Bishop Robert Griffin, D.Min. was born in 1967, son of sharecroppers, the youngest of 14 children, in Troy, Alabama. Robert is the Executive Minister of Sunshine Cathedral in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. With local and online constituents numbering multiple thousands per week, Sunshine Cathedral bills itself as the world’s leading progressive Queer church.
As a Religious Programming Specialist in the U.S. Navy, Robert managed chapels on military bases for a decade. As he was transitioning to civilian life, Robert planted a church in Hagerstown, Maryland which he pastored for over 8 years. While at New Light MCC in Hagerstown, he also spent two years as the HIV Field Coordinator for Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC). He went on to be a special assistant to two regional elders (“bishops”), consecutively, and then to the Presiding Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches. Moreover, Bishop Robert voluntarily oversaw the digitalization of several years’ worth of MCC publications.
In 2006 Robert joined the staff of the Sunshine Cathedral, first overseeing their religious education program (Dean of Light University, later renamed The Samaritan Institute), and then their social justice ministries; later he served as the Cathedral’s Chief Operations Officer, and finally he became the Executive Minister. When he was Dean of Light University, he successfully led the effort to get the school certified by the state to grant religious degrees.
Robert for many years was a faculty member of MCC’s Orientation to Pastoral Ministry program and then for postulant intensive courses helping clergy aspirants map their educational and spiritual paths to ordained ministry. Bishop Griffin is a contributor to The Essence of Ministry (VTS).
As a teen, Robert studied at Samford University while working at a supermarket and finishing high school. He also trained for ministry at a “teaching church” and was licensed as a Baptist minister. Since then, Robert earned his M.Div. degree from Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) and D.Min. from the Florida Center for Theological Studies (DMin). He is a former trustee of EDS and a former governing board member for MCC (ending his tenure in the position of Vice-Chair).
At EDS, Robert served one term as a teaching assistant to world renown feminist theologian Carter Heyward. Additionally, Bishop Robert is an alum of the Rockwood Leadership Institute and holds a certificate in church management from Villanova University. In addition to his formal education, Robert has been coached for decades by leadership expert Rev. Elder Don Eastman.
Robert has been honored with the Otis Charles Preaching Prize (EDS) and the MCC People of African Descent Pioneer Award. In 2025, Bishop Robert was given Legacy’s Juneteenth Community Visionary Award. In the 80s he attended Louise Hay’s famous “Hay Ride” where he learned metaphysical principles to optimize health and happiness.
Bishop Robert has served with Bishop Pat Bumgardner on the Public Policy Team and since almost its inception, with the Global Justice Institute, for which he is now an Auxiliary Bishop and a liaison to the Caribbean and Africa.
Dr. Griffin received notoriety for his interviews in Jamaican media and for being featured in a Public Broadcasting special as an activist for religious affirmation of Queer people in the Caribbean.
Bishop Robert met his life partner, Bishop Durrell Watkins, in Denton, Texas in 1996. They became a couple in 2000 and have been together since. They were legally married at the Sunshine Cathedral in 2015. The eleven co-officiants of the ceremony included the retired Vice-Moderator of MCC, the Reverend Elder Don Eastman, DHL, Jewish Rabbi (Reconstructionist) Noah Kitty, Divine Science minister Rev. Cindy Lippert, MRE, and Episcopal Hebrew Bible Scholar Rev. Wil Gafney, Ph.D.
In 2019, Durrell and Robert accepted a gay foreign exchange student from Brazil (Mario). Mario became part of their family, and they went from being his “American Gay dads” to being simply his “dads.” The family remains close and happy.
Bishop Robert and his husband, Bishop Durrell Watkins, serve in ministry as a team both at Sunshine Cathedral and with the Global Justice Institute. Bishop Robert is a co-host of the Queer God Squad on the Happening Out Television Network and is the Producer of Divine Science Everywhere on the New Thought Media Network. He is also the Managing Director of the Sunshine Cathedral Center for the Performing Arts.
Bishop Griffin has overseen mission work in Jamaica, has been a volunteer chaplain for the North Miami Police Department, served on a hospital Ethics Committee, and has organized multiple conferences.
(This biographical statement was submitted by Bishop Robert Griffin.)