple.

Jesus “looked at the religious establishment of his day and realised they had closed their eyes to those on the margins,” he said.

“Think of all the kinds of blindness right outside this door: not seeing people in need, or turning the other way when we do,” he said.