COVID SURGING IN SOUTH CAROLINA
AND ALABAMA

New data show that COVID-19 is spiking in South Carolina and Alabama. Find an article about this here .  

Here are the statistics according to the website Worldometers for the past three weeks:

CASES

                 May 28-June 2     June 3-June 10     June 11-June 17

World      +726,395, +13%   +873,945, +14%   +943,361, +13%

U.S.         +155,448, +9%      +164,485, +9%     +162,745, +8%

SC           +1,999, +15%        +2,813, +23%       +4,762, +31%

AL           +3,121, +20%        +2,671, +14%       +5,470, +26%

DEATHS

World      +30,094, +9%        +31,289, +8%       +32,540, +8%

U.S.         +7,437, +7%          +6,089, +6%         +4,982, +4%

SC           +55, +12%             +67, +13%            +39, +7%

AL           +73, +13%             +76, +12%            +56, +8%

In the world, the numbers of cases continue to rise, at about the same rate. The total figure now is 8,287,338. The numbers of deaths also continue to rise, at about the same pace. The total figure now is 446,669 dead.

In the U.S. as a whole, the numbers of new cases seem to be leveling off while the numbers and rates of deaths are declining. There are now 2,208,486 cases in the U.S. The mortality total stands at 119,133. The greatest factor impacting these statistics is the dramatic decline in hospitalizations in New York.

While New York is improving, the southeastern and far western states are seeing sudden surges in new cases. South Carolina and Alabama are now two of the states with the highest numbers and rates of spread of the disease in the entire United States. In SC, there were enormous jumps in both numbers of new cases and the rates of spread in the last three weeks. In just the last week, SC saw 4,762 new cases, bringing the total to 19,990. At this rate, the number of cases will double, to 40,000 in about a month. Alabama saw even more new cases in the last week, 5,470, bringing its total to 26,912. As with SC, at this rate, AL will have twice as many cases in a month or so. The only hopeful news for SC and AL is that the rate of death has not paralleled that of infection.

The conclusion is that COVID-19 is spreading in South Carolina and Alabama in alarming numbers and rates. Moreover, there seems to be nothing in the way to change this. Both states have "opened" almost all public places. In addition, my observation is that many people believe the "re-opening" means the end of the virus. When I go out, I see about half the people wearing masks and very few wearing gloves and practicing physical distancing. So, for an awful lot of people, the pandemic is nothing to worry about when the data clearly show the opposite. This is a recipe for disaster. With this scenario, we can expect the disease to spread even more rapidly in our southeastern states.

Church officers ought to keep all of this in mind as they plan to resume corporate, in-person worship. Some churches seem to be mindful of this and some not so much. I noticed that St. Michael's, of Charleston, held its first in-person service a couple of weeks ago. For some reason, which I did not catch, the clergy led the sizeable congregation (maybe 100) as a group across the intersections to meet at each of the other three corners of law before entering the church. All along the way, people walked together in clumps chatting closely, ignoring social distancing.

The harsh truth is that we are moving inexorably into an ever worsening pandemic for which there is no cure, not even treatment. The summer may see a respite, and may not. We southerners like to stay indoors a lot in the hot weather. The fall is almost certain to see a big surge in COVID. In the great flu pandemic of 1918, by far the worst part came in the last few months of the year. All signs indicate the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is yet to come whether people want to believe it or not.

All of this is hard to take. No one wanted this terrible plague to happen. No one caused it. Yet, here we are. We are called for the living of this hour, as hard as it may be. Peace.

RACE AND THE

EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN 

SOUTH CAROLINA

[NOTE. June 17, 2020. 
I posted the following on June 20, 2015 in the wake of the Mother Emanuel massacre. It is worth revisiting now when racism is, once again, (or perhaps, still) a national crisis. I know both the Episcopal and Anglican dioceses have taken some measures to address racism, but I wonder today what, if anything, has changed in the last five years. From the massive demonstrations in the streets everywhere these days, we would have to conclude that we have a great deal of work to do to heal the wounds of racism.] 



