NINE YEARS
Today, the 15th day of October 2021, is the ninth anniversary of the schism in the Diocese of South Carolina. The break happened on October 15, 2012. This is an appropriate time to consider three questions: 1-What caused the schism? 2-What happened on Oct. 15, 2012? and 3-What has happened to the two parties since the break? I will have to keep these brief. Space here does not allow lengthy essays on all of these.
If you would like more explanations of these, they are available. I suggest you consult earlier postings on this blog. On May 1, 2017, I put up three long articles on What Caused the Schism in South Carolina?, parts 1, 2 and 3 (Underlying causes, direct causes, and initiating events). Or, one may consult my book, A History of the Episcopal Church Schism in South Carolina. At 300,000 words, that should provide you with everything you ever wanted to know about the schism, in detail. To mark the ninth year today, let's keep with brief summaries.
WHAT CAUSED THE SCHISM?
The schism happened when the leaders of the Diocese of South Carolina decided they could no longer remain in the Episcopal Church. The question is, Why did they decide that?
Since the 1950's, the Episcopal Church had been developing itself along the lines of the Social Gospel, especially by making sweeping changes to give equality and inclusion to social groups long marginalized or neglected in American society and in the Church. These were primarily African Americans, women, homosexuals, and the transgendered. However, starting with Bishop Allison in 1982, the Diocese of South Carolina moved in the opposite direction toward a greater evangelical, and socially conservative, bent.
The evangelical strain of Anglicanism focused on saving souls (vertical religion) rather than on the Social Gospel (horizontal religion). Although some evangelicals work for social reform, e.g. Jimmy Carter, there is still a strong belief within the evangelical community that social change should be left to God. In fact, many evangelical Christians are actually actively involved in socially and politically reactionary causes. About eighty percent of them voted for Trump in 2016 and in 2020.
Thus, for thirty years before the schism of 2012, the leaders had been directing the diocese ever more away from the mainstream of the national church. When it came time to find a new bishop, in 2006, there was a strong negative attitude toward the Episcopal Church among many of the clergy of the diocese. They looked for, and found, a like-minded candidate.
The specific issue of focus at the time was how the Episcopal Church should look on homosexuality and whether it should approve of ordaining non-celibate gays. From 1990 to 2012, the Episcopal Church moved to accept homosexuality as morally neutral, to ordain non-celibate gays, and to adopt liturgical blessing of same-sex couples. The leadership of the Diocese of South Carolina decided along the way it could not go along with these reforms and did not wish to stay in a denomination that promoted or even tolerated such. This was true even though no other diocese in the entire southeastern U.S. would go along with South Carolina. The SC schism of 2012 was unique among the twenty dioceses in Province IV of the Episcopal Church.
When the General Convention of 2012 approved of the blessing of same-sex couples, the leadership of the Diocese had had it. Right after the convention, some two dozen of them met in secret and apparently plotted to remove the diocese from the Episcopal Church. They believed, and declared, that they could take the diocese intact out of the Church and the local parishes could keep ownership of their local properties. Everyone knew that Bishop Lawrence was likely to be reprimanded for issuing quit claim deeds to all of the parishes, in flagrant disregard of the Church's Dennis Canon (1979). They resolved among themselves to allow this to happen perhaps as a way of rallying the laity in defense of the leadership. The Standing Committee secretly resolved to break the diocese away from the Episcopal Church when the presiding bishop took action against Lawrence. This is what she did on October 15, 2012 when she walked into the hidden trap.
WHAT HAPPENED ON 15 OCTOBER 2012?
At noon, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, in NYC, telephoned Bishop Mark Lawrence, in Charleston, to inform him that the Disciplinary Board for Bishops had certified that Lawrence had abandoned the Church [the quit claim deeds] and, per the canons, she was temporarily banning him from functioning as an ordained person. She asked him to keep this quiet until she could meet with him in person on 22 October. She hoped then to find a peaceful resolution.
Immediately after the call, Lawrence ignored everything the PB had said and the diocesan leadership resolved, in secret, that their standing secret plan had kicked into action. This was the schism. They took the next forty-eight hours to prepare the full transition from the Episcopal Church to independence. On 17 October the diocesan leaders declared to the world that the diocese had separated from the national Church and Lawrence informed the presiding bishop of this (we now know they did not separate the diocese from the Episcopal Church but actually created a new religious association). The PB tried repeatedly to meet with Lawrence who spurned all of her offers. He declared the diocese was no longer associated with the Episcopal Church thus there was no point in meeting with her. On 17 November, a diocesan convention gave its approval of the earlier action. On December 5, 2012, the presiding bishop issued to Lawrence a formal Release and Removal as bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina. On January 4, 2013, the breakaway group filed a lawsuit against the Episcopal Church essentially for ownership of the diocese.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE TWO PARTIES SINCE THE BREAK?
