THE BISHOP-ELECT OF NORTHERN MICHIGAN

Now let’s see, some bishops of ECUSA, aka the Episcopal Church of the United States, are in a tizzy over the election of the bishop-elect of Northern Michigan.

Item: I write to share with you my decision to withhold consent to the ordination and consecration of the Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester as bishop of the Diocese of Northern Michigan.

The name of the bishop who wrote the above weighty lines is immaterial. What he wrote is very material indeed.

And we at The Study do not presume to know all the details of the case. But what we observe is part of a church hierarchy effectively condemning a fellow clergyperson because he has delved more or less seriously into practices of another spiritual discipline than his own.

Now, in my ignorance, all I seek to do here today is to observe that this same doctrinally prickly pure ECUSA seems to get along just fine with bishops who deny the Virgin Birth; the Resurrection; Miracles; heaven; hell; who question the traditional definitions of marriage as being between a man and a woman; and which is just fine with such a bishop as gene robinson of some fame, or should I say of some notoriety, or for some, even infamy.

Surely, such a church which can swallow all of the above can allow Fr. Forrester into his new office.

Or, more sadly, perhaps not.