Why Vote No in the matter of bishop-elect Kevin Thew Forrester?

I have been heartened by what many respected theologians and bishops in the Episcopal Church are saying about the election of Kevin Thew Forrester in Northern Michigan. A significant number of leading Episcopalians - particularly in the center and even left-center -- are saying that Kevin Thew Forrester's practice and theology are sufficient cause to deny consent.

To an extent not seen much in recent years, we are seeing progressives and moderate leaders standing up to say, "We are for inclusion, and a broad spectrum of folks in our Church, but we also uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Book of Common Prayer."

Notably, bishops Tom Breidenthal, Michael Curry, Ted Gulick, Paul Marshall, and Gregory Rickel have all said they are not giving consent. Breidenthal, Marshall and Rickel have published well-written epistles explaining their non-consent. These writings in my view are something all Episcopalians should read -- because they are good examples of theological reflection in the service of the faithful discharge of one's duties.

In addition to these bishops, a number of progressive and moderate laity and clergy have likewise asserted the importance of bishops-elect upholding the doctrine and discipline of the Prayer Book. Here are some quotations:

It didn't seem on my reading that +Breidenthal is using penal substitutionary atonement as a litmus test (as some do) but that he's protesting an absence of the concept of sin.
---- Derek Olsen


Bishop Breidenthal wrote, "According to Thew Forrester, Jesus revealed in his own person the way that any of us can be at one with God, if only we can overcome the blindness that prevents us from recognizing our essential unity with God. The problem here is that the death of Jesus as an atonement for our sins is completely absent, and purposely so. As I read Thew Forrester, nothing stands between us and God but our own ignorance of our closeness to God. When our eyes are opened, atonement (not for our sins, but understood as a realization of our essential unity with God) is achieved."

I live quite near the epicenter of the Unity School of Christianity, this understanding of Jesus seems quite familiar to me. It is a modern quasi-Gnosticism, in which the believer's right perception is important, and not any existential act of God in Christ. The most esoteric of the Christian mystics never denied that our unity with God is in and through Christ. Most of those who speak as Bishop Breidenthal describes never quite get to a docetic Christology; but theirs is certainly one of Jesus as Great Moral Teacher, and perhaps as Prophet, but not as Messiah.

I can't speak to the accuracy of the Bishop's interpretation, because I haven't seen the documents myself. However, if this is how Bishop Breidenthal understands Bishop-elect Thew Forrestor's Christology, I can't blame Bishop Breidenthal for choosing not to support the election.
-------Marshall Scott


If Fr. Forrester's views are as Breidenthal describes them, there is every reason to withhold consent. I know that Breidenthal is a judicious , charitable, and intelligent man. It is clear he bent over backward to give Forrester a fair hearing and was not in the end convinced. His letter acknowledges a broad, generous orthodoxy, including a variety of interpretations of the atonement, but there are some limits imposed by the basic Christian narrative and the normative exegetical-liturgical traditions as we have received them and are attempting to carry them forward as the Church in our own day. If you can't develop some positive account of what it means to assert that "Jesus died for our sins and rose for our justification," you probably can't do the job a bishop is required to do. Same thing goes for denying the bodily resurrection by the way. God's gracious initiative in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus liberates us from the power of sin and death. A bishop is fundamentally an apostle: an embodied witness to the Easter Gospel and its life-changing power.

... Forrester's failure to use the baptismal rite of the 1979 Prayer Book alone, in my view, disqualifies him from confirmation as a bishop. The Prayer Book has the force of canon law, and, while there is some latitude in how the liturgies are fleshed out, Forrester's departure seems to be of such a kind that he is no longer conforming to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church.

Sorry to disappoint some of my liberal friends, but I think Bishop Breidenthal got it more or less right.

I also think that, if as he alleges, the process in Northern Michigan, which had no proper election, is consistent with the canons, then the canons need to be amended so that this kind of thing can't happen again. I am gravely concerned that a single unopposed candidate was brought forward.
------Bill Carroll


I have read Bp Breidenthal's letter with some attention. I had also read some of the sermons to which he refers, as well as other material from Bp-elect Thew Forrester.

I approach this from the language of the canons, which requires standing committees to state that they "know of no impediment" to the consecration. This leads to a discussion of "what is an impediment." It seems to me that the impediment (if it is truly there) in this present case would be the impediment of "defective intent." Thew Forrester is not happy with the present theology of the Episcopal Church, it seems. It is not that he denies the "satisfaction theory" of the atonement, but appears to deny the need for any theology of atonement whatever, as the "division" which "at-one-ment" is designed to remedy is purely illusory -- and artifact of human imperceptions.

