Members of All Saints Sisters of the Poor, an Episcopal Church-affiliated convent near Baltimore, are leaving the denomination after 137 years.

“We tried to be faithful in The Episcopal Church as we understand scriptures, but we seem to be drifting farther and farther apart,” Mother Christina told The Living Church. “For the past two years in particular we felt as if we were no longer making a difference in this church. We felt as if we no longer belong.”

Almost all of the sisters will be uniting with the Roman Catholic Church later this year.

No word yet on whether the Episcopal Church will bring a lawsuit, seeking to evict the (mostly) elderly women from the premises.

To read more, click here.

The vast majority of Episcopal Church dioceses are revealing their votes on the confirmation of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester as bishop of Northern Michigan.

Only 11 are withholding the information. They are: Connecticut, Nevada, New Hampshire, Lexington, Long Island, Michigan, Rochester, Western North Carolina, South Dakota, Southern Virginia and Western Massachusetts.

If anyone has information on these standing committee votes, please e-mail me at flockwood@arkansasonline.com

At a time when parishes are closing and budgets are being slashed, the Anglican Communion is spending $1.5 million for a “listening process” about homosexuality, scripture and theology.

Who is paying? Initially, the Episcopal News Service said the money was coming from the Satcher Health Leadership Institute Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. Now, the American Anglican Council is challenging that claim.

As they like to say: Follow the money. Somebody is paying a fortune to pay for these conversations. And they’re not disinterested parties, AAC says.

Some of this stuff is jaw-dropping — especially the religious “expert” who claims Jesus had no problem with older men having non-consensual sex with underage servants.

Please read Ralinda Gregor’s story and let me know what you think.

The Standing Committee of the Navajoland missionary diocese has not met to consider the fitness of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester to serve as bishop-elect of Northern Michigan, and no standing committee meeting is scheduled to take place before the July 19 deadline, a diocesan official said.

As a result, Navajoland will abstain from voting, barring a last-minute change of heart, the official said.

An abstention counts as a “no” vote.
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ANALYSIS –

Week before last, facing criticism, the Episcopal Church quietly removed its transparent governance pledge from the front page of its website — IAmEpiscopalian.org

The church’s top PR person said the pledge had been deleted [some time during the week of May 31] so that there’d be room for a Spanish translation to be posted. But today, roughly 11 days after the language disappeared, there’s still not a single word of Spanish on the site.

Which raises a couple of questions. 1.) How hard is it, in a city with 8.3 million people, to find a Spanish speaker to translate a 130-word statement from English into Spanish?

2.) If the change was really about making the site accessible for Spanish speakers, why was the English-language transparency pledge removed at least a week and a half before Spanish text was available?

3.) Are the problems in the communications office at the Episcopal Church, as outlined in a 2009 official report, getting worse or getting better?

In a letter to the presiding bishop, Episcopal Communicators president Jim Dela says changes are needed:

“Those in charge of [the denomination's national] media relations must lose the combative attitude toward both secular and church press that was exhibited at General Convention 2006.

Episcopal Communicators received numerous complaints from its membership, as well as from the secular press, for the uncooperative and, at times, hostile attitude of the Church Center’s communication staff. They ranged from accredited journalists not being allowed access to their own press area, to red-vested volunteers deliberately standing in front of photographers during events — church media seemed to be specific targets — in an apparent attempt to restrict coverage.”

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On a live radio interview Wiley Drake, a Southern Baptist preacher in Southern California, said he is praying for the death of President Barack Obama, according to numerous media reports, including this one from BaptistStandard.com

Drake, a former Southern Baptist Convention elected official, said he had also been praying for the death of an abortionist who was gunned down recently.

Here’s my question: The Southern Baptist Convention more or less excommunicates Southern Baptists who welcome gays, women preachers or people who speak in tongues. Will they cut ties to a man who curses the president and rejoices when gunshots ring out in a house of worship? The SBC is meeting in Louisville later this month. We’ll know soon whether they’re willing to speak out against Drake…

A faithful reader from Lexington, Ky. sent me this religion story from the New York Times’ Fashion and Style section and asked me to help him answer a deep theological question: Why, exactly, is this religion story on the New York Times’ fashion and style page?

After reading it, I haven’t a clue. The Lord — and The New York Times — work in mysterious ways.

If you’ve got any theories, feel free to post them.

There’s a new story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on the consent vote and reaction to it.

Retired Bishop of Eastern Oregon Rustin Kimsey, in an April interview, said today’s Episcopal Church is more alarmed by theological innovation than it was decades ago.

“At least some bishops are feeling that their primary call is to protect the faith from error. I think that’s always a dangerous place to be,” Kimsey said.

Please note: With Upper South Carolina voting ‘no’ today, the updated count is 58 ‘no’ and 29 ‘yes.’ The story was published before Upper S.C. had cast its vote.

“

The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Upper South Carolina voted today (Saturday, June 13, 2009) to withhold consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester as the bishop of Northern Michigan, a standing committee member confirms. The current tally:

Dioceses supporting Thew Forrester: 29
Dioceses opposing Thew Forrester: 59
Dioceses pending or not reporting: 23

Central New York and Wyoming are expected to vote later this week (the week of June 14th, 2009).

Boy, this is a scary story. Somebody got a hold of the password for a Twitter account at The Deseret News, a daily Salt Lake City, Utah newspaper that is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The hacker apparently changed the password to lock out the account’s true owners. Then he started posting anti-Mormon propaganda via Twitter.
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In interviews with national religion journalists, Bishop-elect Kevin G. Thew Forrester and the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Northern Michigan aren’t conceding defeat. They’re declining to confirm or deny reports that a majority of the standing committees have decided to withhold consent and they’re vowing to “respect the process” until the entire 120-day voting period wraps up in mid-July.

But in the Upper Peninsula, they’re spreading the word that defeat appears certain.
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America’s prettiest anti-gay-marriage spokesmodel has been fired as Miss California USA by that great paragon of American virtue, Donald Trump.

I don’t watch beauty pageants, so when I heard that a certain Ms. Prejean was under fire for her views on marriage, I thought to myself: “Why would anybody want to pick on that nice, elderly Catholic anti-capital-punishment “Dead Man Walking” lady. …
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Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a pariah these days, at least in the corridors of the White House, and he says he knows who is to blame:

“Them Jews.” (Click here for more Jeremiah Wright coverage.)
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Over at Episcopal Cafe, Pluralist Speaks creator Adrian Worsfold offers an interesting defense of Northern Michigan bishop-elect Kevin G. Thew Forrester.

Worsfold’s argument will be instantly recognizable to anyone who closely followed the election of New Hampshire Gene Robinson in 2003.
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The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Bethlehem has issued a statement explaining why it withheld consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester as bishop-elect of Northern Michigan.

If you want to know why a majority (at least 57 of 111) standing committees have voted to deny Thew Forrester a bishop’s staff, this essay will be extremely helpful.

Here a few key passages:

“Our final vote was a solemn and sad moment, but one that we believe is correct for our Church. Initially the main concern expressed by members was about the process of Thew-Forrester’s election. But in the end, the decision came down to the bishop-elect espousing a theology that does not uphold the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Episcopal Church.”
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