Can a Gay Priest or Bishop Truly Proclaim and Preach the Gospel of Christ?

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue, DD | www.virtueonline.org | May 20, 2026

With the full acceptance of actively gay and lesbian priests and bishops in the Episcopal Church, a question must be asked: can such persons preach an unalloyed gospel — one that calls for change through repentance and faith in Christ?

It is not a question the early Apostles or later theologians would have entertained for a moment. Would Luther or Calvin have considered it? Would Wesley or Jonathan Edwards have given it two thoughts?

They would have said something like this: "Do you think God would embrace sexual sin?" And then dismissed the question. A more extended answer might run: "Fornication, adultery, and homosexuality are all sins proscribed by Scripture. Why are you singling out one and seeking God's approval for it?"

The Episcopal Church's celebrated doctrines of inclusion and diversity have rendered the question not merely obscure but irrelevant. Resolution D039 acknowledges relationships other than marriage, and Resolution B012 established the blessing of same-sex unions — together dealing a death blow to any remaining sexual ethic, leaving adultery as apparently the sole non-acceptable sexual behavior.

TEC welcomes absolutely everybody has become the church's rallying cry and public mantra. Welcoming statements press hard on "come as you are." But the gospel does not stop there. That phrase omits the gospel's essential corollary: you won't stay as you are.

How can it proclaim that, when priests and bishops living in sexual sin are unable to declare the unsearchable riches of Christ — unable to seek confession and forgiveness for the one sin that is no longer recognized as sin and so remains unconfessed?

The "gospel" they proclaim is truncated, distorted, and ultimately powerless. It cannot save to the uttermost those who are lost, because they do not perceive themselves as lost. Therein lies the nub of the problem.

But beneath the behavior lies something deeper: the enthronement of the self.

As theologian Ronald Moore observes: "This was the true nature of the first rebellion. Satan did not merely commit an evil act. His fall was not simply disobedience in isolation. At its core, his sin was the rejection of rightful authority and the exaltation of his own will above the will of God."

"I will ascend."

"I will exalt my throne."

"I will be like the Most High."

The language of rebellion in Scripture is strikingly centered on the word I. It is self-coronation.

The consecration of Gene Robinson was a public act of rebellion against the moral order, and it has cost the church dearly. Robinson's entire tenure as bishop — and into his retirement — has centered on his sexuality. A piece of choral music, Our Wildest Imagining, was recently written and dedicated to him — not in recognition of his faithfulness to the gospel of grace, but to honor his historic role as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion.

There you have it: my will, not thy will, be done. Satan is the Great Deceiver. He tempted Adam and Eve with autonomy — "You will be like God." That temptation has never changed.

Moore again: "Modern culture often treats submission itself as evil. To bend the knee to anything outside oneself is considered weakness. Authority is viewed with suspicion. Limits are seen as oppression. Obedience is treated as the death of freedom rather than the pathway to holiness."

Yet Christianity proclaims precisely the opposite. Freedom is not the removal of restraint. Scripture teaches that freedom is found in proper alignment with the God who made us. A train is most free upon its tracks. Remove it from them and it is not liberated — it is destroyed. Gay and lesbian clergy have driven the Episcopal Church off those tracks and declared themselves blessed by God for the journey.

This is why sin always fragments the soul. Pride isolates. Lust consumes. Greed hollows. Anger corrodes. The self-enthroned becomes the self-imprisoned.

Sexual sin is not the worst sin. But its enthronement above God's revealed will damages the heart, harms the Body of Christ, destroys lives, and guts churches. And repentance is precisely so difficult because it is not merely admitting wrongdoing — it is abdication. It is the tearing down of the false throne within the heart. It is liberation from the oldest slavery in the universe: the worship of the self.

When man declares his will superior to God's, he does not become more divine. He becomes disordered. He steps into the ancient pattern of rebellion first walked by Satan. Hell itself may ultimately be understood as the final kingdom of self-will — the eternal refusal to say, Thy will be done.

Only one road leads back home: the road of surrender before the throne of God.