The standing committee of the Diocese of Virginia voted last week to approve the election of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester as bishop of Northern Michigan, according to standing committee member the Rev. Susan Goff.

Updated tally:
Standing Committees voting YES to Thew Forrester: 32
Standing Committees voting NO: 61
Standing Committees not announcing their vote: 11
U.S. Standing Committees still in discernment: 1
International Standing Committees still in discernment: 6

Former Arkansas governor, presidential candidate, gets thunderous applause at a gathering of Southern Baptist ministers in Kentucky, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports.

The paper’s Faith & Works blog is all-Southern Baptist, all-the-time this week, as the 16.3 million-member Southern Baptist Convention gathers in the Bluegrass State for its annual meeting.

A standing committee member from one of the pro-Thew Forrester dioceses sent me an e-mail message, expressing her feelings about the blogosphere’s coverage of the consent process and what Thew Forrester’s loss means for the Episcopal Church. I wanted to share the highlights with you:

Many of us are grievously disappointed in how Thew Forrester has been treated and slandered — regardless of how we may feel about him, his diocese has the right to select a bishop best suited to its needs. If he’s passed the Oxford background check and there are no allegations of sexual or financial malfeasance, then the rest of us outside of Northern Michigan should keep our mouths shut!

One thought to consider…. Our diocese, like several others in the country, is in the process of the search & transition for a new bishop. As you might imagine, the episode concerning Northern Michigan has sent a chill up the spines of a few folks in the Episcopal Church. What if, at the conclusion of our grueling, intensive & expensive process, a majority of bishops and standing committees decide they don’t like our bishop-elect? How do you think that realistic fear will affect search committees around the nation?? As someone recently said… “Only the bland need apply.”

Many of us do not buy the red herring that Thew Forrester was rejected because only one candidate was offered for election. If that was the case, why was he repeatedly excoriated for his so-called “unorthodox” ways? I guarantee you, if he’d swung in the other direction (ie. being stubbornly attached to the 1928 prayer book), he’d have been approved with much less discussion. The fact is, experimentation with liturgy has been going on in dioceses around the country for a long time and no one’s been tarred-and-feathered for it until now. (Personally, I found his ecumenical and interfaith views refreshing.)

It is unfortunate that our Church has become so polarized. I wish we were more willing to give each other wider breathing room to believe and worship as our conscience and personal relationship with God dictates. And, I say this as an Equality Rights activist within the Church. I respect a parish’s right to not to embrace “all the sacraments for all the baptized.” I just wish they would give that same respect to other parishes who wish to offer same sex blessings. (I put this on a parish level because like-thinkers tend to congregate within parishes — I do not attend the local Anglo-Catholic or AMIA churches because they do not believe in the ordination of women, let alone equal rights for all baptized members. My friends who think differently than I attend those other churches. I have no doubt that God loves and blesses them as much as he does me.)

Thank you for your interest in this issue. May God continue to bless you and your work ~

The Presbyterian Church has released its membership numbers for 2008 and they’re awful.

Total membership plunged 69,381 for the year. Giving fell by $24,234,268.

The Presbyterian Church is still big — 2.1 million members and annual revenues of $2.1 billion dollars. But the numbers are grim.

Pro-democracy activists reportedly receive 18-month sentences for insulting religion in Rangoon, according to this news report.

The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Wyoming voted, quite some time ago, to consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester as bishop of Northern Michigan, a member of the standing committee confirmed today.

The updated tally:
Standing committees voting to consent to the election: 31
Standing committees voting against consent: 61
Undecided or not commenting: 19

We didn’t have much money when I was a kid — certainly not enough to waste it on one of those jumbo tubs of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Fortunately, we belonged to a church that believed in salvation, divine healing, the baptism in the Holy Ghost — and potlucks. Technically, any time two or three gather in Christ’s name and bring along homemade bean salad, pork and beans and meat loaf, it’s a potluck.

But to be a Spirit-filled finger-lickin’-good Sunday Pentecostal dinner on the grounds, there has to be at least one bucket of Col. Sanders’ regular and extra-crispy.