BLOG POST OF JUNE 20, 2015:

The June 17 massacre was one of the worst apparently racially motivated crimes in the history of South Carolina. As southerners try to come to grips with this monstrous event, it is useful, if painful, for us to review the role race has played in the history of the Episcopal Church in South Carolina. Perhaps even this cursory review will help us put our present shock into some meaningful perspective. A full examination of this would take volumes. Space here allows only a brief review. Sources: journals of the annual conventions and the diocesan histories.

Early white settlers flocked to the colony of South Carolina enticed by land grants, other benefits, and a new land advantageous for the vast production of agriculture. The labor intensive work required mass labor. The attempt to force the native Americans to do the labor failed as these people simply vanished into the wilderness. Land owners then began mass importations of slaves from western Africa and the West Indies. South Carolina was the only one of the thirteen colonies where slaves outnumbered whites. Not coincidentally, it was also by far the richest colony and Charleston the richest city. It was also one in which the Church of England (aka Anglican Church) was established (1704-1778). Even though 12,000 slaves escaped in the Revolutionary period, slavery rebounded to be even stronger as cotton became the greatest cash crop. After 1810, slaves outnumbered whites in South Carolina again.

The Episcopal Church was the predominant religion among the Low Country planter gentry and professional-commercial classes. Some of the planters brought their slaves to be baptized in the Church. Just before the Civil War, the Episcopal Diocese listed 3,000 "colored communicants." Calvary Church in Charleston gives as its date of origin 1847. Nevertheless, slaves as a whole showed little interest in the liturgical Episcopal Church preferring more personal and individualistic forms of worship. The Episcopal diocese did virtually nothing to improve conditions of life for slaves. For instance, a convention in the 1840's discussed recognizing the indissolubility of slave marriages, something that would have prevented owners from selling spouses separately. That idea was dead on arrival. The national Episcopal Church likewise ignored slavery, partially to please South Carolina which had made itself an indispensable part of the national Church (for instance, SC was the prime mover and main supporter of General Theological Seminary in New York City). The Episcopal Church was the only major Protestant denomination that did not split North/South before the Civil War.  

The cataclysmic Civil War almost destroyed South Carolina. For whites it was as if the world had come to an end. In a sense it had. The place that was once the grandest and richest of all the American colonies, now lay prostrate in ruin and desperate poverty. For the slaves it was liberation and freedom at last, but nothing else. Ninety percent of the slave members of the Episcopal Church promptly abandoned the Church as they abandoned their servitude. In anger, anguish, and frustration many whites in South Carolina directed their rage of defeat and deprivation on the only victims at hand, the newly freed blacks.

From 1865 to 1930 relations between whites and blacks in South Carolina went from bad to worse; and the Episcopal diocese was part and parcel of this. In early 1865, St. Mark's in Charleston was founded as an African American church. In 1875, it applied for admission to the Diocese as a parish. If admitted, it would be the first African American parish of the Diocese and would be treated equally. All hell broke loose in the diocesan convention. And it was a hell of racism that was to last for decades. To their credit, the bishops and most of the clergy tried their best to advocate for racial equality, or at least tolerance, within the Diocese after the Civil War, but the fiercely resolved racist laymen found ways to block every initiative. Given the long Low Church tradition in South Carolina promoting the power of the laity, there was little the clergy could do. At the same time the national Church continued its hands-off policy on race (to continue to the 1950's). 

The crisis over St. Mark's came to a head in 1887 when an African American clergyman presented himself for admission to the diocesan convention. The delegates from St. Paul's (the present cathedral), Charleston got up and stalked out followed by representatives of twelve other parishes including the great churches of Charleston. Bishop William Howe could hardly contain his anger and frustration. He declared a quorum, proceeded with business then ended the meeting with: "I trust that our brethren will reconsider the case and see whether it is sufficient ground for these old Parishes to go out because one colored clergyman, who has sat in Convention in Virginia, for eight years, I am informed, is here with us."

The "brethren" did not "reconsider." They made their demand very clear: it's the "colored" man or us. To stop this potentially ruinous "Schism of 1887," Bishop Howe caved and arranged a settlement giving in to the rebels' demands. He agreed to the complete segregation of the diocese along racial lines. Clergy would be admitted to the convention only from parishes in union with the Diocese. The three historically black congregations, St. Mark's, Calvary, and St. Luke's of Columbia, had not been admitted into the Diocese. Subsequently, the Diocese set up a "missionary district" as a separate organization for the African Americans with a legislative body called a Convocation. In time the bishop would appoint an archdeacon to oversee the separated minority. Long faithful African American Episcopalians in South Carolina were reduced to second-class treatment in their own church. It is no wonder that the number of "colored" communicants in the diocese changed not at all between 1873 and 1900. In 1900 there were nine white communicants for every one "colored" communicant in a state where there were three blacks for every two whites.

