February 15, 2009

Epsicopal Bishop nominee claims to be Christian and Buddhist

The headline sounds unreal doesn’t it? Well, it is accurate. As unbelievable as it sounds, Episcopal Bishop nominee, Kevin Thew Forrester, actually claims simultaneous adherence to both Christianity and Buddhism. Forrester is currently the interim Ministry Developer and Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church of Marquette, Michigan.

According to Christian News Wire, Forrester is not the first Episcopal clergyman to claim adherence to Christianity and a non-Christian religion simultaneously.

“Forrester is not the first Episcopal clergyman to hold dual faiths. In 2004, Pennsylvania priest Bill Melnyk was revealed to be a druid; while in 2007 Seattle priest Ann Holmes Redding declared that she was simultaneously an Episcopalian and a Muslim. Both Melnyk and Redding were eventually inhibited from priestly duties. Forrester's background was recently brought to light by the Anglican web site Stand Firm in Faith.”

As Religious Tolerance.org points out in its final section of its comparison of Buddhism to Christianity, Buddhism was originally a non-theistic religion and is now a polytheistic religion to many Buddhists . Hence, Buddhism and Christianity are fundamentally theologically incompatible. So one cannot correctly claim adherence to both Christianity and Buddhism any more than one can correctly claim to be both theist and atheist.

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