Partially or fully-hydrogenated chicken fat is one of the few vices that evangelicals can enjoy without feeling guilty. At least it used to be. A group of hectoring herbavores is working to change that. PETA says Southern Baptists should give up meat eating “for Jesus’ sake.”
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Both the Bishop and the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Venezuela have voted to withhold consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester as bishop-elect of Northern Michigan.

A very kind (and reliable) soul had given me a heads-up about this vote, but it’s my policy to always verify things directly with folks on the ground in the diocese itself. So I dropped an e-mail to the Right Rev. Orlando J. Guerrero and asked him if the report I had heard was true.

“Dear Frank, That’s accurate,” he responded in Spanish this morning (June 20, 2009). “After having read the information we were sent, we have voted ‘no.’ We have to struggle to contend for the catholic ‘Faith once delivered to the Saints.’ (Jude 1:3) Brotherly greetings, Reverendisimo + Orlando J. Guerrero, bishop of the Diocese of Venezuela.”

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Here’s a weird story out of Big Sky country. It’s about a group, “The Green Coalition of Gay Loggers for Jesus,” that plans to march in Bozeman, Montana on Independence Day.

The Gay Loggers march is in response to the Tea Party march that is also scheduled for July 4, according to Montana’s News Station:

“[The green group's founder] said his organization currently does not include any loggers or homosexuals, but is open to anyone.”

Bozeman is the Berkeley of Montana and the home of Montana State University.

The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Central New York voted yesterday (June 17, 2009) to withhold consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester as bishop of Northern Michigan. The would-be bishop, who altered the church’s liturgy and theology as contained in the Book of Common Prayer, is losing two-to-one, with most of the votes already cast. The deadline to cast votes is July 19.

A survey by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette of the church’s 111 dioceses and convocations finds:

Dioceses supporting Thew Forrester’s election: 30
Dioceses and convocations opposing Thew Forrester’s election: 60*
U.S. dioceses still undecided: 3
International dioceses still undecided: 7
U.S. dioceses declining to reveal their vote: 11

*Includes dioceses that are abstaining. Abstentions are counted as ‘no’ votes under canon law.

The Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal body in the United States according to pollsters, says it added adherents in 2008. It’s the 19th straight year of growth for the Springfield, Mo. based fellowship, which counts 2.9 million followers in all 50 states.
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MIAMI (AP) — A telegenic Miami priest known as “Father Oprah,” who left the Catholic Church amid an uproar over tabloid photos of him kissing his girlfriend on the beach, made the relationship official Tuesday, marrying the woman he was involved with for about two years.

The Rev. Alberto Cutie and Ruhama Canellis were married by a judge in Coral Gables, according to Miami-Dade County court records. No other details of the wedding were known.
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The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Kansas, meeting on Tuesday, June 16, voted to give consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester as bishop of Northern Michigan.

The vote was 9-1, according to diocesan communications director Melodie Woerman. The bishop of Kansas, the Right Rev. Dean Wolfe, has not yet cast his vote, Woerman added.
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With critics accusing the ruling Iranian regime of rigging this month’s election and with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets, the ruling Iranian regime and its allies have cracked down, beating and killing activists and blocking opponents’ Internet and text-messaging capabilities whenever possible.

Now, activists say, the Iranian police apparatus is trying to track down those who are using Twitter, informing the world about attrocities and human rights abuses there. Believe it or not, Twitter has become a mighty force to combat government abuses. Strong enough to frighten those in power in Iran and to trigger a social media clampdown. (See story here).

At least one Iranian pro-democracy activist has sent out an urgent request, which I received this morning. I am passing it on to you and if you pass it on to others, the message will quickly spread. This person asks for prayers and for a bit of technological assistance from computer-savvy Americans:

1. If you use Twitter, could you please temporarily change your location to TEHRAN and your time zone to GMT +3:30 in the settings of your Twitter account? And ask your friends to do the same? This will increase the virtual number of people using the Twitter from Tehran; therefore, it makes monitoring who is twitting what from Tehran more difficult for the Iranian government. This act can save lives in Iran.

A politician who spoke out against the sexual, ethical and legal shortcomings of Bill Clinton and Larry Craig is now admitting that he broke one of those Ten Commandments.

The Republican U.S. Senator’s actions apparently created a hostile work environment for at least one of his staffers — a married man whose wife was the woman allegedly committing adultery with the Senator.
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