The Falls Church, an Episcopal Congregation, announces “Love, despite; A  Conversation with Bishop Gene Robinson,” on Saturday, October 29^th, 2022, from 9:00  a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in the Historic Church, South Washington and East Fairfax Streets,  Falls Church, Virginia. The event is free and open to the public and reservations (available here) are highly recommended.  

Bishop Robinson will also preach the following day, Sunday, October 30^th, 2022, at both  the 9:00 a.m. and the 11:15 a.m. services of The Falls Church. The public is invited to  attend worship as well. 

Elected and ordained bishop in 2003, The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, Retired Bishop of  New Hampshire, was the first partnered, openly LGBTQ+ bishop in The Episcopal  Church as well as the Anglican Communion. His election—and the subsequent approval  by a necessary majority of diocesan authorities within The Episcopal Church—caused  shockwaves within the Anglican Communion and began a movement of parishes  disaffiliation from The Episcopal Church over issues of sexuality, including The Falls  Church. Beginning with his ordination, at which he wore a bullet-proof vest to shield  himself from assassination threats from theological conservatives, Robinson has served  as a symbol of progressive Christianity and expanded inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons of  faith within The Episcopal Church. After retirement from the episcopacy in 2013,  Robinson served as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Vice  President and Senior Pastor of the Chautauqua Institution.  In 2006, The Falls Church voted to leave The Episcopal Church in 2006 in response to  Robinson’s ordination and claims of scriptural abandonment, beginning a legal battle  with The Diocese of Virginia and The Episcopal Church that ended in 2014, when the  United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case, thus allowing an earlier Virginia  Circuit Court decision to stand that sided with The Diocese of Virginia. Fewer than forty  Episcopalians, who had been worshiping at a nearby Presbyterian Church, returned to  The Falls Church campus, and the congregation has grown exponentially in the  intervening years, following a mission of radical welcome and ministry to those on the  margins. In 2021 The Falls Church called the first queer, married rector in its nearly  three-hundred-year history and has identified ministry to and with the queer faithful as  one of the parish values (found here https://www.thefallschurch.org/the-values-of-the falls-church-episcopal) that informs its strategic vision.