President-elect Barack Obama claims to desire to unify the country. In one of his notable speeches, he said, “So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible … .”

And how does he seek to do this? He invites V. Gene Robinson, pivotal figure in the ongoing dramatic disunification of the Episcopal Church in America, “to deliver the invocation at a concert held at the Lincoln Memorial. The concert, which will be held on Sunday, January 18th, is the first inaugural event the president-elect will attend.” (Source: http://www.hrc.org/11873.htm.)

For those who may not be familiar with Vicki Gene Robinson, he is the divorced, “first openly gay, non-celibate priest to be ordained a bishop” in the Episcopal Church. His ordination was the precipitating event in the decision of dozens of conservative Episcopal dioceses to split from the national denomination.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Robinson has said that “he would not use the Bible in his address because “‘While that is a holy and sacred text to me, it is not for many Americans. . . . I will be careful not to be especially Christian in my prayer. This is a prayer for the whole nation.'” Someone may want to inform the bishop that, though there are many gods, there is only one God, and He is the God of the Old and New Testaments.

If ever there were a divisive character in American church life, V. Gene Robinson is one. His open and unrepentant engagement in homosexual conduct and his public defense of homosexuality in defiance of Scripture render Robinson not merely divisive, but dangerous. Our next president, the unifier, has invited a heretic to deliver the invocation at the Lincoln Memorial.