In a word, litigation, lots and lots of litigation. It has been a wild roller coaster ride of up, down and around. Unfortunately, the nine-year ride is not over even though all the riders passed exhaustion long ago.
The litigation in a nutshell: First, the secessionists won in the circuit court. The Episcopal Church appealed this to the SC Supreme Court which issued majority decisions that the Church owned 29 of the 36 parishes in question along with Camp St. Christopher. SCOTUS refused to take the case. The SCSC decision went back down to the circuit court for implementation. Instead, the circuit judge reversed the SCSC decisions and ordered the properties to the breakaways. The Church appealed this back to the SCSC. This is where the state litigation stands now.
In federal court, the Church sued, essentially, for ownership of the historic diocese. The federal district court in Charleston recognized the Church diocese as the legal heir of the historic diocese and issued an injunction forbidding the schismatic side from pretending to be the pre-2012 diocese. The breakaway side appealed this to the federal appeals court where it rests now awaiting a decision from the SCSC.
By order of the federal court, the Episcopal Church is an hierarchical organization and the Episcopal diocese is the historic diocese. At the time of the schism, contrary to their claim, the breakaways did not disassociate the diocese from the Episcopal Church. Rather, they created a new organization. Thus, the now-called Anglican Diocese of South Carolina was formed in 2012. It was the Episcopal Church diocese that was created in 1785 and continues on today.
Institutionally, the schism has been hard on the developments of the two parts. The Anglican diocese lost a third of its communicants after the schism. The Episcopal side grew modestly. Still, if we combine the two active memberships we find no more than 20,000. Before the schism, the diocese listed 27,000 communicants. That means 7,000 people disappeared from the rolls. Moreover, the schism has been expensive. The breakaway side has had two sets of lawyers to pay, diocesan and parochial. I estimate each side has paid about $1m a year for legal costs. If this is true, we are looking at $18m total spent for the litigation. Even half of that would be a shocking amount.
Nevertheless, the two sides are trying to move on. The Episcopal diocese has installed a new bishop and the Anglican contingent is about to elect a new bishop. To put it mildly, the two bishops will be taking on tremendously challenging futures.
After nine years in and out of court, the litigation is slowly grinding to resolution. The SC Supreme Court will hold a hearing on 8 December 2021 and will issue a final decision sometime afterwards. This will settle once and for all which side owns the local properties and the Camp.
I know nine years seems to be a long time for litigation, but keep in mind the case of the Ft. Worth schism took fourteen years to resolve.
Right now, our attention must turn to the election of a bishop coadjutor in the Anglican diocese. This will occur tomorrow, 16 October, and will be livestreamed. I expect to provide commentary here during the event.
So, here we are nine years out. In my personal reflection today, I must confess that at first I did not expect legal resolution would take so long. I thought maybe a few years. Too, I underestimated the depth of the animosity to the Episcopal Church among the breakaway leadership. They have gone to great lengths to deny and delay and denigrate the Episcopal Church, arguably more so than any of the other four cases of schisms. They refused a generous offer of a settlement in 2015 in which they would have gained clear ownership of the 36 local parishes. That would have ended the litigation once and for all (six years ago!). They refused to negotiate a settlement in the several encounters of mediation the courts ordered. When the state supreme court ruled in favor of the Episcopal Church and SCOTUS declined to intervene, the breakaway lawyers refused to accept defeat. Instead, they got the friendly local judge to agree with them in rejecting the SC supreme court majority decisions.
I must admit too from my perspective today that I was wrong in my early rosy prediction there would be a resolution of the schism and the two sides would rejoin. I suppose it was wishful thinking at the time. I no longer believe that will happen, at least not in the foreseeable future given all that has occurred in the nine years. Too much water has gone under the bridge. The animosities are still too strong. The secessionists have invested too much to let it go, as a bad divorce proceeding that just keeps getting uglier. Now, I expect the two sides will go their separate ways. But then, who knows? Years down the road when new generations reassess their pasts and cooler heads prevail, they may reject the schism and renew the old bonds of affection.
The schism in South Carolina was prompted by social issues. Homosexuality and gender equality and inclusion may seem impossible for agreement now, but they are not. They are no where nearly as toxic as racism has been in South Carolina. Racism, homophobia, and misogyny are all battle grounds in the modern American culture war. The public perceptions of them change continually. Years down the road they will appear differently than they do now and I suspect that generations in the future will shake their heads in dismay at the scandalous civil war in the old diocese of South Carolina.
So, we mark nine years. How many more years will there be before resolution? God only knows. We know that the Bible says Christians should not sue each other. The schism in South Carolina was a scandal and a shame. It did not have to happen. It should not have happened, but it did. This is what follows when some people think they know better then the collective wisdom of the church, that God speaks to them alone and not the church.
