If you go to www.episcopalchurch.org, you’ll see a greeting that includes these words: “The Episcopal Church is a big, colorful, vibrant church. … Our controversies and conversations have been public. Our governance is transparent.”

That may be true in most places. But in the dioceses of Nevada, South Dakota, Southern Virginia and Western North Carolina, the standing committees (governing boards) are refusing to tell their fellow churchgoers how they voted. For those who believe in transparency, this is a source of frustration.

Dozens of other dioceses are still in the discernment process, and will release their results when they are complete. Among U.S. standing committees who say they have already completed voting, the count is:

NO: 40
YES: 16
NOT REVEALED: 4

This is an unofficial tally. If the presiding bishop releases an official tally, I’ll post it here.

The bishop of Northern California, the Right Rev. Barry L. Beisner, is withholding consent from the election of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester as bishop-elect of Northern Michigan.

A statement explaining the decision will likely be released the week of May 18, diocesan communications director Keri Lopez said.

Meanwhile, the standing committee of Minnesota has voted to give consent to Thew Forrester’s election.

If standing committees continue to report their votes at this rate, the outcome will be clear within the next week or two.

The standing committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon has voted earlier this month, with regret, to withhold consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester as bishop of Northern Michigan, a standing committee member confirms.

Rev. Forrester served in the Diocese of Oregon and the Diocese of Eastern Oregon before moving to Northern Michigan in 2001.

“It was not an easy decision to make. Nobody’s happy about it,” the standing committee member said. But Thew Forrester’s decision to rewrite the church’s liturgies, as contained in the Book of Common Prayer, was sufficient grounds to withhold consent.

Thew Forrester changed the church’s baptismal covenant, Easter Vigil liturgy, the Eucharist liturgy and the Apostles’ Creed to reflect his own theological views.

Currently, at least 38 standing committees have voted to withhold consent [Stand Firm in Faith officials have confirmed three others, raising the total to 41.]

Only 15 standing committees say that they’ve given consent. To become a bishop, Thew Forrester will need to receive consent from at least 56 of the church’s 110 dioceses.

If Stand Firm’s projections are correct, Thew Forrester will need to receive consent from 41 of the 54 remaining standing committees in order to be approved.

Ex-archbishop, who approved $450,000 in hush money for a former sex partner, is writing a book. In it, he admits he’s gay and paints an unflattering picture of the Vatican, the New York Times reports.

h/t: Caleb Powers

[UPDATED: 5/15/09 12:57 p.m. with Fond du Lac added]
[UPDATED: 5/15/09 7:15 a.m. with Oregon added]

The vast majority of Episcopal Church standing committees in the United States are releasing the results of their votes on the consent process for the diocese of Northern Michigan — or say they’ll release them when their voting is complete.

With 22 more standing committees weighing in, here’s my count:

Committees voting for consent: 15
Committees voting against consent: 39

StandFirmInFaith.com reports that the standing committees of Eau Claire, Louisiana and Western Michigan have also decided to withhold consent, pushing the number of ‘no’ votes to 41.

All of the votes below have been confirmed this week by members of the standing committee in each diocese, with the exception of Alabama and San Diego. In Alabama, two clergy members say the bishop announced the results at a clergy meeting. In San Diego, communications director Hannah Miller confirmed the vote.

Here are the latest returns, as confirmed by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:

Missouri: No
Olympia: Yes
Arizona: No
S. Ohio: Yes
W. Kansas: No
Fort Worth: No
Kentucky: Yes
Springfield: No

Rhode Island: No
SW Virginia: No
Montana: No
E. Carolina: Yes
W. Louisiana: No
W. New York: Yes
Oklahoma: No
E. Tennessee: Yes
Albany: No
Alabama: No
San Diego: No
Central Gulf Coast: No
Northern Michigan: Yes
Oregon: No
Fond du Lac: No

The standing committees of South Dakota, W. North Carolina and Southern Virginia have already cast their votes, but have decided not to reveal their votes to the Episcopalians who live in their diocese.

