Calvin Robinson’s Behavior Reveals Deficiencies Of Anglican Leadership
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(OPINION) If you are a conservative, Bible-believing Christian, there’s a lot to like about the Rev. Calvin Robinson. Raised in England, he stood up to the liberalism of the Church of England and, as a result, that church would not ordain him.
He is a powerful communicator who puts his gifts in service of pro-life causes, the sanctity of marriage and other important issues.
Then there’s the “other” Calvin Robinson. If you’ve been following the news about Robinson this week, you probably know that Calvin Robinson, too.
That Calvin Robinson is an agent provocateur. He made what appeared to be a Nazi-like salute at a pro-life event in January. He has been fired or suspended from media and ministry jobs.
This Calvin Robinson is a guy who seems to be in love with the spotlight, but not at all in love with those in authority over him telling him what to do.
Witness, for example, his vocational journey. After the Church of England refused to ordain him, he was ordained as a deacon in the tiny Free Church of England, a conservative Confessing Anglican denomination with less than 20 congregations.
That happened in 2022. But in 2023 he joined the Nordic Catholic Church, which — according to Wikipedia — is “a conservative Old Catholic denomination of High Church Lutheran patrimony.”
That church ordained him as a priest. But his tenure there did not last long. In 2024, he came to the U.S. and was a priest in the Anglican Catholic Church.
But then, in January, came the controversial gesture that some said looked too much like a Nazi salute. The Anglican Catholic Church removed Robinson from ministry four days later.
Robinson then went “bishop shopping,” and earlier this month was granted a temporary license by the Reformed Episcopal Church, part of the Anglican Church in North America.
But that ended up not being the end of the story. Nine days later, this week, the Reformed Episcopal Church revoked his license to be a priest.
If you’re keeping score, that’s five denominations in three years.
Prior to and concurrent with these denominational permutations, Robinson was also pursuing a parallel career in politics and media. He ran unsuccessfully for local political office as a Conservative Party candidate in his native England in 2016 and 2018.
The Brexit Party named him its candidate in the 2019 general election.
His media ventures included hosting a talk show for the conservative British news channel GB News. That gig lasted about a year, until Robinson was suspended for supporting another GB News host who had been fired for misogynistic comments.
Robinson also owns the gaming site “God is a Geek,” though in January of this year, the staff of the website quit and issued a statement that read, in part, “To be absolutely clear, we do not support, share, or condone Calvin Robinson’s politics or actions.”
Calvin Robinson speaks at the 2023 AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)
Since coming to the United States, Robinson has been making the rounds in evangelical spaces. The National Pro-Life Summit at which he made the controversial Nazi-like gesture was sponsored by Focus on the Family, Alliance Defending Freedom, The Heritage Foundation and many others. He spoke at the 2024 Colson Center National Conference, as well as the 2024 Mere Anglicanism conference, an influential conference of conservative Anglicans.
I should be clear that I agree with much of what Calvin Robinson has to say. His critique of liberalism is spot-on. His forceful pro-life stands have energized and encouraged me and many others in the movement. I also think he has been treated poorly, even maliciously, by the Church of England and others.
Robinson’s treatment by the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in North America was not so much malicious as simply incompetent. As an Anglican myself, and someone who has great hope for the potential of ACNA to be a positive force in evangelicalism, this episode has been discouraging. It highlights how far ACNA has to go in order to get its polity and canons, its ecclesiology and structures in order, and it also highlights how poorly equipped current leadership is for these tasks.
That said, it is a mistake to elevate Calvin Robinson to the status of hero. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, I want to point out that Robinson is not yet 40 years of age, and he has been in full-time ministry for less than five years.
His behavior of the past few years has demonstrated both a sharp mind and an enormous gift for communication, but also an unseemly appetite for controversy and the limelight.
The only good news here is that Robinson announced he would resume his priestly duties at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Grand Rapids, where he has been serving as rector since last fall.
Now that Robinson’s license has been revoked again, it’s not clear how he can resume his duties in a system that requires an ordained priest in good standing with his bishop to administer the sacraments.
Still, I hope the parties involved here can work something out. The Anglican Church in North America needs someone with Calvin Robinson’s gifts. And Robinson needs a mentor. He needs accountability and structure. He needs to show up in a pulpit every Sunday morning to preach to people he knows, and who know him, not to thousands of people he doesn’t know at a conference that hired him for the spectacle he might create.
So, again, the Calvin Robinson debacle has been discouraging for those of us who care about the peace and purity of the church. But it also creates an opportunity, and that opportunity is for both Anglicanism here in North America, as well as one of its most gifted young leaders to … well … grow up.
This article was originally published at MinistryWatch.
Warren Cole Smith is the editor in chief of Ministry Watch and previously served as Vice President of WORLD News Group, publisher of WORLD Magazine and has more than 30 years of experience as a writer, editor, marketing professional, and entrepreneur. Before launching a career in Christian journalism 20 years ago, Smith spent more than seven years as the Marketing Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers.