INTERPRETING THE SCHISM IN SC---

A DECADE OUT, PART 3

In Part I of this series, we looked at the status of the schism today and in Part II at the place of the schism in the big picture of the contemporary American culture war. In this part, let us take a closer look at what has happened in the decade since the division and reflect on what the future might hold.

Litigation

On January 4, 2013, the schismatic faction filed a lawsuit in a state circuit court essentially claiming ownership of the diocese. In the decade since, the suit has been before the circuit court twice and the South Carolina Supreme Court twice. After all this time and countless court proceedings, the case is still not settled. Neither the circuit court nor the SC supreme court has finished the case. The supreme court still has to resolve the dispositions of three parishes and the circuit court still has before it a corollary case, the schismatics' betterments suit against TEC claiming compensation for improvements in the parishes returned to the Episcopal diocese. The "final settlement" of the two bishops last August left all of these issues open.

To me, the biggest surprise, and disappointment, of this decade of schism has been the erratic, strange and even at times bizarre performances of the state courts in the church suits. First, a circuit court issued an order that gave all to the breakaway side ridiculously declaring the Episcopal Church to be congregational. This went to the state supreme court which held a hearing tossing the circuit decision out the window then taking nearly two years to issue a new decision. It gave the bulk of the properties to the Episcopal Church along with Camp St. Christopher. The SCSC then sent this by Remittitur back down to the circuit court which fumbled about for more than two years before discarding the SCSC decision and replacing it with the first circuit court decision. The case went back to the SCSC which held a hearing dismissing the circuit court's order while defending the process. The justices discarded the SCSC's own 2017 majority opinion recognizing TEC ownership of 29 of the 36 parishes in question and substituted their own one-by-one judgment on whether the individual parishes had acceded to or adopted the Dennis Canon. In April of 2022, the SCSC ruled that 15 of the 29 owned their own property and declared the case closed. Four months later they issued another order removing another 6 from TEC ownership. In the end, the SCSC left 8 of the 29 it had judged in 2017 for TEC. For the last 7 months, the SCSC has been sitting on motions for 3 parishes. Chaos is the word that comes to mind.

All of this calls into question the competency and professionalism of the SC state courts. It also calls into question the impact of all this on future jurisprudence in the state. The supreme court allowed a lower court to reject a Remittitur and accepted the lower court's replacement a high court decision. The justices then discarded majority decisions their own court had issued five years earlier to reverse the bulk of the decision. This showed that no majority decision can be final. A lower court can reject an SCSC decision and order and the SCSC can discard and replace a majority decision at will. With all this, no case can be finalized. It can be litigated indefinitely. One can only wonder about the stability of the legal system in SC in years to come. After all that has happened in the state courts with the church case in the last decade, one must conclude that the courts of SC have not served the people well.

A Schism of False Claims

In the hindsight of the last ten years, we can see that all of the assertions proclaimed by the schismatic leaders to justify the schism were wholly or partially false. 

The diocese could secede intact from TEC. False. Before the schism, the diocesan leaders assured the people that a diocese could leave TEC since TEC had no rule barring a diocese from doing so. In 2019, the U.S. District Court, in Charleston, ruled that the Episcopal diocese was the one and only heir of the historic diocese. To boot, it issued an Injunction forbidding the breakaways from claiming in any way to be the continuation of the old diocese.

Local churches own their own properties. Partially false. Before the schism, the bishop issued quit claim deeds to all parishes. It was an old quit claim deed that had allowed All Saints Waccamaw parish to leave the church with property in hand. The SCSC had ruled in favor of All Saints in 2008. Last year, the SCSC ruled that the Dennis Canon went into effect in any parish that acceded to or adopted the Canon regardless of quit claims. In the end, it ruled that 8 parishes had done so (3 pending).

The diocese would remain Anglican. Partially false. The diocesan leaders promised their people that the diocese would remain part of the Anglican world. In fact, it is not in the Anglican Communion. In 2017 it joined the Anglican Church in North America which is not in the Anglican Communion. GAFCON has "recognized" ACNA and ADSC but GAFCON is not a function of the Anglican Communion. It is a separate, self-generated body outside the structure of the AC. Neither the bishop of ADSC nor any other in the ACNA was invited to participate in the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops last year. (They were invited to send observers.)