Meanwhile a post-Reconstruction harsh, virulent racism gripped South Carolina. No doubt the best-known proponent of this was "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, governor from 1890 to 1894, and unabashed racist. Under his influence a new state constitution was adopted that disenfranchised the vast majority of African Americans (who just happened to be the majority of the population). Soon Jim Crow laws beyond count became the order of the day as did lynchings, of which 156 occurred in South Carolina between 1882 and 1930. The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina remained silent in the face of this evil.

Suffering under denial of their human rights and blocked from access to economic opportunities at home, blacks by the thousands began fleeing from South Carolina in what is called the Great Migration. They mostly headed north for the big cities. It has been estimated that across the South, 1.6m African Americans fled their home states between 1910 and 1930, and 6m for the period of 1910 to 1970 (this began to reverse only in the 1990's). This outflow of manpower alone was a heavy price for South Carolina to pay for its crushing racism.

In the Episcopal dioceses of the South, there developed in the early 1900's discussion of whether to have a suffragan bishop for their African American communicants. Two dioceses decided favorably, Arkansas and North Carolina, which unanimously elected the Rev. Henry Beard Delany a bishop suffragan in 1918 (d. 1928). He was the first African American bishop in the southeastern U.S. In South Carolina, Bishop William A. Guerry was very much in favor and tried his best to get the diocesan convention to agree to an African American bishop suffragan. He was voted down every time. As in the 1870's and 80's the racist laymen were too powerful to control. Guerry was murdered (d. June 9, 1928) by a deranged gunman who took his own life.

From 1930 to 1945, the Diocese was preoccupied with conditions of the Great Depression and the Second World War. As far as race relations went, nothing changed (although the diocese did support Voorhees College in Denmark, SC starting in 1924). Once the War was over, the diocese returned to the race issue. In the convention of 1945, a committee was set up to  make recommendations on the "colored" role in the diocese. It recommended inclusion. When admission of "colored" came up for a vote in the convention, the laity voted it down in 1946, in 1949, in 1951, and 1953. Finally, in 1954 the convention voted to admit only St. Mark's of Charleston. This was the first African American parish to be admitted to the Diocese of South Carolina, and it came seventy-nine years after it had applied for admission and eighty-nine years after the Civil War. The Diocese of South Carolina was the last Episcopal diocese to integrate.

Although the laity had at long last agreed to let blacks into the diocesan convention, they were in no mood to change Jim Crow. In 1956, the convention passed a resolution: "there is nothing morally wrong in voluntary recognition of racial differences." 

By 1960, the Civil Rights movement was underway in America. In South Carolina, a new bishop, Gray Temple (1961-1982) guided the diocese in harmony with the national Church. He removed all the last vestiges of the old racism in the diocese, nearly a century after the Civil War. Equality came at last. His was also the era when women were first admitted to Holy Orders and a new prayer book was adopted. Around 1960, the national Episcopal Church shook off its historical indifference to social and cultural issues in America and began to develop an active role in making reforms in the nation. This was, and still is, controversial in the Church, but Bishop Temple never wavered in his loyalty to the Episcopal Church. When state law required the diocese to be incorporated, he did so in 1973 with the explicit statement the diocese would function "under" the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church.

The Diocese of South Carolina considered itself nothing but an integral part of the Episcopal Church. This was to change after Temple retired in 1982 and Bishop Allison took over.

In sum, the Episcopal Church in South Carolina has a long and heavy history of racism that began changing only a few decades ago. Whether it has truly changed is a matter of conjecture and debate. There is a theory that the schism of 2012 was really a reaction against the Civil Rights movement, as if South Carolinians were saying we will get revenge on forcing racial equality on us. Maybe, but I have seen no empirical evidence to support such a theory. Overt racism has disappeared in the Episcopal Church and the dioceses. No one can know how much covert racism remains in South Carolina. Nevertheless, the intolerance, prejudice, and bigotry that drove racism in South Carolina for so long did reappear as the leadership of the pre-schism diocese crusaded for years against the national Episcopal Church and its stand for inclusion of another mistreated minority, homosexual persons. It may be they traded one minority for another. The resolutions they passed in their last convention speak to the continuation of that.