Tentative dates for Standing Committee votes:
Central Florida: May 14 21
Easton: May 15
Ohio: May 18
North Carolina: May 18
Atlanta: May 18
Pittsburgh: May 18
Delaware: May 19
New Jersey: May 21
Colorado: May 21
Hawaii: May 23
Lexington: May
Alaska: Possibly May 31 or June 1
Upper South Carolina: June
Wyoming: June
Kansas: June 16

Several other dioceses are in the discernment process, but have not scheduled a vote. Some may simply not vote at all. An abstention counts as a ‘no’ vote.

Voting is already underway or has just wrapped up in Eastern Oregon, North Dakota, and Nebraska. I’m told Eastern Oregon is voting by mail, Nebraska has been voting by e-mail and North Dakota is also doing long-distance voting. In Alaska, officials are under the impression that the standing committee must meet in person to take the vote, so the plan — a standing committee member told me a couple of weeks ago — is to fly everyone in for a meeting, probably May 31 of June 1. She estimated the cost to the diocese to hold such a meeting — about $10,000.

One more note: A priest in the diocese of Alabama says Bishop Parsley told him and others that he has decided to withhold consent from bishop-elect Kevin G. Thew Forrester.

High school prom is a rite of passage, as American as apple pie. But going to the big dance at a public school got an Ohio boy suspended from his fundamentalist Baptist private Christian school. The senior, Tyler Frost, won’t be allowed to participate in his high school graduation.

The fundamentalists are unhappy with Frost because he 1.) danced, 2.) listened to rock music while he danced and 3.) held hands with his date while he danced. I kid you not.

For more, click here.

UPDATED: Monday, May 11, 2009 at 9:05 a.m. The standing committees of the dioceses of Spokane and Milwaukee have voted to give consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester as bishop of Northern Michigan, diocesan officials confirm.

Meanwhile, the standing committee of the Diocese of Florida has decided to withhold consent, according to two standing committee members. The standing committee of Iowa also voted, on May 2, to withhold consent.

The Rev. Carla McCook, secretary of Milwaukee’s standing committee, said the vote took place in April. Committee members researched Thew Forrester’s case, including his meditation practices and the way the election was handled in Northern Michigan before reaching a decision, McCook said. “No one on the committee had reservations based on the information we uncovered,” she said.

Asked about the theological and liturgical objections which have been raised regarding Thew Forrester, McCook said the standing committee didn’t have problems with Thew Forrester’s interest in Buddhism. “Buddhism is not a religion. It’s a philosophy, a way of living,” she said.

In Iowa, standing committee president the Rev. Canon Glenn Rankin, said the committee’s discussion centered on the fact that “there was only one candidate” for bishop, adding, “It was the process that was our concern.”

“After much prayer, discussion and reflection, I have decided not to give consent to the election,” writes the Right Rev. W. Michie Klusmeyer, bishop of West Virginia, in a letter posted on the diocesan website.

The standing committee has also decided to withhold consent, the bishop writes, adding: “Please pray for Fr. Forrester, the Diocese of Northern Michigan and this church.”

Meanwhile, a diocesan official in Utah confirmed today that the Rt. Rev. Carolyn Tanner Irish, bishop of Utah, and the standing Committee have both given consent. No statement has been released. If one is, I’ll post it.

My updated tally:
Bishops withholding consent: 29
Bishops giving consent: 12

In his new document, ‘Approaching the Heart of Faith,’ the bishop-elect of Northern Michigan explains more about his support for universalism — the doctrine that everyone is saved — and for the non-uniqueness of Christ’s revelation to humanity.

Much has already been written about the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester’s liturgies, how he overhauled the Book of Common Prayer’s baptismal covenant and the Easter Vigil and the Apostle’s Creed. In doing so, he removed traditional teachings — embraced by the universal church — and replaced them with his own theological beliefs.

But Thew Forrester has also revised the Eucharist liturgy, to remove doctrine that is at odds with his own. In doing so, Thew Forrester not only changes the words of the Book of Common Prayer, but the words of Jesus Christ himself [assuming, as one reader points out, that the New Testament is accurately quoting Jesus in the first place...]

The BCP quotes Jesus’ words at the Last Supper: “Drink ye all of this, for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins.”

The Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester is a universalist — teaching that all people are always and already saved and embraced by God. So in at least one Thew Forrester’s Eucharistic liturgy, Jesus says that Jesus’ blood is shed “for you and for all.”

