Majority of standing committees oppose bishop-elect

The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Bethlehem decided today to withhold consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester as bishop-elect of Northern Michigan.

The vote was confirmed this evening (June 4, 2009) by committee president Canon Robert Wilkins. The committee is preparing a statement explaining the vote and hopes to have it ready tomorrow.

Fifty-six standing committees have now decided to withhold consent, while 29 have given consent, according to a survey by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock. Roughly 16 committees, including seven based outside the United States, are still in the discernment process. Another 10 or so committees have voted, but are currently declining to reveal their vote.

Barring last-minute vote-switching by dioceses across the country, Thew Forrester will not be seated by the House of Bishops. He would be the first bishop-elect to be vetoed by a majority of the Episcopal Church’s 111 standing committees since at least the 1930s.

(The election of the bishop-elect of South Carolina, the Rev. Mark Lawrence, was declared “null-and void” in 2007 because of paperwork-related “canonical deficiencies” after Lawrence reportedly had received consent from a very narrow majority of the standing committees. Lawrence was elected on the second go-round.)

Thew Forrester, the rector at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Marquette, Mich., was overwhelmingly elected bishop by representatives of the Diocese of Northern Michigan on Feb. 21. Since then, he has been heavily criticized on theological and liturgical grounds. Critics said Thew Forrester altered the denomination’s baptismal covenant to make it more closely reflect his own personal theological views. He likewise rewrote the church’s Easter Vigil and reworked the Apostles’ Creed. Critics said the changes removed or obscured key Christian teachings about the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross, the problem of sin, the will of God and the identity of Jesus as the eternally divine and only-begotten Son of God.

More here-

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