Just as in marriage counselling I advise couples not to marry if they are intent on "changing" their partners to become more what they wish they were (a formula for disaster in my experience) so too I do not think it wise for one to seek to take up the mantle of a guardian of the faith if one is intent on being its reformer. This is not to say we need not work for change in certain aspects of the church's life -- but the object of change the Bp-elect seems to be intent on is a "core doctrine" --- and if one cannot sign on to that core doctrine, as it stands, it seems to me that there is an instance of defective intent.

I said the same thing regarding the Bp of South Carolina in terms of intent to observe the discipline of the church; and was heartened by his eventual clarifications that he had no intent to lead his diocese out of the church. The clarifications that the Bp-elect of N.Mich. has issued to date do not offer me the same kind of assurance in view of doctrine. He really does appear to think what Bp Breidenthal perceives him to think. He is welcome to those thoughts -- but it seems to me not to commend his episcopacy.

... I think Thew Forrester reveals himself to be a more than able administrator -- I would say it is his strong suit. And if that's all that being a bishop was about, I'd say, fine. But I don't think it is unusual to expect bishops to have a theological grounding and centering in those basic Christian doctrines. (BTW, I do not think T-F is inclining in an Eastward direction (at least towards Eastern Orthodoxy) and notions of theosis -- which is always in and through Christ. He admittedly passes further east to notions of awakening, shedding of illusion, and so on. Reading his sermons was an eye-opener for me. And if it is true they've been removed from public view, that seems all the more suspicious.

So in the long run, I don't think an examination of theological views is likely to stifle the election of theologically astute bishops. To expect bishops to be articulate exponents of the church's teaching is, I think, not too much to hope for.

[Certainly]... all doctrine is subject to further examination and elucidation -- that is part of the theologian's task. But "core" doctrine is "core" because it contains the postulates of the faith, some basic affirmations upon which the rest of the doctrine is built. Which is not to say they are a closed book: to date the church as a whole has not settled on any one particular theology of the Atonement, for instance.

But when core doctrines appear to be, not just being understood in new ways (which I think is great) but dismantled or misused (T-F's explication of kenosis in one of his "responses to criticism" seems to me to be almost completely backwards); or not clearly explicated (as in his response concerning the Incarnation) then I find that there is a question about suitability for the office of bishop.

As to N.N.'s observation that the church might be wrong, I not only agree but can join the 39 Articles in affirming that it is definitely sometimes wrong. I do not think the core doctrines are under threat by gays and women -- on the contrary, I think they are being more fully realized.

..... [The issue of including GLBT Christians is very important to me] but I don't see it as having any relevance to the discussion of bishop elect Thew Forrester. Here we are dealing, not just with novel ways of expressing or exploring the old truths concerning God and the nature of God, but with what appear to be rejections of the old truths -- which are not true because they are old, but old because they are true.

We will indeed see some old things pass away (God willing) in our lifetimes; but there are also eternal realities that will stand, indeed, upon which the change in the others is dependent. This is part of what Jim is referring to as intellectual coherence.

I would welcome from Thew Forrester, for example, a clear answer -- in his own words and without resorting to quotes from anybody else -- to the question, "What essential differences do you see between Buddhism and Christianity?" I have no objection to the use of Buddhist practice, and many of the moral ideals of Buddhism are remarkably congruent with a Christian life. But it appears to me that there are important distinctions as well, and I remain troubled by what I see as some of the elements of Buddhism that do not sit well with Christianity being imported into KTF's teaching and liturgical expression. A comment on the difference between satori and salvation, for example, would be helpful -- as KTF appears to see the latter in light of the former.

It is not that I'm trying to get him to say the words I want to hear, but that I want to hear something I recognize -- in its meaning -- as at the heart of the Christian faith. I see that in Rahner, I see that in the Cappadocians -- but in spite of quoting from them I don't see it in KTF -- in his own words.
-- Tobias Haller


The Episcopal Church states that it upholds the ecumenical creeds, the canons and the apostolic succession/historic episcopate. This connects us organically to one particular set of communities out of the mix of so-called early Christianities.

It pains me to see many progressive Christians making a bee-line for ancient heresies, often without ever looking at the wide breadth of Christianities that fall entirely within credal orthodoxy.
-- Derek Olsen


A Church without core doctrine is intellectually incoherent.
------Jim Naughton