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...