Interestingly, the “for you and for all” language is already part of the Catholic Church’s post-Vatican II Eucharistic liturgy [and used by some Protestant churches as well.] However, there are indications that the Catholic Church is going to change the language of the English Mass from “for all” to “for many” because it is believed to be more faithful to the words of the Scriptures.

The first change (from “many” to “all”) is worthy of note. But the second change in Christ’s words are also interesting.

Thew Forrester teaches that the blood of Jesus does not redeem us or wash away our sins. So in at least one Thew Forrester liturgy Jesus’ language about Jesus dying “for the remission of sins” is omitted. Instead, the blood of Jesus is poured out so “that you may know God always holds you in tender forgiveness.”

Jesus’ death doesn’t cleanse us from sin, Thew Forrester teaches. It merely opens our eyes to our pre-existing “at-one-ment” with the divine.

“All are saved by God whose love and forgiveness are truly infinite,” Thew Forrester writes. So why was it God’s will for Jesus to die on the cross? It wasn’t, Thew Forrester has argued previously.

In his new paper, Thew Forrester says other religious leaders have shown us the same path. [And they pulled it off without being crucified]

So where in the Bible does it say that “all of the enduring religions” lead to salvation? Thew Forrester doesn’t say. But he cites Jesus Seminar fellow Marcus Borg to bolster his claim: “Rather than being the unique revelation of a way known only in him [Jesus], his life and death are the incarnation of a universal way known in all of the enduring religions.”

Thew Forrester writes: “And once again, with respect to our prayer and liturgies, we need to recognize and affirm ‘the way’ of Christ spoken of in the gospel of John is the universal path [his emphasis] of death and resurrection.”

Thew Forrester has upped the ante by writing “Approaching the Heart of Faith” and mailing it to bishops and standing committees across the United States. And it’s a high stakes gamble.

In conversations with standing committee presidents, some told me they were unaware that objections had been raised to Thew Forrester’s theological and liturgical innovations. They knew he had practiced Buddhist meditation. And they knew he had been the only candidate on the ballot when he was elected. But they were unaware that his teachings on sin, salvation, the atonement, the incarnation were causing concern in some quarters.

Now they’ll all know about the theological and liturgical concerns. We’ll know soon whether they believe these teachings are [to quote pro-KTF bishop Bruce Caldwell] “within the ballpark” of Episcopal Church theology.

The bishop of Northern California could be one of the first to weigh in. I’m told that he is currently studying the latest batch of documents and will likely reveal his decision in the next few days.

The Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan has posted a letter on its website protesting the decision of the Standing Committee of Northwest Pennsylvania to withhold consent from bishop-elect Kevin G. Thew Forrester.

The letter, written by Father Geoffrey Howson of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Fairview, asks the standing committee to reconsider its decision.

To read the letter, click here.

The Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan has posted the entire nine-page document , “Approaching the Heart of Faith,” here.

28 members of the House of Bishops say they’ll withhold consent to the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester as bishop of Northern Michigan. Eleven others say they’re giving consent, an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette survey shows. (more…)

In his new nine-page paper, the bishop-elect of Northern Michigan writes: “As we continue to uphold the BCP [Book of Common Prayer], we need to develop prayers and liturgies which tell anew the ancient wisdom of Paradise and empower us to move beyond ‘Peace by the blood of the Cross.’”

But ‘peace by the Blood of the Cross’ wasn’t coined by the authors of the Book of Common Prayer, nor was it a medieval innovation. It’s straight from the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Colossians:

Verses 19 and 20 read: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. ”

New bishops must declare that they believe the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God and to contain all things necessary for salvation. But bishops are not required to believe all of the words in the Bible are inerrant.

Ultimately, the bishops and standing committees will decide whether Colossians 1:20 is the Word of God. They’ll decide whether Episcopalians should affirm Colossians 1:20 or “move beyond” this New Testament teaching about “peace by the blood of the Cross.”

I will be posting a link to ‘Approaching the Heart of Faith,’ bishop-elect Kevin Thew Forrester’s new, nine-page paper which outlines his approach to theology.