The schism was about God, not gays. False. The evidence is overwhelming. There is not space here to present it again. Suffice to read over the Kigali Commitment of last week. Surely, there is not a rational person left in the universe who believes the schism was not, and is not, about homosexuality. 

The Episcopal Church is dying while "orthodox" religion is growing. False. We have seen on this blog time and again, that the ADSC's own statistics show the continuous decline of the diocese. It has lost a third of its active members after the schism. The Episcopal diocese of SC meanwhile has grown in membership by some twenty percent. In fact, of all the churches of the old diocese, the one that has grown the most since the schism is in the Episcopal diocese (Grace).

The Future

Where do the two sides go from here? God only knows. Last year, the two bishops proudly announced a "final settlement" of most of the issues around the litigation. This sparked a little flurry of excitement that the two sides could be friends. Perhaps a new Era of Good Feelings could result. I would caution anyone from putting too much hope in anything beyond self-interest agreements. 

The schismatics' hatred  and demonization of the Episcopal Church is deep and wide, stretching back for forty years. We could see it even last year as some parishes prepared to return to TEC ("we will not serve their gods"). Any idea that these people are going to have a sudden change of heart is not realistic. In the deals of last year, the breakaways did not give up anything they actually had. What they "gave up" they were going to have to do anyway by court decisions. While on this subject, we must take out hats off to the schismatics' lawyers who did a masterful job in the courts, in the end snatching something of a victory from the jaws of defeat. They knew how to play hardball effectively when it counted.

So, the old diocese of SC has divided up into two very different houses. We must accept this for what it is. Each diocese has carved out for itself an identity and a mission. I think we have talked enough on this blog about what those are. 

In the end, I would caution anyone from impugning the motives of others. You cannot know what is in another person's heart. That is between him or her and God. What we can know is their actions and we have a right to agree or disagree with those.

The schism should not have happened. It was not inevitable. It was the act of willful people who thought they knew better than the church as a whole. The schism was a shameful and scandalous rupture in the Body of Christ. Nevertheless, it is there and both sides must deal with it. 

It is best to leave the final judgments to God. We are called to follow the great commandment, love God and our neighbors as ourselves. Bottom line, this is what both houses should remember and reaffirm every day. Going on down the road of life, the one side should wish the other well. As the presiding bishops tells us all the time, the Jesus Movement is the way of love. The operative word must always be love.  

 

THE DECLINE OF GAFCON

GAFCON (the Global Anglican Futures Conference) has just concluded its fourth assembly, at Kigali, Rwanda. It ended on a whimper and not a bang. Its limp "Kigali Commitment" declared "no confidence" in the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Four Instruments of Communion that guide the Anglican Communion but failed to set up even an outline of any kind of a replacement structure. Nothing really changed. It is the same old rhetoric from the same old crowd.

GAFCON was set up in 2008 and held its first meeting on the eve of the Lambeth Conference of that year. The driving factor was opposition to rights for homosexuals in the life of the church. The organizers and leaders were mostly bishops of equatorial Africa where homosexuality was criminalized. It issued the Jerusalem Declaration that called for the replacement of the Episcopal Church by a new anti-homosexual "Anglican" entity in America. The next year, the homophobic and misogynist Anglican Church in North America was drawn up. (The new Anglican Diocese of SC joined this new denomination in 2017.)

First, it must be said that GAFCON is a self-created group without any place in the Anglican Communion. It is entirely outside the institutional structure of the AC. It is in no way a function of the AC which is guided by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Four Instruments of Communion. Most of the bishops who support GAFCON are also members of the Anglican Communion, but some are not, as Foley Beach.

The threat of GAFCON from the start was to split up the Anglican Communion and to replace the traditional AC with a new form of Anglicanism. The new would be dogmatic, at least on the issues of homosexuality, and intolerant of any other views. Classical Anglicanism was never doctrinaire because it had to include a wide variety of religious ideas and expressions. Likewise, it was never intolerant of these diverse views. So, in order to move Anglicanism to a rigid anti-homosexual rights stand it would have to create a whole new form of Anglicanism and replace the old classical form. This has not happened and events suggest it is not going to happen.

The statistics show that GAFCON never became the majority force in the AC and has even begun to decline. There are 883 bishops in the Anglican Communion. Last year, 660 of them attended the Lambeth Conference. Homosexuality was the biggest topic of the day. Of the 660 bishops present, only 125 signed a statement demanding the enforcement of 1.10 (anti-homosexuality) resolution of 1998. Thus, only a small fraction of the Anglican bishops joined the anti side last year. 

