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.
