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. 

 

 

EPISCOPAL DIOCESE TO SELL HOLY TRINITY, OF CHARLESTON, PROPERTY

On yesterday, March 30, 2023, Bishop Woodliff-Stanley, of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, ANNOUNCED that the diocesan authorities had decided to sell the property of the Holy Trinity Church, in Charleston. HT was one of the eight local churches in contention the South Carolina Supreme Court finally ruled (Aug. 2022) belonged to the Episcopal diocese. The bishop gave two major reasons for the decision:  the area was already served by returning parishes. St James, of James Island, is a short distance down Folly Road. St John's, of Johns Island, is also not far, to the west. To the north, the diocese is likely to get back Good Shepherd, in West Ashley (still pending in the state supreme court). The second reason was that the state of the buildings at HT would require a great deal of investment for refurbishing, money better used elsewhere.

 

Everyone who knows the Charleston area knows that Holy Trinity stands on a major piece (1.96 acres) of highly desirable commercial real estate worth a small fortune. It is at 95 Folly Road, not far south of U.S. 17. Folly Road is the main artery running from 17 through James Island to Folly Beach. The church is in the area called South Windermere which developed as a suburb of downtown Charleston mainly after the Second World War. The completion of the James Island Connector, connecting James Island directly with downtown, in the 1990's produced an explosion of growth in the whole area south of U.S. 17.

Holy Trinity was a small parish of the old diocese. It was not an historic one. The earliest reference I have found to it dates from 1940 (register of tax exemption status). The church structure appears to be built in the 1950's and lacks any architectural sophistication. At the schism, the clergy and laity of HT adhered to the new Anglican diocese. Afterwards, the parish declined, from 204 baptized members in 2014 to 170 in 2021, and 96 confirmed communicants (2014) to 83 (2021). At the same time the budget drifted downwards from $226k to 212k.

Thus, slowly but surely, the Episcopal diocese is settling on the dispositions of the properties involved in the decade-long legal war. Yet, recall that three properties are still to be decided by the SC supreme court, Good Shepherd, of Charleston, Old Saint Andrew's, and Holy Cross (Stateburg). The court has been sitting on these issues for six months without a hint of resolution. Your guess on when they will move is as good as mine. Meanwhile, both dioceses are trying to move on into the future.  

 

MEMBERSHIP CHANGES IN THE ANGLICAN DIOCESE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 2014-2021

In their annual convention meeting earlier this month, the officials of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina made much about growing the diocese. This raises the question of whether the diocese has been expanding or shrinking in the past few years. To answer this, we must go to the diocese's own annual membership statistics from the local churches.

Although the schism occurred in 2012, it is best to start at 2014 because in that year the diocese adopted a new way of counting active members. Before it was "Communicants." In 2014, it became "Confirmed Communicants" and from then on. So, to be consistent, we should look at the figures from 2014 to the latest published set, 2021. Find the 2014 table HERE and the 2021 table HERE .

Overall, the numbers for the whole diocese show a clear decline in membership in the seven years of 2014 to 2021. "Baptized membership" went from 22,953 to 19,752, a fall of 14%. "Confirmed Communicants" dropped from 16,361 to 12,651, a decline of 23%.

But, what about the individual local churches? How did they fair?

A total of 42 local churches in ADSC submitted membership statistics in both 2014 and 2021. Of these, 25 (60%) showed declines while 4 (10%) grew and 13 (30%) remained the same or nearly so. Thus, the large majority of local parishes and missions in ADSC lost members in the seven years of 2014 to 2021.

 

Here are the rankings of the local churches of ADSC that lost members beginning with the largest percentage lost. The numbers are Confirmed Communicants:

---Good Shepherd, Charleston.  256-2014;  75-2021.  -71%.

---St. John's Chapel, Charleston.  30-2014;  11-2021.  -63%.

---Trinity, Myrtle Beach.  388-2014;  160-2021.  -59%.

---Christ Church, Mt. Pleasant.  775-2014;  325-2021.  -58%.

---St. John's, Charleston.  620-2014;  260-2021.  -58%.

---St. David's, Cheraw.  106-2014;  44-2021.  -58%.

---Epiphany, Eutawville.  100-2014;  44-2021.  -56%.

---Christ the King/Grace, Pawleys Island.  307-2014;  155-2021.  -50%.

---St. Luke's, Hilton Head.  664-2014;  355-2021.  -47%.

---St. Matthias', Summerton.  141-2014;  89-2021.  -37%.

---St. Philip's, Charleston.  2,135-2014;  1,395-2021.  -35%.

---Trinity, Pinopolis.  166-2014;  110-2021.  -33%.

---Holy Apostles, Barnwell.  95-2014;  69-2021.  -27%.

---Prince George Winyah, Georgetown.  625-2014;  477-2021.  -24%.

---Resurrection, Surfside.  360-2014;  275-2021.  -24%.

---St. John's, Florence.  395-2014;  325-2021.  -18%.

---Old St. Andrew's, Charleston.  509-2014;  422-2021.  -17%.

---St. Helena's, Beaufort.  964-2014;  798-2021.  -17%.

---Trinity, Edisto.  145-2014;  122-2021.  -16%.

---Holy Trinity, Charleston.  96-2014;  83-2021.  -14%.

---Holy Comforter, Sumter.  246-2014;  217-2021.  12%.

---St. Matthew's, Darlington.  141-2014;  125-2021.  -11%.

---St. Michael's, Charleston.  1,015-2014;  937-2021.  -8%.

Eight churches lost half or more of their active members. In raw numbers, rather than percentages, St. Philip's, of Charleston, lost the most, 740, followed by Christ Church, Mt. Pleasant (450), St. John's, of Charleston (360), St. Luke's, Hilton Head (309), St. Paul's, of Summerville (238), and Trinity, of Myrtle Beach (228).

Of the 42 parishes and missions reporting, 4 gained significant numbers. Church of the Cross in fast-growing Bluffton is now the largest parish in ADSC, bypassing St. Philip's, of Charleston. Church of the Cross rose from 1,520 to 1,604 Confirmed Communicants (+6%). Holy Trinity, of Grahamville, had the largest percentage gain, from 91 to 141 (+55%). The Well by the Sea, in Myrtle Beach rose from 106 to 126 (+19%) while Our Saviour, on Johns Island, reported 200 to 227 (+7%).

Meanwhile, 13 local churches stayed the same or nearly so in Confirmed Communicants between 2014 and 2021: Holy Cross, Sullivans Island (1,000/1,050);  St. James, Charleston (500/533);  Christ/St. Paul's (245/239);  St. Paul's, Conway (212/217);  Redeemer, Orangeburg (173/179);  All Saints, Florence (160/152);  St. Bartholomew's, Hartsville (125/120);  St. Matthew's, Ft. Motte (86/91);  Ascension, Hagood (48/45):  Resurrection, North Charleston (44/41);  St. Barnabas, Dillon (39/35);  St. Paul's, Orangeburg (19/18);  Grace, North Myrtle Beach (13/13).

The above figures are all for Confirmed Communicants. If we look at the broader baptized membership numbers, we would find the same general pattern. Likewise, if we go year-by-year, we would see a consistent downward trend.

Here are the conclusions we can draw from studying the diocese's published statistics for the local churches:

---The ADSC lost significant numbers of members in the seven year period after the schism, from 2014 to 2021.

---The only large/medium parish that is showing healthy growth is Church of the Cross.

---Most of the large parishes lost significant numbers of members, with several remaining about the same.

---The parish that used to be the largest, St. Philip's, of Charleston, lost a third of its members in the seven year period after the schism.

---The schism was not the overwhelmingly popular event the diocesan leaders claimed at the time of the schism. Well after the break occurred, nearly a quarter of the active members of the ADSC left the diocese in just seven years. The numbers of people leaving the diocese far exceeded the numbers of people coming in.

---ADSC's falling membership is in stark opposition to the demographic boom of coastal South Carolina. 

---At its recent rate of decline, the ADSC will soon start experiencing challenges of an existential nature. This year's budget is less that last year's. Adjusted for inflation, the ADSC annual budget has fallen significantly in the last decade.

---There is nothing on the horizon to indicate that the decline of the ADSC will turn around.

---One possible outcome of this crisis is the joining of the overlapping ACNA dioceses, The Anglican Diocese of the Carolinas and the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina.

---Judging from the ADSC's own statistics, one may say the schism has been a failure. The ADSC is in relentless decline.     

