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The Bishop and the Bible

The Advocate sits down with Bishop V. Gene Robinson to discuss his latest accomplishment -- starring on the silver screen in the documentary For the Bible Tells Me So .
An Advocate.com exclusive posted November 20, 2007
The Bishop and the Bible

As the first openly gay person elected to the order of bishop in the Episcopal Church, V. Gene Robinson isn’t your typical film star. But he and his parents, along with four other families, provide the framework for a spiritual journey toward acceptance and love in For the Bible Tells Me So , a documentary currently screening across the country (www.forthebibletellsmeso.org).

Though the role is a little out of the ordinary, Robinson says he is “devoted to the film” for the healing he thinks it can provide to LGBT people and their loved ones in smaller cities and rural areas of America.

“This is a story about five families and their children who come out and have had the audacity to proclaim, ‘Jesus loves me, this I know,’ ” Robinson says, referring to the famed children’s song. “And while most people would maintain, and have maintained for 2,000 years, that the Bible tells us just the opposite, we proclaim that the Bible does love me just the way I am -- loves my relationships, loves my being gay, and calls on me to use God’s love to help the world.”

The Advocate sat down with Bishop Robinson to ask him about his involvement with the film, what he likes most about it, and why he thinks it could shake up the heartland.

What do you like most about this film?
It describes change the way it always happens, which is, we think we have the world summed up into neat and tidy categories, and then along comes this experience that doesn’t fit. And so one’s world view has to change in order to accommodate that new experience.

You have five deeply religious families who know exactly where they stand on the issue of homosexuality, and then one of their beloved children comes out, and this movie is the story of the journey that each of these families goes on in order to accommodate that new reality. They are thrown into chaos, because they love their children and they can’t believe all the things they’ve been told about LBGT people and still love their children the way they do. That’s the way change of any kind always happens, and it’s just a miracle to see it happen in these families.

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Eleveld is The Advocate's news editor.
Keywords:  Gene Robinson 
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