There have been four GAFCON conferences, 2008, 2013, 2018, and 2023.  The figures show that only a small minority of Anglican bishops have attended and that the high point was in 2018. This year's gathering was smaller than 2018. 

2008     291 bishops     1,148 participants

2013     331 bishops     1,358 participants

2018     333 bishops     1,966 participants

2023     315 bishops     1,300 participants

Bear in mind that some of the bishops attending were not members of the Anglican Communion. If there are 883 bishops in the Anglican Communion, GAFCON has drawn only around a third to any meeting and only half as many as attended the Lambeth conferences. One should not exaggerate the claim often promoted by the anti-homosexual coalition that they represent the great majority of Anglicans in the world. No meeting of GAFCON has come even close to half of the Anglican bishops in the world.

The numbers of attendees this year must have been disappointing given the urgency declared by the anti-homosexual coalition in the wake of the Church of England's decision to offer prayers in churches for persons in same-sex relationships. In fact, fewer people and fewer bishops attended IV than attended either II or III. 

The decline of GAFCON is not to say it is not a significant threat to classical Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion. It is a threat. However, so far it has been a protest movement and one without teeth. The Archbishop of Canterbury does not appear to be too worried as he put out a rather bland statement that really says nothing new. Apparently, he intends to go right on leading the AC along with the Four Instruments. He has not been intimidated by the rebels.

Moreover, all this is not to say that schism might not come in the future. However, it does seem that the height of the storm has passed and the schismatics have probably missed the best chance they had to rally a worldwide movement to create a new version of Anglicanism and the Communion. They have had fifteen years to make a schism and they have not done so, I suspect because down deep most Anglicans in the world believe that classical Anglicanism is worth saving, the big tent of varying views and toleration.

The Anglican Communion is a loose coalition of 42 independent churches that follow the traditions of the old English prayer books. To be an Anglican, one has to be in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Anglican Church in North America is not in communion with Canterbury. It is not truly Anglican and so is not the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina. They are not in the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church is the American province of the Anglican Communion whether GAFCON and the ADSC like it or not. 

 INTERPRETING THE SCHISM IN SC---

A DECADE OUT, PART 2

Having looked at the status of the schism in the previous posting, we can now turn to interpreting the meaning of the schism. We will begin with the big picture.

The Culture War

First and foremost, we must put the schism in SC into the broader context of contemporary America. It was, and is, an important part of what we call, for want of a better term, the culture war.

The culture war is the result of a huge clash between a revolutionary force and a counter-revolutionary force, a conflict  that has been raging in America, and to a large extent the rest of the world, since the Second World War (1945). The revolutionary force brought in the Great Democratic Revolution of post-war America. After more than three centuries of slavery and Jim Crow, African Americans were finally given political rights and introduced to equality and inclusion in the broader American society. Human rights, equality, and inclusion were also extended to women, homosexuals, and other historically suppressed and/or marginalized minority groups in America. The result was a fast-emerging multi-cultural nation-state of evolving democracy. In my opinion, the Great Democratic Revolution has had a greater practical effect on the country than either the American Revolution or the Civil War. The America of 2023 is remarkably different than the America of 1945. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is the nature of the culture war.

Every great revolutionary movement in history produces a counter-revolution from elements who feel the most threatened by the new changes. A diverse and multi-cultural America was most threatening to the old white patriarchy which had controlled the country, in their own interest, since the start. The patriarchy had used ethnic cleansing to remove the natives from their land, kept Africans suppressed, barred Chinese from immigration, and only grudgingly allowed women the right to vote. The post-WWII culture war boiled down to the struggle of the old white patriarchy to maintain the status quo of the old order against the sweeping changes of the GDR. The democratic revolution would mean that white men would lose their exclusive control over the power levers of the country that they had considered as their own all along. The counter-revolutionaries' goal, then, was to preserve, as much as possible, the pre-revolutionary order of American life. Thus, the culture war was the clash between the people who wanted to promote the new equality for and inclusion of all of the citizens of society and the people who wanted to defend the old white patriarchy by keeping the old ways. In politics, the culture war first appeared in 1968 with the Republicans' Southern Strategy and reached a crescendo on Jan. 6, 2021 when a reactionary mob attempted a violent overthrow of the constitutional government in the Capitol.

