Not my kind of bishop

Bishop who uses a radar detector
by Andrew Brown

THE ONE original piece of journalism to mark Easter was Riazat Butt’s journey around New Hampshire with its Bishop in Holy Week for The Guardian. It even added one new sin to our knowledge of him, though this was buried a long way down the story.

“In between mouthfuls of coconut cream pie, he told the story of how, when he was once getting ready for New Orleans mardi gras, he struggled to find the finishing touch to his Carmen Miranda outfit. He had the outsized fruit and the hat; all he lacked were hooped earrings.
“When he was in the bathroom, he noticed the rings on the shower curtain and decided to use those instead of jewellery. It is an unconventional image, but Robinson delights in non-conformism. He carries his bishop’s staff in a rifle case, has a police-radar detector attached to his dashboard, which also responds to microwave ovens, and holidays on the glamorous island of St Bart’s in the Caribbean.”

It’s not the earrings, or the rifle case that shock me. It is the police-radar detector. This is a device that exists only to enable us to break speed limits. I am happy to admit that I probably break some speed limit every time I drive anywhere. But I don’t preach sermons about the environment and our duty to it, which I suspect Bishop Robinson does.

The rest of his talk didn’t strike me as terribly convincing, either: “His official exclusion came as a blow to Robinson, who told a spring gathering of the US Episcopal Church house of bishops that he felt abandoned by Williams. He wept during the address. ‘It was the hardest time I’ve had since my consecration,’ he said, driving along Interstate 93. He suggested it was not his consecration or homosexuality that was tearing apart the Anglican Communion, but a failure of the leadership.

“‘I don’t know if it was Rowan’s intention to divide the US house of bishops but he’s done the very thing he was trying to avoid through his action or lack of action. It mystifies me that he has never commented on statements Akinola [the Archbishop of Nigeria] has made about homosexuality,’ he said.”

This may or may not represent a confusion in the reporter’s mind between the US House of Bishops and the Anglican Communion. It is very hard to see anything Dr Williams could have done to unite the House of Bishops on this issue more than he actually did, which was to make them all feel patronised and slighted, regardless of their opinions.