It is interesting to note that when time came for the schism of 2012, the two historically African American parishes of the Diocese of South Carolina made their voices known early and loudly. They would have none of the new discrimination. They would remain steadfastly with the Episcopal Church. Who could know better that intolerance and discrimination against one minority is the same against all minorities?

The old Diocese of South Carolina split in 2012 on the issue of rights for a minority of human beings. Having agreed to accept rights for one minority, the leadership and majority of the old diocese decided they could not and would not accept the equality of another.

"I Forgive You"

Yesterday, family members forgave the monster even though he did not ask for it or show any contrition. Apparently, he had no moral conscience. They reminded us how to be true Christians, even in the hardest of times. Goodness knows, African Americans can speak to endurance in the face of evil. The two dioceses that are now heirs of the old Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina both claim to have moral consciences. It is time for them to ask for forgiveness for the sin of racism that runs so deeply in the church in South Carolina. Slavery, dehumanization, deprivation of human rights, and silence in the face of evil are all sins for which the Episcopal dioceses in South Carolina should ask forgiveness from the African American community of South Carolina. These good people, whose family members were murdered apparently only because of their ethnic heritage, forgave the monster. They can forgive the Episcopal Church too. That is a place of beginning to move toward a healing, reconciliation, and unity of all of God's people.   

NOTES, 16 JUNE 2020

For the last few days, I have been away from my computer. We all need to take a break now and then. However, while I was away, some highly important events occurred, so there is much to catch up with today. My usual disclaimer is that what I offer here is only personal opinion. I am not an officer in any church or other institutional body; and I speak for no one but myself.

BISHOP LOVE

On Friday, 12 June 2020, a panel set up by the Disciplinary Board for Bishops held a public hearing in the matter of Bishop William Love, of Albany. Both the Episcopal Church and Bishop Love asked for summary judgment in this case. The church charged that Love violated the vows he made at his consecration to conform to the discipline and worship of the Episcopal Church and should be held accountable. Bishop Love contended that he had not violated the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church.

The specific issue revolves around Resolution B012 in the 2018 General Convention of the Episcopal Church. It provided for same-sex marriage in all dioceses under certain conditions. Bishop Love rejected this resolution in his diocese and maintained his policy of banning same-sex marriage in the Diocese of Albany. The church lawyer said that with this, Love violated the discipline and worship of the church.

The facts of the case were not in dispute. Love admitted to blocking B012 in his diocese. His position was that he did not violate the doctrine of the church which was contained in the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer and in the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. B012 was not put in the BCP and was not given canonical status; therefore, B012 did not become doctrine of the church. He could not be held in violation of something that did not exist.

The central issue became whether a resolution of the General Convention is in and of itself a law of the church and applicable to all of the dioceses, or just a suggestion to the dioceses until and unless it is either specifically spelled out in the canons or placed in the BCP. In short, was a resolution of the GC a law of the church?

The issue at stake, and the arguments presented, were really rather simple and straightforward. They were not complicated or difficult to understand. The church lawyer argued for a broad interpretation, that the Episcopal Church is hierarchical and the highest body has authority over the dioceses. A resolution of GC necessarily has authority over the dioceses. Love's lawyer argued for a strict interpretation, that GC can make law only by placing it in the Constitution and Canons or in the BCP. Therefore, a resolution of GC is not necessarily authoritative in and of itself.

So, the sides conflicted over the power of a resolution of the GC. The church argued that a resolution has inherent authority over the dioceses. Love argued that a resolution does not have inherent authority and that it becomes enforceable only if it becomes an official canon of the church and/or is spelled out in the rubrics of the prayer book. B012 was placed in neither the canons nor the prayer book and therefore is not mandatory over the dioceses.

What the hearing panel now has to decide is whether Bp Love has violated his consecration vows. If he has, he faces discipline. If he has not, he is exonerated. However, the losing side can appeal the decision. This whole matter may drag on for a long time to come.

