Gene Robinson has been invited to offer prayers at Obama’s inauguration.

Bishop Robinson said he had been reading inaugural prayers through history and was “horrified” at how “specifically and aggressively Christian they were.”

This must be the new evangelism at work: a bishop in the Christian church who is horrified by expressions of the faith that he is charged with defending.

“I am very clear,” he said, “that this will not be a Christian prayer, and I won’t be quoting Scripture or anything like that. The texts that I hold as sacred are not sacred texts for all Americans, and I want all people to feel that this is their prayer.”

When he says “The texts that I hold as sacred are not sacred texts for all Americans “ Gene provides a perfect illustration of the muddled relativistic thinking that has permeated the Anglican church. Either a text is sacred (meaning it is inspired by God) or it isn’t. If Gene held the back of his cornflakes box as sacred, that would not imbue it with any sacredness; nor does his viewing the inconvenient parts of the Bible as not sacred change the fact that they are.

Bishop Robinson said he might address the prayer to “the God of our many understandings,” language that he said he learned from the 12-step program he attended for his alcohol addiction.

Or, more accurately, “the gods of our many understandings”.