Dispatches from the HoB/D: Assassination by Internet

from Stand Firm by Greg Griffith


I am so mad I could spit.

Friends, don't you see that if Thew Forrester is not confirmed we (TEC) will have willingly entered the brave new world of assassination by internet? Having proved it can be done; it will be done again. Perhaps it will be your candidate next time.

From now on every diocese will not only have to discern and elect a candidate, but have to also marshal resources, develop strategy, and mobilize to get their candidate past 110 potentially hostile individual diocesan examinations. (I believe there is a proposed diocesan resolution already submitted that neatly organize that very process for us.) From now on potential candidates will have to be vetted like Supreme Court nominees, that means we will find ourselves favoring people who never published a single potentially controversial thing nor had an innovative thought they shared with anybody. Can any of you guess how much it is costing our federal government in time and money right now to get the current Supreme Court nominee past Congress? Well folks, unless we learn to trust each other and give one another a little wiggle room, that's where we are heading. Can we afford it?

And those of you who wrote so seriously about Thew Forrester's faults and then spread your thinking far and wide, you clergy, especially you who are already safely bishops, how many of you would survive this sort of scrutiny should everything you ever wrote or spoke be examined by the faculties of VTS, EDS, and Trinity seminaries, with their demonstrably different and sometimes contradictory points of view? (never mind the host of bloggers who are so constantly hostile to TEC)

And you who read all that stuff, who let the innuendos and half-truths color your thinking, who let suspicion about a diocese that did things differently creep in, who jumped on the "band wagon" (It wouldn't be a standard propaganda tool if it didn't work, would it?), are you so sure you made up your own mind? Do you personally know the candidate that well?
We don't have any more feet to shoot ourselves in. Why don't we just shoot ourselves in the head and get it over with?

Did I mention I was so mad I could spit?

Tom Downs

C1, Diocese of Eastern Michigan


Tempting as it is to hand over a few of my pistols for whatever private problem-solving Tom has in mind, may I mention that no one "assassinated" Kevin Thew Forrester? If anything, this was a self-inflicted wound by Forrester. Use the search feature here at SF and you'll see a couple of brief but stinging commentaries on Forrester, but mainly you'll just find post after post of Forrester's own words. It was Forrester who killed Forrester's consents; we merely provided a forum on which he could do that.

All that said, though, Downs has a point when he wonders, "And those of you who wrote so seriously about Thew Forrester's faults and then spread your thinking far and wide, you clergy, especially you who are already safely bishops, how many of you would survive this sort of scrutiny...?" The answer is: Damned few. Those who are "safely bishops" like Walter Righter, for instance, would probably not survive scrutiny by the conservative blogs were they elected today, if indeed the Forrester consents are a sign of the times (and I'm not convinced they are); those like John Howe, who are more than orthodox enough, could expected a tough go of it from liberal and institutionalist-left standing committees (see the Lawrence consents).

More proof that we are two different religions under the roof of one church.