A LETTER TO THIS EDITOR, 22 MARCH 2023

In my last two blog posts, I brought up the issue of the ownership of the historic (pre-schism) diocese. Three and a half years ago, the federal court in Charleston declared that the Episcopal Church was hierarchical and that the Episcopal diocese was the only heir of the historic Diocese of South Carolina. Moreover, the judge issued a permanent Injunction explicitly barring the new breakaway association from using the names, symbols, and marks of the pre-schism diocese. In other words, the breakaway contingent could not legally claim in any way to be the continuation of the pre-schism Diocese of South Carolina. The new association had to be taken to court twice to enforce this decree and was found in contempt of court. Yet, after all this, at their annual convention this month, that association, now called the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina, apparently remained in defiance of the Injunction.

Today we have a letter from one of this blog's readers who kept an eagle's eye on the various proceedings and documents posted from the convention. His thoughts are well worth considering:

Dear Ron:     I was curious of the Anglicans' convention and looked through the documents and found a lot of references to the historic Diocese of South Carolina. In one of the documents they used the names Diocese of South Carolina and Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina. They mentioned bishops of the historic diocese. They used words of the past bishops of the diocese. They mentioned the division of the diocese and the creation of the upper South Carolina diocese in 1922. They mentioned the articles of incorporation in the 70's. They really made a lot of references showing to the public that they are the historic diocese but, of course, avoided mentioning the Episcopal Church. At the time they mentioned the historic diocese as an independent entity. The cherry on the cake was the historic seal in their official documents. They just missed announcing their convention as the 233rd using "2023 convention" to ignore the reality that this was their 11th convention. They mentioned Edgar simply as bishop of their diocese instead of 2nd bishop.

So sad that they refused to accept reality. Is it not enough for the separatists that the court sided with them after overturning themselves several times and harming the diocese pretty badly? Yet, they want to keep saying that the diocese separated from the Episcopal Church in 2012. They are still announcing this on their website and Facebook page indirectly showing people that their diocese pre-existed 2012.

The Diocese of South Carolina has lost a lot in this and they should take action against this. We are Christians but what is legal is legal and has to stop even if that means going back to court to force the separatists to accept the reality that they are not historic at all, their current bishop is the second bishop, and their past convention was the 11th convention. They need to rewrite all of their constitutions and canons instead of keeping on editing and using the documents of the historic diocese.

Their bishop said "the war is over," but it looks in reality for them it is not over until they completely destroy the historic diocese so they can freely claim that they are the historic diocese.

Yours, Eric Smith

________________________________ 

Thanks, Eric, for sharing your thoughts with which that I am sure many people would agree.

The ball is now in the Episcopal diocese's court. What they will do remains to be seen but I would not hold my breath expecting much to come out of this apparently egregious violation of the federal Injunction. The climate in the war of the schism has changed drastically in the last year or so. The Episcopal diocesan officers seem to value above all peace and an end of the issues around the schism. They have given two clear signals which perhaps encouraged the Anglican diocese to persist in its allusions as the continuation of the old diocese. One came in the "Final Settlement" of last September that allowed the Anglican diocese co-rights to the archives of the pre-schism diocese. Since the Anglican diocese did not exist before 2012, it had no legitimate right to any control over any of the archives of the historic diocese. They are the exclusive property of the Episcopal diocese. By giving them co-rights in the disposition of the archives, the Episcopal diocese gave tacit recognition of the Anglicans' claims to the historic diocese. The second signal, and perhaps the most important, was the declaration that the litigation was over. The only way the Episcopal diocese has achieved any enforcement of the Injunction has been through the court. It had to go to court twice, not once but twice, to get the Anglicans to abide by the Injunction. If the Anglicans know they are not going to hauled into court again, they could choose to disregard the Injunction at will. The Injunction is good only if it is enforced; and the only way it has been enforced in the past is by court action.

However, we are being told that the two bishops have become chatty friends. Bp Edgar even likened they to the Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This is a poor analogy. While those two had polar opposite world views, they were both passionately committed to the same institution, the Court. Edgar and Woodliff-Stanley share no such unifying factor. In fact, the whole history of the schism has been the breakaways' demonization of the Episcopal Church. It has not gone away if the exiting cries of the occupants of the seven parishes returning to the Episcopal diocese last year were any indication. Let's not kid ourselves; the Anglican diocese looks on the Episcopal Church as the enemy and they act on such. Any such idea that the friendship between the two bishops is going to make any substantial change in the character of this schism is ill-founded and naive.

