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GUEST: Gene Robinson, first openly gay Anglican bishop, author of “In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God”

The International Anglican Communion may be heading for a deep split over homosexuality within the church. On July 16th, bishops of the international Anglican Communion will gather for their once-a-decade Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England. At the last conference in 1998, a resolution was passed saying that homosexuality was “incompatible with Scripture,” and that LGBT people should not be consecrated. Only 5 years later, an openly gay priest, Gene Robinson, was consecrated as a bishop of the Episcopal Church, the US branch of the Anglican Communion. Robinson’s consecration sparked conservative bishops in the US and around the world to organize and form what some are calling a “church within a church,” the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican movement has walked a fine line trying to appease both the liberal and conservative bishops. He has however, revoked Bishop Gene Robinson’s invitation to the Lambeth Conference. For his part, Gene Robinson, dubbed recently by the San Francisco Chronicle as the “most controversial Christian in the world,” is not keeping quiet. Despite death threats, he recently celebrated a private civil-union ceremony with his partner of 20 years at a church in New Hampshire and is currently traveling the country and the world to talk more openly and more publicly than ever about his faith and his new book, “In the Eye of the Storm.”