ROBINSON: ON RECOGNISING ALL OF GOD'S PEOPLE

THE RT REV'D GENE ROBINSON, bishop of New Hampshire, preached a sermon (listen here) on Sunday in St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow. (I've been there in 1999, and indeed it is a welcoming and inclusive parish.)

SCOTSMAN

"It is going to end with the full inclusion of all God's people in God's Church," he told a full congregation. "I don't know when. It doesn't matter when. But I know it is going to be. None of us is on the selection committee. God is on a committee of one."

He added: "It is time for us to stop worrying so much about the Church. The Church is not ours to win or lose; the Church is God's.

"What a dangerous thing it is to put the Bible into the hands of repressed people. They might read it and believe it. They gave it to black slaves to make them docile, but they read it and became educated. They have given it to disabled people … gay and bisexual people.

"Who knows who they'll give it to next? But God will keep giving it to people too, until there's no more 'them', only 'us'."