A CHURCH ASUNDER -by PETER J. BOYER

In the late summer of 1965, a high-school valedictorian named Gene Robinson anxiously set off from Lexington, Kentucky, for college. He was the first in his family to come so far, and the school he’d chosen, the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee, was not an obvious fit. Sewanee, as the school is known, was conceived, by an Episcopal bishop turned Confederate general, as an élite institution of learning for the sons of the landed class. A century later, when Gene Robinson arrived on campus, Sewanee remained an insular place, a mountaintop sanctuary known for its academic rigor, its cultivated airs, and a full measure of that particular Southern regard for tradition. A Sewanee man, dressed always in jacket and tie, was a gentleman of breeding, who had likely attended a preparatory school. Gene Robinson had grown up on a dirt farm, the son of tobacco sharecroppers, and had gone to Sewanee on a scholarship after graduating from public school.

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    Comments & Responses

  1. Thank you for publishing this woderful article. It is very well written and gives a nicely balanced presentation of all sides of the issues now facing ECUSA and the greater Anglican Communion.

    Posted by  on  04/21  at  10:42 PM

  2. McCabe

    Only you could find this a “balanced presentation!” It belittles the Global South Leaders and makes the “Prophet Gene” look like some kind of Saint.

    Rafe

    Posted by  on  04/28  at  01:42 AM

  3. A CHURCH ASUNDER -by PETER J. BOYER

    I just finished reading the above article from The New Yorker.

    As a former cradle Episcopalian from a long family tree of Anglicans and now a practicing Catholic I was greatly disturbed by this piece. I love my old church and wish her well, but, of course things are anything but well.

    The most disturbing part of the article from my view was how Bishop Robinson has acted with complete disobedience since his very introduction to the church as a teen, and has never been corrected.

    His most heinous offense and one which went curiously un-remarked by the otherwise critical author was how Robinson was allowed upon protest to simply ignore the Nicene Creed--the most important of the statements of faith for the entire Anglo-Catholic world. His personal opinion about the Creed doesn’t concern me. More disturbing was the Church’s (chaplain at University of the South) response: “If joining in the creed distressed him, why not just speak only those portions of it that didn’t offend?”

    Perhaps homosexuality is born not made (as Bishop Robinson asserts). But, it is clear that this Episcopalian was made not born; made by the very church that now, naturally is being torn asunder.

    Posted by  on  05/14  at  02:44 AM
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