[Georgia] An Email From Bishop Benhase On His Consent To The Glasspool [Los Angeles] Consecration

From Stand Firm by Sarah Hey:

Monday, April 12, 2010 • 7:05 am

[Received via email]

"I gave my consent to the consecration of Mary Glasspool as Bishop Suffragan for Los Angeles. I have know Mary for a long time. She has done remarkable ministry in leading congregations and is one of the most orthodox priests I have known (as was her father). I will be in Brunswick this weekend and will be glad to talk to you directly about this and answer any questions or address any concerns you may have."

Let's just note a few things for the record.

1) This is not a surprise. Bishop Benhase is a known revisionist. As was pointed out prior to his election, he practiced same-sex blessings and communion of the unbaptized, as well as had a non-celibate gay male on his parish staff. Bishop Benhase, in keeping with his being a revisionist, will behave as a revisionist behaves. There should be no hands raised in surprise or horror here.

2) He is now the bishop of a Southern diocese that has many conservative laypeople.

3) Having this revisionist bishop will -- inevitably -- mean the serious decline of this diocese, both financially and in numbers. It is a foregone conclusion.

4) As I stated when he was elected:
"One of the things that fascinates me is watching liberal clergy and laity willing to destroy their own parishes in order to have Their Gospel, one of the linchpins of which is the affirmation of one particular currently faddish sexual desire."

5) The dioceses of Upper South Carolina and Louisiana are in the very same boat with their new bishops. They have revisionist clergy, largely conservative [if sometimes very uninformed] laity, and revisionist new bishops. There will be no holding back the actions of a new bishop who simply does not share the same gospel as the majority of the laypeople. You won't be able to spin it, hope for the best, think they will "hold off" or hide it from the laypeople. It is what it is.

A man who believes a very different gospel, has utterly opposing values and foundational worldviews, does not respect the authority of Holy Scripture and instead seeks to, [when he notices it], deconstruct it in order to support his own faddish views, does not respect the tradition of the Church, does not respect the sacraments, is now in charge. And he will behave -- whether people like it or not -- in keeping with his own theology, his own beliefs, his own values, and his own gospel.

6) The supreme irony of Benhase's proclamation that Glasspool is "orthodox" won't escape anyone.

But even more important than that is that -- for Benhase's gospel, for Benhase's worldview, for Benhase's values -- Glasspool is "orthoodox" -- just as "orthodox" as a Marxist is for Karl Marx's theories, just as "orthodox" as a Stalinist is for Stalin's worldview, just as "orthodox" as an Ayn Rand follower is to Ayn Rand's views, just as "orthodox" as a Nietzschean is to Nietzsche's worldview.

The problem is ... Benhase's and Glasspool's gospel isn't the Christian Gospel. It is not the Christian faith. So Glasspool is "orthodox" for the Benhase gospel, I am sure. The two are perfect disciples -- of the Benhase/Glasspool gospel.

But that, as they say, is the problem. An "orthodox Benhase/Glasspool gospel" is not the gospel that will save souls or grow Christian churches.

And there we are.

Watching and responding to the incredible conflict that will now take place in these three dioceses where two gospels will be pitted against one another and lead to inevitable decline, conflict, and fracture, is going to be fascinating, very sad [as decline often is], and worthy of traditional Episcopalians' very best efforts.