A polemical clergyman with a fiercely devoted online following and a history of burned bridges is once again preaching and celebrating the eucharist after receiving a license to minister by a bishop of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), to the concern of the denomination’s archbishop.

Fr. Calvin Robinson, a British priest serving in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has cultivated an audience in post-liberal circles on the American political Right, cheered for his eager denunciations of “woke” culture and for a rousing defense of traditional church teaching.

He also has a history of brief service that has seen him minister within five different church jurisdictions across the span of as many years, including the Church of England, the Free Church of England, the Nordic Catholic Church, and the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC).

Several of those past relationships have had a tumultuous ending, with Robinson dismissed by conservative outlet GB News in October of 2023 and disinvited from a concluding panel at the Mere Anglicanism conference. Robinson vigorously contests each bridge-burning, insisting that he always “keeps receipts” and charging that past negative communications disclosed by others lack necessary context. He characterizes the tumult in his wake as opposition from the devil that validates the effectiveness of his ministry.

Robinson’s license to minister was suspended on January 30 by the ACC, a small Anglo-Catholic denomination, following a speaking engagement at the National Pro-Life Summit in Washington, D.C. At the event, Robinson mimicked businessman and presidential advisor Elon Musk in offering a salute that detractors claim is fascist (Robinson has stated that the salute was “a cheeky head nod” and has since apologized). ACC Archbishop Mark Haverland quickly revoked Robinson’s license on the grounds that the priest was “continuing to act as a political social media personality” after numerous private admonishments and “that such activity was inconsistent with priestly ministry.”

Robinson’s parish, St. Paul’s Anglican in Grand Rapids, Michigan, continued without Robinson able to preach or to celebrate public mass. On May 4, the congregation voted to separate from the ACC and “is currently seeking another church body with which to affiliate” according to the parish website.

On May 5, Reformed Episcopal Church (REC) Presiding Bishop Ray Sutton issued a license for Robinson to minister, which began circulating on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, May 12. 

In a telephone interview with IRD, Sutton confirmed the license and stated that he had agreed to provide personal episcopal oversight to St. Paul’s Anglican Church while the congregation determines its future affiliation. Sutton stated that Robinson was ordained to the diaconate by the REC’s sister church, the Free Church of England, and that he has a “temporary” license to minister, but is still on the rolls of the Anglican Catholic Church. The REC bishop clarified that neither the parish nor Robinson have joined the REC or, by extension, the ACNA of which the REC is a founding jurisdiction.

Within hours, the Anglican Church in North America circulated a statement to the denomination’s College of Bishops, since made public, about Robinson’s licensure.

“I do not personally believe The Rev. Robinson is a good representative of the Anglican Church in North America,” Archbishop Steve Wood wrote, with the ACNA statement referencing the earlier ACC revocation of Robinson’s license due to circumstances including “a habit of speaking rashly” and “allegedly making statements that were anti-semitic, or in sympathy with anti-semitic groups.”

Robinson’s religious associates often vary significantly from his own Catholic theology and instead center around shared illiberal political views. These have included a Christian Nationalism that questions principles of classical liberty undergirding the American Founding and even, in some cases, the Protestant Reformation itself as a direct path to a failed liberalism.

Robinson has maintained a busy speaking schedule in recent months, appearing at the Right Response Conference in Dallas, Texas, on April 4. Themed “Christ Is King: How To Defeat Trashworld” the conference featured Protestant speakers like Pastor Joel Webbon arguing for a confessional state without pluralism in which the government suppresses false doctrine and the church occupies a privileged place in civil society.

Right Response is organized by pastors deeply in the Reformed camp, whereas Robinson regards himself as a Catholic priest with Anglican patrimony (Robinson at Mere Anglicanism rejected Martin Luther for “removing the authority of the Church Universal, magisterium, papacy.”) In March, Robinson participated in a dinner and service of eucharistic adoration at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida organized by the group Catholics for Catholics, an organization dedicated to “fight alongside frontline culture warriors who love God and the USA.” The event was headlined by Bishop Joseph Strickland, formerly the bishop of Tyler, Texas who was removed from the governance of his diocese in 2023 by Pope Francis following a Vatican-mandated investigation.

Robinson continues to make unexpected theological bedfellows, celebrating a Latin mass soon after his licensure by the REC, a jurisdiction that upholds the 39 Articles of Religion, including Article 24 that states “public Prayer in the Church, or to minister the Sacraments, in a tongue not understanded of the people” is “a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God.”

Sutton explained that Robinson remains on the rolls of the ACC even as he has been licensed but is not canonically resident within the REC. That is at odds with what Robinson told online followers the same day in a May 12 video message that he submitted his resignation to the Anglican Catholic Church on Monday.

“I received a license from the denomination in which the church [St. Paul’s] has entered,” Robinson said of his licensure by Sutton, who was unnamed (both Sutton and the ACNA Archbishop’s office tell IRD that the parish remains unaffiliated and has not joined the REC or, by extension, the ACNA). Robinson noted that the arrangement is temporary, but needed so that the church can receive sacramental ministry, which it has not had during the revocation of his license to minister.

“I happen to have been re-licensed in the church in which I began my ministry,” Robinson stated, insisting that he was not “church hopping.” Both the REC and the Free Church of England, in which Robinson was ordained to the diaconate, have intercommunion agreements recognizing each other’s ministry and sacraments.

“We’ll see how this goes,” Sutton surmised in the telephone interview, noting that Robinson’s license is specific to service at St. Paul’s Anglican Church for one calendar year.