From the start of the GDR following the Second World War, the Episcopal Church devoted itself to the causes of the new revolution. This was a reversal of its old attitude of indifference to social and cultural changes (it had been the only major Protestant denomination not to divide before the Civil War because it deliberately avoided the issue of slavery). TEC embraced the Civil Rights movement, revised its liturgies to make them more democratic, opened up Holy Orders to women, and finally gave homosexuals and the transgendered equal rights and inclusion in the life of the church. Inside TEC, a minority opposed all of these rather dramatic reforms. 

It was the last movement, rights for homosexuals and the transgendered, that brought the culmination of the opposition movement in the church. The opposition in TEC went through three phases in its fight against homosexuality. The first phase was from 1976 to 1996. This was the time of battle when the pro, con, and neutral sides argued about how the church should interface with homosexuality. In the end, a church court and General Convention agreed that homosexuals could not be denied Holy Orders. The pro side won that round. The second phase was from 1996 to 2007. In this time, the anti side appealed to the Anglican Communion to put pressure on TEC to stop its progress toward homosexual rights. This utterly failed as TEC ignored the various reports and covenants as invasions of its sovereignty. The antis failed again. The third phase was 2007 to 2012. This was the time of schism when five dioceses of TEC voted to leave the church. South Carolina was the fifth of these.

Why did the five dioceses vote to leave? They opposed the overall trajectory of TEC but specifically the resolution of the issue of homosexuality. In South Carolina, the schism came from the concerted actions of the counter-revolutionaries who had come to control the diocese. Unable to stop the democratization of the Episcopal Church, they resolved to remove as much of the diocese as possible from the Episcopal Church. Hence, the schism of 2012.

The schism in SC was neither an inevitable nor an accidental event. It was a premeditated action of a rather small coalition of the diocesan leadership who were fed up with the democratization of the Episcopal Church. The build-up in the diocese lasted thirty years, 1982-2012. In that time, the diocesan leadership slowly and surely developed an anti-TEC stance under the guise of true ("orthodox") religion. As a rationale for the coming schism, they spread through the local churches charges that the national church had turned against the Bible and the fundamentals of religion, as "the uniqueness of Christ." The assertions were not true but the propaganda stuck anyway. People naturally wanted to believe what their leaders told them. By 2012 there was a deep and widespread animosity in the diocese toward the national church "from off." This was the background for what would happen next when the national church approved of the blessings of same-sex unions.

The schism in SC was driven, planned and carried out by a small band of counter-revolutionary conspirators who worked in secret. There was never an open discussion, let alone a debate, among the people of the diocese about whether SC should secede from the union (sound familiar?). This was a movement from the top down, not the bottom up. In September of 2012, a group of no more than two dozen people resolved behind closed doors to remove the diocese from TEC if the national church took any action of any kind against the bishop. There was a common belief in the diocese, and the national church, that his flagrant disregard for the Dennis Canon would indeed force the national church to take action to preserve its integrity. Sure enough, the national church took action against Bp. Lawrence and the standing committee conveniently declared independence. The bishop told the diocesan convention a month later the diocese had already left TEC. 

It is important to bear in mind that the Diocese of South Carolina was unique in the southeastern U.S. in its move to schism. Not one other diocese of the region supported, let alone followed, South Carolina. This was because of the unique leadership of South Carolina. If there had been a spontaneous uprising of the laity, it would have shown up in at least one other diocese of the region. As it was, the nearest dioceses to vote for schism were in Texas (Ft. Worth), Pennsylvania, and Illinois (Quincy).

Events in the Anglican Diocese of SC since the schism have only affirmed its role in the culture war. In 2015, the diocese adopted, and forced conformity on the whole diocese, an homophobic Statement of Faith denouncing homosexual relations and banning same-sex weddings in its churches. Then, the ADSC joined a new denomination called the Anglican Church in North America. The ACNA does not allow women to have authority over men (women cannot be bishops) and allows local dioceses to ban women from the priesthood. Moreover, the ADSC has a large and active "pro-life" (anti-abortion) chapter. They claim they stand for "life," but what they actually stand for is to keep women submissive to men by removing women's control over their own bodies. If they were truly "pro-life" they would give equal attention to opposing the death penalty which, of course, they completely ignore. It is not about "life," it is about keeping women in the old status quo. The actions of the breakaway group after the schism removed any doubt that the schism was a product of the culture war. As they say, the proof is in the pudding.