One statement that really struck me:

“Early Eucharistic prayers never mention the crucifixion, because of its inhuman brutality.” (page 6 of “Approaching the Heart of Faith.”)

Of course the writers of the New Testament, and not just the Gospel writers, talk about the cross over and over again. They even gloried in the cross, according to Galatians 6:14.

But the rest of the early church, if Thew Forrester is correct, gathered every week to talk about and eat the broken body of Christ and to talk about and drink the shed blood of Christ, but they never talked about the crucifixion itself “because of its inhuman brutality.”

I have not been able to find any early Eucharistic prayers online. But I did find one by a guy named Hipploytus, who reportedly died in 235 A.D.

The Eucharistic Prayer of Hippolytus (d. 235 A.D.)
Gratias tibi referimus, Deus, per dilectum puerum tuum Jesum Christum, quem in ultimis temporibus misisti nobis salvatorem et redemptorem et angelum voluntatis tuae, qui est verbum tuum inseparabile, per quem omnia fecisti et bene placitum tibi fuit, misisti de caelo in matricem virginis, quique in utero habitus incarnatus est et filius tibi ostensus est, ex Spiritu Sancto et virgine natus.

Qui voluntatem tuam complens et populum sanctum tibi acquirens extendit manus cum pateretur, ut a passione liberaret eos qui in te crediderunt.

Qui cumque traderetur voluntariae passioni, ut mortem solvat et vincula diaboli dirumpat, et infernum calcet et justos illuminet, et terminum figat et resurrectionem manifestet, accipiens panem gratias tibi agens dixit: Accipite, manducate, hoc est corpus meum quod pro vobis confringetur.

Similiter et calicem dicens: Hic est sanguis meus qui pro vobis effunditur. Quando hoc facitis, meam commemorationem facitis.

Memores igitur mortis et resurrectionis eius, offerimus tibi panem et calicem, gratias tibi agentes quia nos dignos habuisti astare coram te et tibi ministrare.

Et petimus ut mittas Spiritum tuum Sanctum in oblationem sanctae ecclesiae: in unum congregans des omnibus qui percipiunt sanctis in repletionem Spiritus Sancti ad confirmationem fidei in veritate, ut te laudemus et glorificemus per puerum tuum Jesum Christum, per quem tibi gloria et honor Patri et Filio cum Sancto Spiritu in sancta ecclesia tua et nunc et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

We return thanks to you, O God, through your beloved son Jesus Christ, whom you have sent in these last days to be for us a savior and redeemer and a messenger of your will; who is your inseparable Word; through whom you made all things and who was well pleasing to you; you sent him down from heaven into the womb of the virgin, and who, held in the womb, was incarnate and was shown to be a son to you, born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin.

Who accomplishing your will and acquiring for you a holy people, he stretched out his hands when he was extended, so that by his passion he liberated those who have believed in you.
Who when he was handed over to a voluntary passion so that he would dissolve death and shatter the chains of the devil, and [so that] he would trample hell and shine on the righteous, and fix a boundary and manifest his resurrection — taking bread and giving thanks he said: “Take, eat; this is my body who is broken on your behalf.”

Likewise the chalice, saying: “This is my blood which is poured out on your behalf. As often as you do this, you do it in my commemoration.”

Therefore, mindful of his death and resurrection, we offer to you bread and chalice, giving thanks to you because you have held us worthy to stand before you and serve you.

And we ask that you would send your Holy Spirit into the offering of the holy church: gathering in one, may you give to all who partake in these sacred [mysteries] over into a filling up of the Holy Spirit for strengthening in the true faith, so that we may praise you and glorify you through your Son Jesus Christ, through whom to you be glory and honor — to the Father and the Son with the Holy Spirit in your holy church now and forever and ever. Amen.”

***************

UPDATE: 3:03 p.m. CDT — The Diocese of Northern Michigan hopes to post the document on its website, www.upepiscopal.org later today or tomorrow.

The bishop-elect of Northern Michigan, the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester, has written a nine-page defense of his theology on the Incarnation, Atonement, the Trinity, the Church and liturgy.

The standing committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan is sending the document, titled “Approaching the Heart of Faith” to standing commitees across the country.

An accompanying letter from the standing committee, dated May 1, 2009, states: “We ask that you read, reflect on, and consider his [the bishop-elect's] words. His address to you is significantly more than a sound bite or a blog bite.”

