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Robinson To Miss Anglican Gay Showdown - by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

(New York City) The only openly gay bishop in the worldwide Anglican Church will not go to this summer's showdown in London over the role of gays in the denomination.

Gene Robinson, the bishop of New Hampshire, told fellow bishops in the Episcopal Church he cannot agree to conditions imposed on him by the leader of the world's Anglicans, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

Last September Williams told Robinson that he could attend the Lambeth Conference, a conclave held once every decade to decide church policy, but only as an observer. He would not be allowed to participate in the dialogue or vote.

The same restrictions were placed on bishops of breakaway conservative parishes that still want to remain within the worldwide Anglican communion, but under the oversight of African bishops.

Robinson told the Episcopal House of Bishops, meeting in Texas this week, that he has tried to arrive at a more equitable solution with the Archbishop but nothing was accomplished.

"I am dismayed and sickhearted that we can't sit around a table, as brothers and sisters in Christ, and study Scripture together," he said.

"It makes me wonder, if we can't sit around a table and study the Bible together, what kind of Communion do we have and what are we trying to save?"

He also told the bishops that because he is not going to the meeting it is no reason for them not to go.

"I want to say loud and clear: You must go," he said. "You must find your voice. And somehow you have to find my voice and the voices of all the gay and lesbian people in your diocese who, for now, don't have a voice in this setting."

The worldwide Church has slowly been on what many see as a course toward schism ever since Robinson was elected in 2003.

Both liberal and conservative factions in the Church agree on one thing, however: that Williams has been ineffective in bringing the warring sides together.

Last month leaders from five Anglican provinces in Africa and South America announced they would boycott the conference.

Archbishops Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Henry Orombi of Uganda and Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, which is in South America said they would not sit at the same table as bishops from the Episcopal Church. (story)

There are 77 million members in the Anglican faith. Almost half of them are in the provinces which are boycotting the conference.

©365Gay.com 2008

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