It is imperative for the Episcopal diocese that it protect its legal rights at this point. By refusing to accept that the Episcopal diocese is the one and only heir of the historic diocese, the Anglicans are rejecting the major conclusion of the settlement: exchange of the diocese for the bulk of the parishes. It seems to me the Anglicans have refused and still defiantly refuse to accept this trade off. They are still clinging to the notion that in reality they are heirs of the historic diocese. They are not; and the federal court has said so, three times now. If the Anglicans expect a good-will settlement of this nightmare schism, they must change their attitude about history. They do not own the old diocese; the Episcopal Church does. It is now incumbent on the Episcopal diocese to press this point.

THE ANGLICAN DIOCESE AND THE INJUNCTION

While I am not a lawyer and not offering legal advice here, I am of the opinion that the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina is apparently still in defiance of a federal court Injunction. What makes this most disappointing is that we are supposedly in a new era of good feelings between the two dioceses. Maybe the truth is we are not.

On September 19, 2019, the federal district court in Charleston, Judge Richard Gergel presiding, issued a JUDGMENT that the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina was the one and only legal heir of the historic Diocese of South Carolina owing to the principle of hierarchy that governed the Episcopal Church. At the same time, he issued an Injunction forbidding the separatist association from using the names, emblems, and marks of the historic diocese. The next day, the separatists adopted the name of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina. Otherwise, they were very slow in adhering to the Injunction, so slow that the Episcopal side complained to the judge and Gergel issued an enforcement of the Injunction on December 8, 2019. The Injunction remained in effect during the Anglican's appeal of Gergel's decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals (the Anglicans withdrew this appeal as part of the "final settlement" announced in 2022). However, the Anglican side continued to drag its feet on following the Injunction, so that the Episcopal side went back to court listing twenty-seven violations. On October 27, 2020, Gergel found the ADSC in contempt of court a second time. He did not impose any punishment because, he said, the EDSC side had not asked for any. So, the Anglican diocese has now been under a federal court order for three and a half years not to claim to be in any way the pre-schism diocese. They have been held in contempt of court for violating this formal Injunction, not once but twice. Well, the ADSC held its annual meeting this month, and here we go again. It appears to me they are still in serious defiance of the federal court order.

In this meeting, the convention revised the Constitution of the ADSC while making numerous allusions to the historic diocese. Bear in mind that the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina has sole ownership of the names and symbols of the pre-schism diocese. The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina did not exist before the schism, which occurred at noon on October 15, 2012. "The diocese" before that date was the Episcopal diocese.

In the first place, on the DRAFT COPY of the revisions to the diocesan constitution, apparently the seal of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina appears at the top of all nine pages. If this is true, it would be a direct violation of the Injunction which forbids the new diocese from using the historic seal. Now, it is also true that on the FINAL COPY , the seal was omitted on every page. This raises the question of why it appeared on any version of the ADSC constitution. (To my knowledge the ADSC has not adopted a seal.) 

Moreover, both the draft and final copies listed thirteen resolutions "passed" by conventions before 2012, going all the way back to 1872. The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina did not exist before 2012. What they were referring to were resolutions passed by the historic diocese which was the Episcopal diocese. Under the Injunction they cannot claim to be the historic diocese. It seems to me these are thirteen violations of the federal court Injunction.

On a curious point, on page 6, we see this: "The Anglican diocese of South Carolina is incorporated..." It does not say when it was incorporated. If the ADSC were incorporated after Oct. 15, 2012, I missed it. Perhaps the ADSC diocesan office could remind us when the Anglican diocese was legally incorporated under state law. The Episcopal diocese was incorporated under state law in 1974. The ADSC did not exist at that time.

It seems to me that the breakaway diocese refuses to give up its claim to history in spite of courts. This attitude permeates the whole diocese. For instance, the occupants of every one of the seven parishes that returned to the Episcopal diocese last year left the properties but kept the old names of the parishes and simply tagged "Anglican" on them. This was a refusal to accept in good will the decisions of the courts. 

The disputes of the schism are moving ever closer to being settled. Essentially, the Episcopal side got the historic diocese (and its assets and properties) and the breakaway side got the bulk of the local churches. It is incumbent on the Episcopal diocese to protect its position at this point and going into the future. Its validity in this dispute rests on its historic identity. This must be protected against all violations.