Although we must put the schism in SC into the context of the culture war, we cannot say that theology had nothing to do with it. Theology was an element in the schism but it alone was not the driving force. It was bound up inextricably in the culture war. The two elements, theology and social policy, cannot be separated from each other. They are part of the same large picture.

To make it simple, we should look on the TEC side as horizontal religion and the reactionary side as vertical religion. Since the religious and social views went together hand in glove on each side, they cannot be separated. One did not occur before the other. They were concurrent aspects of larger movements.

Basically, horizontal religion is the idea that human beings were made in the image of God to do his work in the world. This is also known as the Social Gospel. Vertical religion puts emphasis on the idea that God is perfect and sovereign while humans are sinful and corrupt. The purpose of religion is to reconcile human beings to God, not to interfere in God's rule of the universe.

So, as TEC increasingly emphasized social reform after WWII, it also developed an orientation of horizontal religion. This has continually evolved in the life of the church. Social reform and horizontal religion were part of the same package.

On the other hand, the conservatives objected to this development of social reform/horizontal religion. They insisted that the job of the church was to reconcile sinful humans to the perfect God. While they were not opposed to doing good works, they saw this as only a relatively unimportant sideline of true religion, not integral to the faith and dangerously close to intruding on God's role. So, the reactionaries in TEC clung to their package of social conservatism and vertical religion. When the leaders of the schism in SC declared that their break was not about gays but about God, they were not entirely wrong, just fundamentally wrong. It was very much about gays while their view of gays was inextricably bound up with their view of God.

The difference between the two dioceses in SC was summarized very well recently when the Episcopal bishop, Woodliff-Stanley, invited the Anglican, Edgar, to join her in a statement decrying gun violence. Edgar demurred saying he was not "political." The Episcopal bishop was acting from horizontal religion while the Anglican was acting vertically. When it comes to the horrific and frequent episodes of mass killings, conservatives always appeal for "thoughts and prayers." "Prayers" are vertical because they call on God alone to intervene.

Thus, on the issue of religion in the schism, we must say religion was part of it but only as an indivisible element within the context of the culture war. The schism came primarily from social differences, not religious. Nevertheless, the schismatic leaders in SC campaigned long and hard among the laity that TEC had abandoned the true "faith once delivered." They even produced a curriculum to be used in parishes demonizing TEC. It was used in some local churches after the 2017 SCSC decision and most recently at Christ Church, of Mt. Pleasant. The aim of the course was to keep parishioners from remaining with the buildings as they were returned to the Episcopal diocese. It was pure propaganda since TEC has not changed any of its theology. What it changed was its social policy. The schismatics greatly exaggerated the element of religion in the schism to justify their actions in the schism.

In summary, above all we must see the schism in South Carolina as an aspect of the contemporary American culture war. Being a church, the schism also had a religious element but at this time it is impossible to say whether the rush to develop a distinctly vertical approach to religion was to differentiate the diocese from the national church or was the product of other factors. The ADSC of today can be characterized as highly vertical, or quasi-fundamentalist.  It will take much more research on the history of the diocese in the 1980's and 1990's to settle this problem of how this developed. Whatever the motivations, the two did go together and can be seen clearly in today's Anglican Diocese of SC. It is culturally reactionary and theologically vertical while the Episcopal diocese is socially reformist and theologically horizontal.

To be continued...      

 

INTERPRETING THE SCHISM IN SC---

A DECADE OUT, PART 1

The schism in the Episcopal Church of lower South Carolina happened over a decade ago. It occurred at noon on October 15, 2012, to be exact. Now, there is a growing sense that the schism has been essentially settled and peace is moving in. It is as if we are waking up from a bad dream only to realize it was not a dream. 

This is an appropriate moment to do some reflecting on what has happened. What is the status of the schism now? More importantly, how can we interpret the schism from the vantage point of a decade out? What does it all mean? Let us take a moment and consider these and other questions around the break.

The two bishops announced in August of 2022 a "final settlement" of the legal issues giving the agreements on most of the big points of contention. Other than that, it was a declaration to make a final settlement since there remained many loose ends to tie up. Moreover, three parishes remained to be determined by the state supreme court and the suit on betterments remains open, so it is not quite true to call last year's deal "final." The litigation spawned by the schism is not over.

