Arkansas priest committed to derailing Buddhist priest's confirmation as Episcopal bishop

VOL EXCLUSIVE

By Mary Ann Mueller in Fort Worth
VOL Special Correspondent
www.Virtueonline.org
3/10/2009

PINE BLUFF, ARK --- The Rev. Walter Van Zandt Windsor is on a mission. It is his mission to inform every standing committee in The Episcopal Church --- and a few selected other people --- that all is not kosher in the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan.

What is not kosher in the Michigan's Upper Peninsula is the elevation of The Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester to bishop from that diocese's ministry development coordinator. The fly in the ointment is that Fr. Forrester is also a practicing and lay-ordained Zen Buddhist. Fr. Windsor thinks this stinks as badly as a rotting musky on the shores of Lake Superior.

For Fr. Forrester to be confirmed as a bishop in TEC and receive the Diocese of Northern Michigan's crozier, he must have a simple majority of votes in favor of his election from both diocesan standing committees and the sitting bishops of their diocese - those bishops who are actually in charge of the diocese, not the suffragans, coadjutors, or retired bishops.

So Fr. Windsor has decided that he will help educate the standing committees in The Episcopal Church - all 100 of them - about the duel faith commitments of bishop-elect Forrester in the UP.

It is widely reported that Fr. Windsor has received a "lay Buddhist ordination". In so doing, he has taken the "Three Refuges" and pronounced the Bodhisattva vows.

According to Wikipedia the Three Refuges in Buddhism refers to the Three Jewels of Buddhism. The first jewel is Buddha, (the Awakened One) Siddhartha Gautama, a spiritual teacher who lived in India from circa 563 to 483 BC. He founded Buddhism upon his collection of spiritual teachings. These teaching are called the Dharma, the second jewel the Buddhist crown. The final jewel is the Sangha, or community of fellow Buddhists.

For Fr. Forrester to take the Three Buddhist Refuges, he had to commit himself to Buddha as the One Teacher; study and put the teachings of the Dharma into practice; and show respect for all Buddhists, especially those who are "'wearing the robe".

By taking the four Bodhisattva vows, the Northern Michigan Episcopal priest committed himself to: liberating all beings without number; uprooting endless blind passions; penetrating Dharma gates beyond measure; and attaining the way of the Buddha.

Zen brings in a deeper mediation factor to Buddhism, but the meditation is based upon sitting as the Buddha is usually portrayed. Zen emerged as a meditative practice in Buddhism in China during the Seventh Century AD. A Zen Buddhist is more interested in inward mediation than in outward study trying to achieve the Buddhist ideal of Nirvana.

Learning of the bishop-elect's Buddhist connections, Fr. Windsor, the rector of Pine Bluff's Trinity Episcopal Church says in his letter to standing committees, " I am writing you in your capacity as president of the standing committee. It is my request that you relay to the membership of that body that they consider, seriously, withholding consent to the consecration of the Rev. Thew Forrester as Bishop of Northern Michigan. While I believe the process of his election to have been flawed and reason enough to withhold consent that is not the primary concern I have. The Rev. Mr. Forrester is a practicing Buddhist, "ordained" as it were, into their "lay order." While eccentricity of this sort is to be expected amongst some of our clergy, a bishop is the defender of the Faith, and in the line of the Apostles. I believe the Rev. Forrester to have abandoned the Communion of this Church, and therefore unfit to be considered for the office of bishop."

The Pine Bluff priest also promises to send each standing committee a copy of his church's newsletter "Trinity Tidings" in which he has written an article named entitled "Repent and Zen no more" in which Fr. Windsor delineates the reasoning behind his letter writing campaign.

Pine Bluff's priest takes Fr. Forrester to task in his newsletter. In it, he repeats a challenge that the liberal TEC House of Bishops would automatically embrace "Bishop" Forrester as a good old boy and "this guy is 'one of us' and that he will fit right in."

The bishop-elect has already won the support of the Presiding Bishop. But why shouldn't he? They were classmates together at Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and he already has her stamp of approval.

Fr. Windsor is emphatic about his desire to see that Fr. Forrester's elevation to the purple shirt is derailed. He is basing his conviction on Mark 8:38 where the Lord, Himself says: "for whoever is ashamed of Me and of My Words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed, when He comes to the glory of His Father with the holy angels."

"This issue is a basic issue," the Trinity rector told VOL. "It is our calling to proclaim the Faith."

So far, Fr. Windsor has written or e-mailed his own Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas' standing committee and various other standing committees, including the Episcopal dioceses of Mississippi and the Central Gulf Coast. With three dioceses down, he now has 97 to communicate with.

The main problem in accomplishing his goal is he does not have the names of other diocesan standing committee president's or contact information for them.

In addition to the standing committees, Fr. Windsor is also communicating with certain other religious dignitaries and notable characters that he feels are important enough to have a copy of his standing committee letter. His secondary list includes the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Queen of England, TEC Presiding Bishop, the US House of Deputies and Louie Crew.

According to a spokesman from the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan, the 120-day clock will start ticking when the consent forms are released by the Presiding Bishop's office and sent to the sitting bishops and by the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan to the various standing committees. Those necessary forms have not yet been issued.

---Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline