Throughout his career as an Episcopal priest, [Scott] Benhase has entered parishes in which a heated issue has members at odds.
Bridging the spiritual divide requires patience, he said.
“When we’re in dilemmas, the worst thing we can do is try to force a resolution before one appears,” Benhase said. “I think God’s m.o. (modus operandi) and the holy spirit’s m.o. throughout this for the church is that if we remain faithful and stay together and bare one another’s burdens long enough, the holy spirit almost always has a tendency to provide a way forward.”
Soon, the Ohio native will apply that strategy on a larger scale.
On Jan. 23, Benhase will be consecrated as the 10th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia in a formal ceremony taking place at the Savannah International Trade & Convention Center.
[i]”{The Episcopal} church has acted with humility in faith,” … he said in an August sermon to members of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.[/i]
It has? Has he been watching the same Episcopal Church that I have?
I haven’t seen much humility on the part of 815 on this issue.
Jim Elliott <>< Florida
To call this profile/article a “puff piece” would give it gravity. The local press (I am a native Savannhian) has been on the TEC side of matters since the beginning. Note how the faithful people of Christ Church are condemned and the sexuality angle is played for all it is worth.
I pray daily for the Rev Mark Robertson and the people of the real Christ Church. I also pray that St John’s Church would finally go out and at least rent some courage and take on the DoG. I had many friends at St John’s and am very disappointed that they do not seem to have the courage of their stated convictions.
Dear people of St John’s: That rumble you hear is Bill Ralston rolling in his grave.
Read it and weep takes on a uniquely special meaning here. It feels a bit like water torture to try to forebear. Yes, Father Ralston and countless other faithful members of St. John’s now departed are rolling in their graves. There hasn’t been a time since Father Ralston’s lifetime that his message hasn’t been
stated, restated and re-affirmed. Please continue to pray for St. John’s. There may be that moment when the faithful can go no further without committing spiritual adultery.
This surely shows how far apart folks are in our church. How else can one describe the actions of the Episcopal Church than forcing “a resolution”. The Communion has repeatedly stated no part of the church has the right on it’s own to change what is the doctrine of the whole church. Nevertheless the General Convention has “prophetically” pressed forward.
Forcing the answer is an EcUSA/tEc speciality. This comment alone should disqualify the bishop-elect on the grounds of wilful ignorance. Of course it won’t as it is the ice-sculpture for the summer party of go-along to get along, in the Savannah climate.
Here we have a clear case of manifestly false things being said to the press by people in the ascendent party. E.g. his claims that TEC has acted with great humility, that TEC has been lovingly bearing the burdens of traditionalists, that TEC has been carefully avoiding forcing a resolution. I have a good friend in TEC who ultimately favors SSUs and gay ordinations, but he would agree these claims by the bishop-elect are manifestly false.
I’ve asked this question before, but I’ll ask it again — because truly I really don’t know the answer. Which is more likely in your all’s opinion — that the B-E is insane, and his ideological programming has so affected his mind that he can honestly believe six impossibile things before breakfast (thank you Lewis Carroll)? Or that he is here deliberately stating falsehoods — in a word “lying”? Is a liar or a lunatic? (We’ll exclude the third possibility usually given in the Trilemma.)
This is an honest question on my part, and is of great interest to me; and in a way doesn’t involve the PERSON of the B-E at all. Rather I see this happening over and over again — whether it is manifestly false claims coming out of 815, or out of bishops like Bruno, or wherever. Note that I am excluding statements like “God approves of SSUs” — which may be be false but are not so obviously false that any sane honest person would see them as false. Whereas it simply CAN’T be true that 815 is tenderly bearing the burdens of conservatives while it is suing them for all they are worth and deposing them.
#6 Good question. He sees the struggle as one between virulent fundamentalism (Baptists?) and atheists. The Diocese of Georgia has provided a reappaiser presence in rural areas. This is seen as an end in itself despite the failure of the missions to grow. He will fit in well.
I am a simple lay member of St. John’s in Savannah. The sacrifices our priests have made during and after Father Ralston’s tenure have been immeasurable. They have endured for 40 years challenges to their ministry while the rest of the Church has gone its way with new liturgy and new doctrine. At each and every turn each Rector has spoken out with courage and with integrity. Each has paid his own personal price for being our Rector. It saddens me that a member of our own parish is quoted in this article. It misrepresents the deep agony that is being felt.