In August of 2017, I finished and published my history of the schism (after four years of hard work) on the assumption that the litigation was essentially over. The South Carolina Supreme Court had just ruled by issuing three majority opinions recognizing the Episcopal Church as owing 29 of the 36 parishes in question plus Camp St. Christopher.

 Now, how to interpret what has happened in the decade since 2012? In my book, on pages 495-512, I gave what I thought was a reasonable analysis of the schism based on a mountain of empirical evidence in the previous 494 pages. Looking back, I would not change a word of my conclusion chapter. In fact, much of what I wrote then has been vindicated by subsequent events. What I said then, I think, remains a useful summary of the background, events, and results of the schism of 2012. 

The "final" settlement of the schism as announced last year then is roughly 50/50 for the two parties. The Episcopal side got the historic diocese while the schismatics got the bulk of the local churches.

Before turning to the major takeaways from the schism, we should go over how the 50/50 deal occurred. On the Episcopal side, a key point was on hierarchy. The SC Supreme Court opined in 2017 that TEC was hierarchical. Ever since, the court has consistently reiterated this opinion. It is the one issue on which the court has maintained continuity. The United States District Court, in Charleston, ruled in 2019 that the Episcopal Church was hierarchical. This was the first time that a federal court in America had issued such a judgment. Moreover, the judge issued an Injunction forbidding the separatist organization from claiming to be in any way the historic (pre-schism) diocese. The breakaways largely ignored the Injunction and had to be hauled into court, not once but twice, for contempt of court. As evidenced by their recent convention, they are still refusing to concede the point on the historic diocese. Nevertheless, the law is  clear that TEC is hierarchical and therefore the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina is the one and only heir of the historic diocese. The separatist group now goes by the name of Anglican Diocese of South Carolina having been created after the schism of 2012.

On the separatist side, the ownership of the bulk of the local churches came from the erratic performance of the state supreme court. Although the SC Supreme Court had recognized Episcopal Church ownership of 29 of the 36 parishes in 2017, it went on to reverse this. With three of the five justices from 2017 replaced, a new court discarded the 2017 majority decisions and replaced them with a new ruling in April and August of 2022. In the new iterations, the court moved all but 8 of the 29 parishes to the Anglican side. The reasoning was that these 21 had not "acceded" to or "adopted" (using the actual words) the Dennis Canon in heir parochial records. This was both an internal and an external contradiction. Internally, the SCSC ruled that the Episcopal Church was hierarchical. If it were hierarchical, it controlled the parishes. No local parish had the right to decided on its own whether it would adhere to the canons of the church. The SCSC consistently ruled TEC to be hierarchical. It was externally contradictory because the federal court, which has precedence, had already ruled TEC to be hierarchical. Even under neutral principles, hierarchy would trump state law. It was apparently contradictory for the SCSC to rule for hierarchy and for local parish rights to decide their own policies. Nevertheless, the Anglican Diocese of SC has wound up with the majority of the local churches including all but one of the large parishes.

There will be time for postmortems in the days to come but what strikes me right off is that both sides made major mistakes in the decade, that if corrected, may well have had a huge impact on the subsequent events and probably shortened the legal war a good deal. As I see it, the big mistake the Episcopal side made was the failure to pursue the issue of hierarchy in the state courts. When the TEC made its appeal to the SCSC in 2015, it did not argue for hierarchy. Instead, it argued that individual parishes had acceded to the Dennis Canon and therefore now belonged to the Church. This turned hierarchy on its head. Under hierarchy, the General Convention is over the dioceses, and the dioceses are over the parishes. A parish does not have the right to refuse a national church canon. Accession was not up to the local churches. It was a law of the national church and diocese. In my view, since both state and federal courts had consistently ruled for hierarchy, TEC should have used this as the foundation of its case. It should not have argued in court that certain parishes had acceded to the Dennis Canon. Under hierarchy, all parishes were automatically bound by the Dennis Canon regardless of what they had to say about it. By arguing for individual parish accession, TEC opened the door wide for the SCSC to rule in 2022 that all but 8 had not adhered to the Dennis Canon and were free of Episcopal Church control. 

On the Anglican side, the big mistake was the summary rejection of TEC's offer of June 2015 to swap the diocese for all of the 36 local parishes. The TEC lawyers offered to release claims to all of the 36 parishes if the separatist side would hand over the historic diocese to the Church side. The Anglicans complained that this was not a legitimate and sincere offer. That was not true. The national church had indeed signed off on it. We have the evidence. If the breakaways had accepted the 2015 offer, the schism would have ended then and there and the Anglican diocese would now have all 36 of the local church and not just the 28. Now they are worse off.

In the next part, we will look at some of the major interpretations of the meaning of the schism. To be continued....

 

JONATHAN DANIELS WINS "GOLDEN HALO" OF LENT MADNESS

UPDATE. April 6, 2023. 7:00 a.m. It's official. Jonathan Daniels has been awarded "the Golden Halo" of LENT MADNESS by winning the vote over Joanna the Myrrhbearer. This is a great day for the Christians of Alabama, particularly the Episcopalians who for years have looked to the saintly example of Blessed Jonathan for guidance in ending the sin of racism that is all around us. He gave his life to show us how to make a better world.

Blessed Jonathan now joins that illustrious class of the saints who won the Golden Halos of years gone by. He, and they, are in good company:

2010---George Herbert

2011---C.S. Lewis

2012---Mary Magdalene

2013---Frances Perkins

2014---Charles Wesley

2015---Francis of Assisi

2016---Dietrich Bongoeffer

2017---Florence Nightingale

2018---Anna Alexander

2019---Martha of Bethany

2020---Harriet Tubman

2021---Absalom Jones

2022---José Hernández

2023---Jonathan Daniels

 

UPDATE. April 5, 2023. Jonathan Daniels won yesterday's vote. Today is the FINAL VOTE---between Joanna the Myrrhbearer and Jonathan Daniels. At 8:00 a.m. on Maundy Thursday, we will know who will have "the Golden Halo" of the Lent Madness of 2023. 

UPDATE. April 4, 2023. Voting today on Lent Madness is for Jonathan Daniels or Chief Seattle. Joanna the Myrrhbearer won yesterday's vote making her the finalist on her side. Whoever wins the vote today (either Blessed Jonathan or the Chief) will face off tomorrow against Joanna for the Golden Halo.

(Note. Next year, let's nominate Bishop William A. Guerry for the Golden Halo. He too was shot to death for advocating racial justice; and he too is the unofficial patron saint of the diocese of South Carolina.)

UPDATE. Apr. 3, 2023. On tomorrow, Tue. Apr. 4, the voting will be between Jonathan Daniels and Chief Seattle. Then, on Wednesday, the 5th, the winner of that contest will go up against Joanna the Myrrhbearer (she is ahead right now) or Martin de Porres. The Golden Halo will be awarded after the final vote on Wednesday.  

For years, Lent Madness has provided a bit of levity, with a dose of seriousness, to the otherwise heavy forty days of Lent. Every year, there is a contest on this website to see whom the people choose as the most outstanding Christian and worthy of "the Golden Halo" of the year. It is all by majority vote. Last year it was José Hernández, the year before, Absalom Jones, and before that, Harriet Tubman. As the famous  basketball tournament of March Madness, it begins with a long list and whittles down, by paired voting, to the final two. This year, the final four candidates are Martin de Porres, Chief Seattle, Joanna the Myrrhbearer, and Jonathan Myrick Daniels, all certainly worthy of acclaim. The final vote is next week, Holy Week.

Jonathan Daniels is my choice. He is the unofficial patron saint of Alabama. He was an Episcopal seminarian from New Hampshire who came to Alabama in the summer of 1965, after the Selma march and the voting rights act, to help register African Americans, long disenfranchised in the state, to vote. On August 20, 1965, he walked from the jail of Hayneville AL with a group a couple of blocks to a small grocery store to buy cold drinks. At the door, a white man raised a shotgun toward 17-year-old Ruby Sales. In a split second, Daniels pushed her down and took the blast, dying instantly. (The shooter was acquitted by an all-white jury.) In 1991, Blessed Jonathan Daniels was officially declared a martyr. Every August, for many years now, the Diocese of Alabama has sponsored a pilgrimage to the spot of his martyrdom. It is a combination of a medieval pilgrimage and a southern revival. The pilgrims hold up in memory Blessed Jonathan and all of the other martyrs of Alabama (a long list of people murdered for trying to right the wrongs of racism). Mass is celebrated in the courtroom where the killer was acquitted. 

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13.

In my opinion, no one deserves the Golden Halo of 2023 more than Blessed Jonathan Daniels.