So, what to do? I do not think anyone could envision the arrests of the Anglican bishop and chancellor, although I suspect some Episcopalians have harbored images of them being handcuffed and pressed into squad cars. That is not going to happen. Then, what about money damages? Being nice has not worked. If we have learned anything at all in this decade of litigation, it is that the Anglican lawyers skillfully played hardball. Maybe the Episcopal side could try that here. What about a million dollars for every violation of the Injunction this month? I count 22 violations in the draft and final copies of the ADSC Constitution. I think $22m would be a fair sum, don't you? That would get their attention. Since the Anglican side has apparently flagrantly disregarded the federal court Injunction for three and a half years, something needs to get their attention.

Apart from the Injunction, there is something else in the ADSC Constitution that should get our attention. The last page reminds us in no uncertain terms the aim of this schism, homophobia and anti-trans. This schism was to keep homosexuals and trans people from having the same human rights as everyone else. However, the rationales were based on false assumptions. In the first place it asserted that God made every person "male or female." This is non-Biblical. The Bible says repeatedly God made human beings "male and female." The word is "and" and not "or." Besides, there are humans born with no definable gender and there are others born with both sets of genitals. So it is demonstrably false to say that God made all humans male or female. 

A curious point about this part of the Constitution is that it has been revised since it was first established in the diocesan  Statement of Faith in 2015. The original Statement held that marriage is for lifetime. Some parishes balked at this and deleted that provision before ratifying the Statement (they would have lost many of their congregants if this were enforced). Note that the 2023 iteration of the Statement in the Constitution omits the provision of lifetime marriage. The point is that the Statement, the Constitution, indeed the schism were not about marriage. They were about homophobia.

This leads us back to the overall significance of this schism. It is an important part of the contemporary culture war. The Episcopal Church made a bold decision in the 1950's to join in the great democratic revolution that was just beginning to sweep America. Once in, TEC championed equality for and inclusion of racial minorities, women, homosexuals, and trans people among others. A minority in the Church rebelled against this reform movement. The breaking point came in the 1990's when it was clear that TEC had made a de facto settlement for homosexuals. A separatist movement began boiling up in the Diocese of South Carolina as a backlash against the national church's democratic trajectory. The break was thirty years in the making in SC, coming to a head in 2012. Hence, the Anglican diocesan constitution as in its latest version, of this year. 

What the Episcopal diocese got out of the schism was ownership of the historic diocese. Apparently, the separatists are not quite on board with this. The EDSC must find ways to bring this about.    

 "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.  

 

NOTES,  1 MARCH 2023

Greetings, blog reader. It is Wednesday, the First of March, 2023. It is a new month and signs of spring are all around us who live in the deep south. I would send garden pictures but my garden is suffering from the effects of a hard winter. The severe cold snap last December killed or damaged many of the more cold sensitive plants. It will be a while for the survivors to recuperate. Nevertheless, many other plants are coming back to life and putting out their lovely colors. I intend to enjoy this new springtime.

I have no news of the schism to report today. We are still waiting on the SC Supreme Court to respond to the three requests before it. It has been five months since we heard a word from the high court in Columbia.

In the Anglican world, the homophobe/misogynist coalition has been in nuclear meltdown since the Church of England voted last month to approve of in-church blessings of persons in same-sex relationships (some people are saying the Church is not blessing the unions but blessing the people involved in them--a distinction without a difference). One has only to scan the anglican.ink website to see the numerous doomsday protests from around the world. One was truly appalling. It came from none other than Vladimir Putin. He ridiculed the C of E. This is Putin, arguably the most immoral political leader on the world stage today. Why would anyone pay any attention to what he would have to say on the judgments of other people?

Also in the chutzpah line up is Foley Beach. He is not even in the Anglican Communion. He shot off a letter under his name alone to declare that the Archbishop of Canterbury was no longer recognized as head of the Anglican Communion. Then there was the Archbishop of Uganda raining down criticism even though Uganda has one of the harshest set of laws in Africa persecuting homosexual citizens, including life in prison. 

Then, the Global South coalition issued a letter virtually declaring a schism in the Anglican Communion. It was signed by 10 of the 25 primates affiliated with the GS. Where were the other 15? This raises the issue of the strength of the schism movement pushed by GS and GAFCON. Last year, the socially reactionary movement at the Lambeth Conference gained only 125 signatures of the 600+ bishops in attendance. There are signs that the move to break up the Anglican Communion along social policy lines is not as strong as its proponents claim. 