General Convention does not represent what the Holy Spirit is doing in our time. There are 500,000,000 charismatic and pentcostal christians who were non-existent at the beginning of the 20th century. What about that? I’ll take his bet that there are a lot of folks who want what TEC is offering. The numbers indicate otherwise but then all is well and we are not reproducing offspring, etc.
the link has been changed:
http://savannahnow.com/accent/2010-01-16/different-way-being-christian
One note: Skip Jennings, who was interviewed for the article, is the husband of Stacy Jennings, VP of Marketing for the Savannah Morning News.
What does Benhase intend to do about the litigation against CC? I am assuming it will go on…..:(
#10, according to his exact words at the candidate walk-about in Albany, GA last fall, the litigation would continue strongly under his leadership. He said, “just because you get mad and disgree, you can leave the church, but you can’t expect to take the candlesticks with you.”
if the diocese had paid for the candlesticks (or anything else), his point would be valid. but it has not.
Chris: I’ve paid for a lot of stuff in churches that I’ve left. I never had the idea I could take any of it with me when I departed. Where did this idea get started?
Re Dan Brown’s snide comment about “courage”: The people of St. John’s have been very supportive of the Christ Church flock on Bull Street, and I for one have grown weary of the stones hurled in our direction, the questions demanding why St. John’s hasn’t left the diocese, the comments like many of those above, saying the we do not have “the courage of our convictions” and so forth. Please remove the motes from your own eyes. While St. John’s has been faithfully worshipping according to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, has refused to recognize the validity of the purported ordinations of deaconesses and priestesses, has not permitted female acolytes, has continued to use the Hymnal 1940 (instead of the 1982 inclusive-language hymnal and the other non-traditional songbooks), Christ Church adopted all those innovations and more. Those who say that Father Ralston is spinning in his grave at St. John’s failure to leave ECUSA do not know him very well. While he would have condemned vehemently the heresies and greed of ECUSA, would have been disgusted at and heartbroken by it, he never would have encouraged our subscribing to a group that from its inception has approved and accepted the theological innovations and flaws of the 1979 Prayer Book, 1982 hymnal, porto-altars, and female ordination.
#14 My comment was not snide or demeaning.
St John’s IMO has talked the talk but not walked the walk. There are many who have done both. The problem as I see it is that all you folks are doing is postponing the inevitable. Time will come when everyone and I mean everyone in TEC will have to make a decision to go or stay. There is no middle-ground anymore (if there ever was any.)
Coming to a Diocese of Georgia Church near you?
Wicca’s Invitation
Pagan practices are meeting with an increasingly receptive audience in the Episcopal Church. Is it the consequence of an unmet need?
Jeff Walton
January 14, 2010
http://www.theird.org/Page.aspx?pid=1333
The author of Cron liturgies published in the Washington DC Diocesan publication is a member of St Alban’s, Bishop-Elect Benhase’s former parish.
I have been so impressed and led by Bishop Lawrence in South Carolina; yet when I attend DoSC churches I am disappointed at how the liturgies and sacraments have often been deconstructed. The problems began long before KJS. The remedies must reach back farther than just a few years. There has been too much ‘going along to get along’ since the 1979 BCP.
There are pockets of resistance in almost every church and diocese. And thanks be to God for the few bishops and priests who have held forth to pastor those. God has not left us without witnesses.
I am in ACNA because in my local context, there’s no other option. If I lived anywhere near Savannah, I’d have my letter transferred to St. John’s so fast it’d make your head spin. I’ve worshipped there and found it the most meaningful worship experience I’ve encountered in many a year. Keep up the good work Fr. Dunbar and good people of St. John’s. Your’s is a lonely fight but at least this one ACNAian honors you for keeping the flag of the true Anglican Way flying. May God bless and protect you and may your ministry prosper for ages to come.
Evan, where are you? Are you in Georgia? Just curious.
Cranmerian,
I’m in Kentucky, but when I’m at Hilton Head Island I worship at St. John’s, Savannah.