Gene Robinson to retire???

I just spotted the news over at BabyBlue Cafe... Gene Robinson is planning to retire in 2013, only ten years after kicking worldwide Anglicanism until it bled.

The reason to depart, he said in a speech delivered at the close of the annual convention of his diocese, is that being at the center of an international uproar has taken a toll on him and on the diocese.

So basically, Gene Robinson is quitting because he lacks the stamina to see his little project through to its full conclusion. Cute. I'm sorry but if you're going to raise a sword, you ought to be ready to use it and suffer the consequences. Does he think that those of us who stood our ground until the bitter end were happy about being deposed, released, sued, ostracized? Or does he not think about us, the liabilities, at all?

The article itself is a worthy read, just for all the multitude of absurdities therein. The word "healthy" is used to describe a diocese whose very head is a bishop who neither submits to scripture nor can own to his own personal health (to his own credit he has faced up to the unhealth of alcoholism during his tenure) in the last seven years. Robinson calls himself and evangelist to those alienated by Christianity, and yet his ministry has alienated Christians themselves and taught doctrine which further alienates those outside the fold.

I wish I could say that I'm glad to see Robinson go. Really, though, there is always another one like him. He'll just spend more time misleading the inquirer and the faithful now that he will have less administrative duty. He's made his fame, had his moment in the sun. And now he'll just slip on out into the larger world without the Episcopal Church ever having taken a stand, repented, or even admitted that maybe something might not be quite right.