Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina Convention calls for the withholding of consent to the consecration of Kevin Thew Forrester

Passed by the Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina today:

That this Diocesan Convention believes significant questions have been raised regarding the Rev. Kevin Thew Forester's faithfulness to the Doctrine of the Trinity as this Church has received it and as it is defined and articulated in the Nicene Creed; and

That on the basis of these questions Convention recommends that the Bishop and Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina withhold its consent to the consecration of the Reverend Kevin Thew Forrester to the office of Bishop in the Episcopal Church; and

That this Convention strongly encourage the Bishops and Standing Committees of all other Episcopal Dioceses carefully and thoroughly to study especially those writings, statements, and sermons of the Reverend Kevin Thew Forester pertaining to the Doctrine of the Trinity and the nature of God.

Here is the background explanation:

Explanation:

The Rev. Kevin Thew Forester has been nominated and elected to serve in the office of bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan.

We are well to be reminded that a bishop in the Church of God is “to be a guardian of the Church's faith, to lead us in confessing that faith...”(BCP pp. 519 from “The Consecration of a Bishop”)

However, in a recorded sermon delivered on Trinity Sunday posted on the St. Paul's Church, Marquette MI website, the Rev. Kevin Thew Forester preached the following:

...One of the amazing insights I have found in the interfaith dialogue is that, no matter what you name that source, from which all life comes—you can name that source God, Abba; you may name that source Yahweh; you may name that source Allah; you may name that source “the great emptiness;” you can name that source many things, but what all the faiths in their wisdom have acknowledged in the interfaith dialogue is that, you and I, we’re not the source. We receive from the source, and what we are asked to do is give back to the source. In other words, what the interfaith dialogue has recognized is that there is a Trinitarian structure to life. That’s what I’m driving at this morning. We make the Trinity much too complex. The Trinitarian structure of life is this: is that everything that is comes from the source. And you can name the source what you want to name the source. And our response to that is with hearts of gratitude and thanksgiving, to return everything back to that source, and there’s a spirit who enables that return. Everything comes from God. We give it back to God. And the spirit gives us the heart of gratitude. That is the Trinitarian nature of life. And you can be a Buddhist, you can be a Muslim, you can be a Jew, and that makes sense. And we all develop more elaborate theologies, but the truth is we live and have our being in a God who asks only one thing of us: to grow into people who give thanks that God is our center, God is our life, that we are one with God. And as we grow into realization, that we are one with this God who lives in us, and the only thing God asks us is to give back everything in thanksgiving, we live. It’s what the Syrians said, “we will know what redemption truly is, we will come alive, we will be made to live,” because we will know—not because someone told us—because we know that God gives us life. And all God asks of us is “give it back to Me in return.”

There are simply too many theological questions raised here to be confident that this is someone who will preach and uphold the apostolic Trinitarian Faith.