Next month, GAFCON is holding a world conference at Kigali. Rwanda, from April 17 to 21. There is no doubt what the main topic of discussion will be. 

This month, the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina will hold its eleventh annual meeting, at Bluffton, March 10-11. They will have plenty of reason to rejoice. Since their last meeting, March 2022, they have made huge gains in the war of the schism. First, the SCSC awarded the ADSC 15 of the 29 parishes it had earlier recognized for the Episcopal diocese. Then the SCSC turned around and presented another 7 of the 29 to ADSC. By August of 2022, the EDSC was left with just 8 of the 29 the SCSC had awarded to EDSC on Aug. 2, 2017. One of these 8 the EDSC subsequently sold to the local schismatic congregation leaving EDSC with a net gain of 7 of the original 29. On top of this, the EDSC disposed of 4 other properties to the ADSC. In addition, apparently in the "final settlement" announced between the two dioceses last year, the EDSC has dropped claim to the dozen or so local church that did not enter the lawsuit and stayed with the separatist diocese. All in all, the ADSC had its best year ever since the division of 2012. They have every reason to party away in Bluffton. One has to hand it to them; they snatched a sort of victory from the jaws of defeat.

Changing gears to another story coming from South Carolina, did he do it? Did Alex Murdaugh murder his son and wife? This is the issue in the trial underway. The whole world seems to be watching this grizzly southern gothic story. 

I have watched only bits of the trial and certainly do not understand all the complicated, even bizarre, twists and turns. However, from what I have seen, it seems to me the circumstantial evidence is strong for conviction. The cell phone video showing him present at the crime scene just minutes before the murders is compelling. Moreover, I have seen no evidence at all of the presence of another person or persons who could have committed the killings.

However, I am not sure that the prosecution has proven the case beyond a reasonable doubt. All the defense need is to sway one of the twelve jurors to get Murdaugh off the hook. It was reported that a couple of the jurors were weeping during his testimony on the stand last week. 

In my opinion, the weakest point in the prosecution's presentation was failure to establish a plausible motive for the crime, not that they have to do this. Still, motive would go a long way to moving the jury. Why would the defendant murder, in cold blood, his son and wife? I, for one, am left baffled. I would imagine the jury is thinking the same. 

Watching some of the trial did make me a bit sad thinking about the schism. The judge presiding in Walterboro, Clifton Newman, has done an excellent job of being fair, reasonable, and thorough. He is closing off any grounds of appeal from shortcomings of the court. If only the church litigation had had such a judge the outcome could have been different. Instead, the plaintiffs (ADSC) chose the court in Dorchester County that turned out to rule so over the top on their side that the SC Supreme Court ridiculed the lower court. Then, another judge in the same circuit discarded the SC decision and replaced it with a new one which was actually a return to the first court ruling. What a mess. But that was not all. The SCSC went on to reverse itself, and not once but twice. So, to be charitable, the state courts in SC leave something to be desired. Thank God for Judge Newman for restoring a bit of faith in the SC courts. Peace.    

 

CHURCH OF ENGLAND APPROVES OF SAME-SEX BLESSINGS IN CHURCH

Thursday, 9 February, 6:35 a.m. CST.     The General Synod of the Church of England has just voted to approve of the bishops' report, Living in Love and Faith. The vote by house:

Bishops:  yes 36;  no 4;  abstain 2

Clergy:  yes 111;  no 85;  abstain 3

Laity:  yes 103;  no 92;  abstain 5

The motion on LLF was carried with one amendment.

This means that clergy of the Church will have the option of offering blessings in local churches for same-sex couples. However, LLF also holds that the church definition of marriage remains a union of one man and one woman. Gay couples may now have the right to blessings but not marriage in the Church of England. This was meant to be a compromise. 

The discussions leading up to the vote were a model of reason and civility. Nevertheless, the speakers rarely addressed the core issue involved in all of this, whether homosexual relations are inherently sinful. Still, the unspoken outcome of the vote is the Church's tacit rejection of homosexual acts as sin and adoption of the attitude of moral neutrality. The Church would not be approving of the blessings in church of arrangements it considered inherently sinful. This is the model that the American Episcopal Church provided.

Now that the C of E has silently moved to reject the position of the innate sinfulness of homosexual relations, it is only a matter of time before it adopts same-sex marriage in the church. This is the real significance of what the C of E has done today.