"THE WAR IS OVER" (?)

Last week, Bishop Edgar declared to his diocesan convention, "The war is over," meaning the legal war with the Episcopal Church is over. Find his address here . If only this were true. The schismatics in SC declared war on the Episcopal Church on Jan. 4, 2013, more than ten years ago. They sued the church in a hand-picked state court. It has been a violent roller coaster ride ever since. Everyone, except perhaps the lawyers, are longing to get off this wild ride. Unfortunately, the war is not quite over.  

The two bishops did announce a "final settlement" last year but it was hardly final. In the first place, the settlement explicitly protected the ADSC betterments suit in circuit court. This suit is going forward and, if successful, (this was the court that overturned the SCSC decision of 2017) could possibly cost the Episcopal side millions of dollars. In the second place, there are three local churches that are still in legal contention. The Episcopal diocese has petitions before the state supreme court claiming Old Saint Andrew's and Holy Cross (Stateburg). The Anglican side has a petition before the court claiming Good Shepherd's independence from the Episcopal diocese. The SCSC has been sitting on these three petitions since last September without a hint of a response. Curious that the court had no trouble in responding quickly (four months) to petitions from the schismatic side granting them the bulk of the local churches that the court had awarded to the Episcopal side in 2017. The SCSC issued sweeping decisions in April and August of last year revoking their earlier ruling on twenty-one of the local churches. Of the twenty-nine local churches the SCSC recognized as property of the Episcopal diocese in 2017, the court moved all but eight over to the breakaway side. Now, they are dragging their feet on three parishes.

Bishop Edgar made much of his friendship with the Episcopal bishop Woodliff-Stanley. Apparently this amity is rather superficial. He said that she invited him to join her in writing an editorial decrying the rampant gun violence in America. Edgar declined saying he was not "political." The "Anglicans" are oriented to vertical religion---human beings have to be "saved." This is all that really matters. The Episcopalians are oriented to horizontal religion---human beings were created in the image of God to do his work in the world. Hence, apparently Edgar thinks gun control is irrelevant while Woodliff-Stanley thinks it is an expression of the Christian life. Thus, we have two very different views of the nature and purpose of religious institutions.   

Edgar raised an interesting point in his address that he did not explain. He said his diocese had "lost" $8m in "cash assets" in the final settlement. Pray, tell us more! Exactly what were the assets and how were they "lost"? Did that money go to the Episcopal diocese, as he implied?

Of course, the breakaways are continuing on in their old mindset of thinking of themselves as the continuation of the historic diocese. Edgar referred several times to the diocese before the schism of 2012. Actually, the federal court ruled in 2019 that the Episcopal diocese is the one and only heir of the historic diocese. In fact, he issued an Injunction forbidding the breakaways from claiming to be in any way the pre-schism diocese. Moreover, they have been held in contempt of court, not once but twice, for violating the Injunction. The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina was created in 2012 at the schism. It did not exist before then; and its spokespeople had better be careful about alluding to the "Diocese of South Carolina" before 2012. That claim belongs to the Episcopal Diocese---and its has the federal court behind it. 

Edgar did point out that there is a great difference between the new Anglican and the old Episcopal dioceses. I think everyone would agree with that. 

The difference struck me clearly in Edgar's address. There was nothing there about the two great commandments, loving God and our neighbors. In fact, I did not see the word love at all. There was nothing there about making a better world for the people in need all around us. Instead, it was all about establishing "righteousness," whatever this means; he did not define the term; and "saving the lost." Again, he did not explain what this would mean in practical terms. It is clear that this new diocese has veered off far from the mainstream of historic Anglicanism toward a narrow quasi-fundamentalism. Unspoken in all of this was the homophobia and misogyny that were the actual reasons for being of the schism and the reactionary Anglican Church in North America that the ADSC is now part of. Using scripture as a screen, the schism is all about keeping gays and women from enjoying the same human rights that others have. The social reactionaries left a church that had been championing human rights for all people for more than a half-century. 

So, how has the breakaways' experiment been going? Judging from their own statistics, not very well. Between the schism of 2012 and the covid disruption of 2020-21, we can see decline across the board in the churches that broke away from the Episcopal diocese. Baptized membership fell from 23,455, in 2012, to 19, 597 in 2020, a loss of 16%. Communicants (active members) declined from 17,812, in 2012, to 11,337, in 2020, a fall of 36%. Average Sunday Attendance declined from 9,931 in 2012 to 8,215 in 2020 (pre-covid), a reduction of 17%. The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina declined seriously in every measurable category in the few years after the schism. The trajectory is clear.

The war is over? It is true that most of the legal issues have been put to rest, but in other ways the war to be waged by the new Anglican diocese is far from over. Now, the biggest war it has is with the future. A denomination established on discrimination against homosexuals and forced submission of women to men is going against history in a big way. This is the age of the great democratic revolution. Young people will not be drawn to anachronisms in this day and age, and so this socially reactionary new church will have increasing challenges of an existential nature. This is the real war the ADSC now faces; and again, it is a war of its own making.