Friday, June 5, 2009

Weekend Round-Up: Lakers take 1 - 0 series lead; Mutual Respect and Narcissistic Chaos tied 1 -1 in the Episcopal Church

Yeah, I still peek in on the Lakers. I grew up in L.A. but there is a Midwestern connection: ever wondered what the heck "Lakers" has to do with L.A.? Nothing except some nice alliteration on the tongue. But the team started out in Minneapolis, in the "Land of 10,000 Lakes."

Meanwhile, it appears that an Episcopal priest who ignored or altered the Book of Common Prayer and Church Canons to create a religion of his own will not become Bishop of Northern Michigan. Investigative reporting by Frank Lockwood and David Virtue indicates that Kevin Genpo Thew Forrester will not get the necessary 2/3 of Episcopal Bishops and Diocesan Standing Committee consents required by Canon Law.

My thanks to those here in South Dakota who helped raise the alarm about this candidate. Folks all around the Episcopal Church investigated and sounded off - a Bishop is to "guard the faith, unity and discipline" of the church, things to which Forrester showed precious little loyalty. Even very "liberal" Bishops, known to be permissive about many issues, saw Forrester's altering of the Baptismal liturgy and other actions as violating the common life of the church.

But, if you like craziness, don't worry. In New Hampshire, where Same-Sex Marriage is now legal, Bishop Gene Robinson is authorizing "marriage" rites before the Episcopal Church has even met to consider such a change. He's changing the Prayer Book, in which marriage is still one man, one woman, just as much as Forrester changed the Baptismal liturgy. Blog commenter robroy caught the news and passed it on to Jackie Bruchi at Stand Firm.

So, you have one case where Episcopal leaders of very different perspectives submitted, in mutual respect, to the existing standards of the church, and another case in which those standards don't mean a thing.

Sad to watch my denomination die, even sadder to watch it foam at the mouth and lacerate itself first.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, how did the Standing Committee of South Dakota vote?

TLF+ said...

They won't say. The Bishop (retiring) was one of the handful who voted for the Northern Michigan candidate.

Kinda knew that would happen - that's why we went "open letter." More to get the word around than to influence a pretty closed system here... although a couple of the Standing Cmte. folks were supportive of our position.