In my opinion, the odds are that the panel will find for the church side. The point of a resolution of GC is to make policy and procedure for the whole Episcopal Church. If this were not enforceable, it would be only a suggestion. What good would that be? Suppose Congress passed laws that were only suggestions to the states and could not be enforced unless they were written into the Constitution. This would be virtually unworkable. We have an example, embarrassingly enough, here in Alabama. The State of Alabama has the longest constitution in the world. It is 44 times longer than the U.S. Constitution. It holds 946 amendments at last count. The reason for this is that any act of the legislature that affects even one county has to become a constitutional amendment. It is absurd and has led to ridiculous and burdensome outcomes such as very long ballots on election day with one amendment after another. Why should I have to vote on dog racing in Demopolis? No, the reason we have law-making bodies is to make law.

I fully expect the Episcopal Church to impose some sort of discipline on Bishop Love who, to his credit, has voluntarily followed the policies and procedures of discipline so far. I see no movement in Albany today toward secession, such as we saw in South Carolina before the schism of 2012.

It is interesting to compare the case of Bp Love with that of South Carolina. Fundamentally, they dealt with the same issue, hierarchy, that is, whether the General Convention had authority over the dioceses. Even that had a difference. Love is not exactly arguing that GC has no authority, only that this right has to be specifically spelled out in the canons and/or in the BCP. 

South Carolina was different. There, in 2010 and 2011, the diocesan convention voted self-governance and the right to nullify the laws of the national church within the diocese. It voted to repeal the diocesan accession to the canons of TEC. The national church did not respond to this outright act of rebellion. In 2011, Bishop Lawrence was investigated by the Disciplinary Board for Bishops for numerous charges of violation of vows. The DBB voted not to charge Lawrence with violation. Lawrence then very publicly disregarded the Dennis Canon by granting quit claim deeds to the local parishes. This in-your-face defiance of Episcopal Church canon law gave the church no choice but to take disciplinary action. Meanwhile, the two dozen or so leaders of the diocese made a secret deal to remove the diocese from the Episcopal Church if the church took any action against Lawrence, something that everyone knew was likely in view of the quit claim deeds. The DBB really had no choice this second time but to vote that Lawrence had abandoned the communion. On October 15, 2012, the presiding bishop placed a restriction on Lawrence who promptly informed the diocesan leadership. Schism. The leadership declared the secret resolution to be in effect and then announced this to the world. So, the way Love is handling his case now is entirely different than the way Lawrence handled his case. We should all be grateful to Bishop Love for this.

For a lengthy article on the Love hearing, see this ENS report. 

A video recording of the three hour and twenty-two minute hearing may be found here. 

NATIONAL CRISIS

We Americans are now dealing with multiple crises: COVID-19, economic recession, and reaction to racism. The country has not seen a situation as serious as this since the end of the Second World War, 75 years ago. At first glance, we may feel that everything is out of control. While this is definitely a time of change, I do not see it as a negative. In fact, I am more hopeful of the the future now than I have been in a long time. Here is my view.

President Trump came to power three and a half years ago on a policy of divide and conquer. He did his best to turn social groups against each other. In a quest for authoritarian power he attacked every institution he saw as a challenge, the FBI, the intelligence community, the courts, the Congress, and the media. He survived the Mueller probe and the impeachment movement. However, he could not survive the coronavirus and its effects. His incompetency was put on full display in front of the virus, the economic collapse, and the subsequent massive street demonstrations. The majority of Americans, who had never supported him, increasingly rejected the president.

The people and the institutions held in spite of Trump's best efforts against them. By the countless thousands, the people took to the streets to denounce racism, something that Trump had stoked for years. The people defended the principles of democracy and human rights. In so doing, they repudiated Trumpism. 

The institutions that had come under tremendous stain held the line. The generals rebelled against the president when he tried to use the armed forces against the American citizens marching in the streets under their constitutions rights. Trump's grasp at authoritarianism collapsed. Meanwhile state and local governments arose to the occasion in the fight against the virus. The Federal Reserve  and the Congress staved off economic catastrophe. 