A few highlights from the report: [I'll post the exact link as soon as the Diocese of Northern Michigan posts the document]

“As we continue to uphold the BCP [Book of Common Prayer], we need to develop prayers and liturgies which tell anew the theology of the Eastern Church that God became human so that we might become god. … The church fathers and mothers, East and West, describe our journey of faith as a theosis: a human divinization.”

“As we continue to uphold the BCP, we need to develop prayers and liturgies which tell anew the ancient wisdom of Paradise and empower us to move beyond ‘Peace by the blood of the Cross.’”

“As we continue to uphold the BCP, we need to develop prayers and liturgies which tell anew the spiritual meaning of God’s grace and sin. Just as I recognize the symbolic and spiritual meaning of the Genesis myths of creation, so too I recognize the symbolic and spiritual meaning in the language of Satan and Sin. I search for ways to move beyond the inadequacy of literalism, be it with the Scriptures or The Book of Common Prayer.”

“I believe that because we are created in the image of God, we are created in the image of the Trinity. As with the Incarnation, the church, in its wisdom, has never said there is only one way to understand this mystery.”

“I pray that we may each have the humility to realize that the Spirit of God has much to teach us, and that no one theology of Christ, Trinity, church, or litugry, can ever define us or God.”

The nine-page document quotes a great number of original sources, including, at one point, the Bible, as it lays out the bishop-elect’s theology:

St. Ephrem the Syrian
St. Irenaeus
St. Athanasius
Gregory of Nazianzus
Gregory of Nyssa
Meister Eckhart
Julian of Norwich
Nicholas of Cusa
Gregory of Nazianzus
Gregory of Nazianzus
Gregory of Nazianzus
Jacob of Serugh
John 17:21
St. Anselm
Julian of Norwich
St. Ephrem the Syrian
The Tao te Ching.

A number of modern academics are also quoted, including Elaine Pagels and Marcus Borg.

Among other things, “Approaching the Heart of the Faith” outlines Thew Forrester’s reasons for rejecting the atonement theology of St. Anselm, but this, perhaps, obscures a key objection to Thew Forrester’s theology of the Cross.

In the past, Thew Forrester has argued that Christ’s death on the cross was not God’s will nor was it God’s plan. It was not preordained and it was not necessary.

The objection to Thew Forrester, on this point, is not that he disagrees with St. Anselm’s theory about why Christ’s death on the cross was necessary. The concern is that Thew Forrester rejects the notion that Christ’s death on the cross was God’s will or plan at all.

Since the very beginning, many church leaders have taught that Jesus was preordained to die on the cross to redeem humanity and that this death and resurrection was the plan of God from before the creation of the world. Over the centuries, there have been disagreements about why Jesus was preordained to die and why his death was necessary and what his death accomplished.

Some argued that his death was necessary to defeat death, hell and the grave. Just as the first Adam, by sinning, ushered death into the world, the second Adam — Jesus Christ — makes captivity captive. Corruption puts on incorruption. Eternal life is won.

Or they argued that Jesus’ death was necessary to defeat the powers of darkness and to destroy the works of the devil. Satan’s dominion is defeated through Calvary and the empty tomb, the argument goes. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, evil will no longer rule and reign. The serpent has bruised the heel, but Christ has crushed his head.

Some, including New Testament writers, portrayed Jesus as a sacrificial lamb, a “sin offering” similar to the animal sacrifices that were offered up by Israel. Indeed, a lamb “slain from the foundation of the world.”

Christ’s death was described as a ransom, redemption, a purchase, the price of salvation. Centuries later, St. Anselm later wrote extensively about substitutionary atonement further advancing the idea that Jesus had died “in our place” to satisfy divine justice.

The Roman Catholic Church (like the Anglican Communion) does not require that people embrace the theology of St. Anselm.

But the Catholic church is clear that the death of Christ on the cross was the plan of God:

“God’s saving plan was accomplished ‘once for all’ by the redemptive death of his Son Jesus Christ,” the Cathechism of the Catholic Church teaches. “Jesus’ violent death was not the result of chance in an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances, but is part of the mystery of God’s plan.”