"Please join Gene for a lively conversation"

Working for Justice and the Common Good
The Struggle for Inclusion, Diversity and Equality Within Religion November 2, 2006, 9:00am – 10:30am
Featured Speaker: Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New HampshireModerated by: Rev. Jennifer Butler, Executive Director, Faith in Public Life Welcome and Introduction by: Winnie Stachelberg, Senior Vice President for External Affairs, Center for American Progress
As the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, Gene Robinson has faced both hostile opposition and support from both religious and secular communities. His election in 2003 triggered a struggle within the worldwide Anglican church over human rights for gay men and lesbians—a struggle that reflects tensions and rifts within the larger society today.
In working to uphold ideals of respect and compassion and in fighting divisiveness, Bishop Robinson has been an outspoken defender of the common good. Drawing upon his extensive experience as a leader in faith and social justice work, Bishop Robinson will discuss the struggle for inclusion and equality within his faith tradition and other institutions. Please join Bishop Gene Robinson for a lively, important conversation.

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Here's what some blog had to say about it:

The following is from a talk by Gene Robinson to the Center for American Progress, on the topic of Working for Justice and the Common Good. It took place on the third anniversary of his becoming the bishop of New Hampshire. Initially, I was thinking I would just try to summarize it, but there is a lot of good stuff here, so I ended up largely transcribing about the first third of it. Will share more in a future post, and in the some of the parts toward the end of the talk/interview, I'll have more of my own thoughts to share.Bishop Gene Robinson: Micah said "love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly with your God". For the Episcopalians in the crowd, there is a typo in the prayer book--whoever did the typesetting transposed that into "love justice and do mercy." That's been in there since 1979. And I think that's the temptation that we have, which is to just *love* the notion of justice, and be perfectly willing to do those merciful acts of charity. But not do the hard work of justice.And who is the common good for? This year (in the liturgical cycle) we are reading from the Gospel of Mark. It's the oldest, "lean and mean", "Cliff's Notes" version. Gene mentions being a proponent of studying the Gospels in terms of how they depict "what did Jesus know, and when did he know it" with regard to who he was and the nature of his mission. In the Gospel of John, which is believed to be the latest written, Jesus seems to know all.

In Mark, Jesus seems to be figuring it out as he goes along--which to Gene makes sense, because if God chose to live a completely human life, we don't know what's going to happen an hour from now. "And I think that's how Jesus lived his life, so, as you read Mark's Gospel, you can begin to see Jesus kind of putting all this together in his mind...I think Mark's Gospel gives us an idea of the development of Jesus' self-understanding.Gene goes on to set the stage for telling a story that Robinson sees as a turning point in Jesus' self understanding.

You can read more of it here.