By far the greatest demonstration that the institutions held the line came from the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday. It issued a major decision defending the human rights of homosexual persons. It declared that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protected homosexuals in the workplace. They cannot be fired simply because of their sexual orientation. The majority (6-3) opinion was written by none other than Justice Gorsuch, a Trump (and Heritage Foundation) appointee. To me, this decision is great in and of itself but also because it proved the indispensable American institutions have survived Trumpism. This tells us that American democracy is still strong. It tells me that the the counter-revolutionaries are losing in their reaction against the great democratic reforms of the late Twentieth and early Twenty-First Centuries. The force of democracy is greater than that of reaction. This is true in spite of three and a half years of a demagogue doing his best to diminish democratic and human rights values. America stayed true to its past. It held the line for us all. This is a moment to stop and absorb it all. This is a monumental point in history.

I have much more to say but this blog piece has grown too long. 

Remember friend, we are here for the living of this hour. Peace. 

10 JUNE 2020, NOTES

Welcome, blog reader, on this Wednesday, the Tenth of June in the highly eventful year of 2020. There is much going on all around us these days and much to talk about. Today, however, it is time to check in on our weekly look at the COVID-19 pandemic. How are things going on this front?

Here are the statistics according to the website Worldometers as for the past three weeks:

CASES

                    May 20-May27    May 28-June 2     June 3-June 10

World         +703,501, +14%   +762,395, +13%   +873,945, +14%

U.S.             +154,790, +10%   +155,448, +9%     +164,485, +9%

SC               +1,360, +15%       +1,999, +19%       +2,813, +23%

AL               +2,949, +23%       +3,121, +20%       +2,671, +14%

DEATHS

World         +27,507, +8%       +30,094, +9%       +31,289, +8%

U.S.             +7,083, +8%         +7,437, +7%         +6,089, +6%

SC               +47, 12%               +55, +12%           +67, +13%

AL               +14, +2%              +73, +13%           +76, +12%

What these data tell us is that the coronavirus continues to spread around the world unabated and to kill people at about the same rate. In America, it continues to infect people at about the same rate. The "good" news here is that the numbers and rates of "new" deaths in the U.S. are noticeably declining. The bad news here is that this is uneven. There are "hot spots" in America where the virus is spreading at a quickening pace. South Carolina is one of those. Just look at the numbers for SC. In every period, the number and the rates escalated in the state. This is cause for alarm. As for Alabama, the spread may be leveling off. Nevertheless, 76 died in the Heart of Dixie in just the last week. My heart aches.

The raw numbers of the pandemic still stagger us as they have for over three months. Over seven million people in the world have fallen ill of the virus since it appeared just six months ago, over two million of those in the United States which remains the epicenter of the plague. In the world, nearly 400,000 people have died of the coronavirus, 114,000 of them Americans. The U.S. continues to be the hardest hit place in the world and our government seems helpless to do anything about it. At the moment, we are fixated on the massive street demonstrations and the impending national election. President Trump appears to me to be completely incapable of dealing with any crisis.

So, what is the outlook for the plague? Looking at the trajectory of the past few weeks, I think we can expect the disease to continue running rampant until we get a vaccine. The country has "re-opened" and thousands of people are out in the streets not practicing social distancing. Right now I am most concerned about the frightening figures from South Carolina where the virus is spreading faster than in most parts of the country. 

Going over the statistics of the pandemic always makes me sad and I have to pause to let everything sink in. This is hard. I wish this had not happened, but it did, and there is no way around it but to persevere. We are here for the living of this hour like it or not. Peace.

___________________________________

P.S. Congratulations to Sam Skardon, Steve's son, who won the Democratic primary for SC Senate, District 41, yesterday. At 63% of the vote, we can now call him "Landslide Sam." He will be the Democratic candidate for that seat in the general election in November. Best wishes to Sam.

  

TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL

Probably as you, and everyone else, I have been spending a lot of time lately trying to make sense of what is happening all around us. Everything seems to be turning upside down. Our lives seem to be devolving into swirling disorder. We wonder, with some fear, what is happening now and what is likely to happen in the near future.

Here are my musings of the day for what they are worth:

---We Americans have been in chaos for three and a half years since Donald Trump was elected president. He was the first star of popular culture elected president. He had not held any public office before. A person of no apparent internal convictions, he was elected entirely on image. The image was strength and power; and this resonated with the elements of American society that felt threatened by the social changes going on around them. His "base" was the angry white working class man, southern whites, and white evangelical Christians. Trump brilliantly solidified the traditional Republican base of big business with this fearful white base. He went on to gain complete control over the old Republican party by using intimidation and reward. He destroyed, or tried to, anyone who crossed him in any way. He seemed to be truly strong and powerful.

Donald Trump is now and has always been a minority president (Clinton got 3m votes more than he.). The majority of Americans oppose him. To be sure, the majority fought back against Trump. In the mid-term elections of 2018, the Democrats won a huge sweep and regained control of the House of Representatives. The Mueller investigation carried out a lengthy examination of the Trump campaign's ties with the Russians. The Democrats impeached the president and the Senate put him on trial. All along, Trump built up his power. He and his acolytes declared victory when the Mueller report was published. They declared victory anew when the solid Republican party kept him from being removed from office in spite of obvious abuses of power. His opponents grew increasingly frustrated and angry as he continued to act in defiance of the Constitution and run the government in disregard of established norms and structures. The steam built up in the pressure cooker.

Thus, the country has been held hostage in a pressure cooker for three and a half years by a genius of media manipulation.

---By March of 2020, a new crisis suddenly appeared, a pandemic caused by a highly contagious and deadly novel virus. Trump first treated this as a media problem. He pretended it did not exist. By the time he recognized its reality, it was too late. The country had to go into a lockdown for weeks on end. Individual Americans felt as hostages anew, this time to a miniscule organism that had no conscience. Trump's treatment of this crisis revealed in stark reality his utter incompetence at public policy. The outcome of this was his surrender to the virus and the reopening of the country.

---At the same time the country was reopening, a video recording captured the egregious and violent death of a black man under the knee of a white police officer. The pressure cooker exploded. Held hostage by the president for three and a half years, then held hostage in their homes by the virus, people burst out into the streets in virtually every American city and town. They were protesting the killing; and they were also protesting what Trump and the virus had done to them. The mass demonstrations were a safety valve. 

---President Trump was caught completely unprepared for this popular explosion. And so he retreated to his original impulses that got him elected in the first place. Playing up the acts of violent lawlessness that were offshoots of the peaceful demonstrations, he declared "domination" over the protesters and called in all the armed officers he could muster. This came to a head when he had peaceful demonstrators violently removed from a space so he could have a photo op in front of St. John's holding a Bible. When he tried to call in the army against the lawful marchers, he crossed a red line. The generals revolted. They refused to allow the American armed forces to be used to put down their fellow citizens who were exercising constitutional rights of free speech, assembly, and petition. Trump's coalition of force collapsed as numerous retired generals went on TV to denounce the president, not the demonstrators, as the danger to the country. Trump could survive Mueller and impeachment, but he could not survive the revolt of the generals. The sand was washed from under his feet.

The president who had risen to power on an image of strength and control had lost it. This became starkly obvious to everyone. He has not recovered. He is now overwhelmingly unpopular according to every public opinion poll.

If the election were held today, Trump and the Republicans would go down to a landslide defeat of historic proportions. The Democrats would sweep the White House, the House of Representatives, the Senate and countless state races. The Republican party would face a catastrophic collapse. They would reap the outcome of their Faustian bargain. Where the party would go from there would be anyone's guess.

However, no one should ever count Trump out. He divides the world into "winners" and "losers." He sees himself as a winner. There is no telling what he will do to win the election coming up in less than six months. The chaos of the last three and a half years may be just a warm-up.

---What to make of the demonstrations? They are widespread, even around the world. They are popular. Thousands of people are marching everywhere. They are multi-cultural. Indeed, in many places, they are majority white demonstrations. They are also long lasting. They have been going on for two weeks now with no sign of letting up. Moreover, there are no counter-demonstrations to oppose the marchers.

There have been acts of lawless violence. In some places, criminal gangs have smashed windows, looted stores, attacked police, and destroyed property. However, these acts were separate from the peaceful demonstrations and they were short-lived. They were never the main impetus of the demonstrations which were peaceful marches for racial justice.

What about historical parallels? Some people have compared the new demonstrations to those of 1968. I do not see it beyond a superficial level. The clashes of 1968 came out of a different historical dynamic. At that time, the Civil Rights movement had been going on for years and had accomplished a great deal of political and social change in America. However, this was at the same time as the Vietnam War rocked the country. All of this came to a violent head in 1968 with the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. White reactionaries then arose to fight back against the force of Civil Rights which it blamed for the frightening violence. Under the banner of "Law and Order," the Republicans drew up a Southern Strategy to get the votes of white southerners, who had traditionally voted Democratic. It worked. This gave the Republican party a long, half-century run of political power. So, the demonstrations of 1968 were the start of a clash of counter-revolutionaries against the revolutionaries. We are still in this historic period of counter-revolutionary backlash against revolutionary changes.

The demonstrations of today are more like those of 1963 when the revolutionary period was just beginning to build as a transformative force in America. The revolutionaries then had a clear agenda and the expectation that this was achievable. They did see various civil rights and voting rights acts enacted in Washington. The mood of today is like that---the expectation of change, in this case the reform of policing to guarantee equal treatment of all races at the hands of law enforcement officers. These reforms will come. The mood of the country today is closer to 1963 than to 1968.

What is happening now is the resurgence of the revolutionary forces that have been challenged for a half-century by counter-revolutionary forces. The clash between those who want a continuing development of democracy and those who want a return to pre-civil rights days has been going on since 1968. Sometimes the reactionaries had the upper hand, as under Ronald Reagan. Yet, there were times when the revolutionaries scored big victories, as in Roe v. Wade in 1973 and marriage equality in 2015. 

What brought the clash to a head in 2020 was the convergence of forces, namely the presidency of Trump and the coronavirus. The fatigue of three and a half years of anxiety set the stage for an explosion of reaction. The revolutionaries have reclaimed the streets as they are reclaiming history. They are extending their reforming impulse to racial injustice. President Trump was elected by his "base" as the man of strength and power to "dominate" in the interest of the counter-revolutionaries (Make America Great Again). He has been shown to be incompetent at both government and holding his base together. He was only an image after all, a Wizard of Oz who has been exposed behind the curtain.

So, these are my thoughts of the moment as I struggle to make sense of what is going on around us. I have not seen a time quite like this. Yet, I am not frightened. I am not worried. In fact, I am quite encouraged. I see the American people reasserting the values of democracy. Countless thousands of ordinary citizens of every description are willing to risk violence (police) and death (virus) because they believe deeply in the principles that made this country great: freedom, equality, and justice. For this, they are willing to risk their lives. I am lost in admiration for them. Democracy is very much alive and well. I can only take heart at this. There is a better day ahead. 

Always remember, friend, you and I are here for the living of this hour. May we find strength and courage. Peace.

IT IS TIME TO REMOVE

THE CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS

Confederate monument, Jacksonville AL, erected 1909. The generic Johnny Reb is almost always facing north. This memorial, in the middle of the town square, is the very center of the town.

For several years there has been a movement in the south, and other places, to remove reminders of the Confederate States of America. This has accelerated in the last couple of weeks in the course of the anti-racist demonstrations sweeping America. In the last few days in Alabama, the two largest cities have removed their prominent Confederate memorials. All across Alabama there have been marches and demonstrations demanding the removal of all of 109 public memorials to the Confederacy. There was even one in the small town of Jacksonville. There are 112 Confederate monuments in SC.

What was the origin of the ubiquitous Confederate memorial? Most of the public space monuments, as the one above, were erected between 1900 and 1920 by Confederate descendant groups, as the United Daughters of the Confederacy. They were put up to memorialize the fathers and grandfathers who fought in the Civil War and who were beginning to die off. Too, they were not so subtle signals to the blacks of the ongoing racial divides. The years 1900 to 1920 brought the height of the Jim Crow era when lynchings were most common. This was arguably the most racist time in the south after the Civil War. The Ku Klux Klan saw its largest membership in the 1920s.

Now, I want to talk as a white southerner whose heritage goes back in the south to the late 1600s when my earliest ancestors from Europe arrived in Virginia. All of my forebearers who were alive at the time supported the Confederacy. Some of them fought, and some died, in the Civil War. They were ordinary small farmers who were all entirely locally-oriented. My ancestor soldiers believed they were fighting to protect home, family, and community.

What were the goals of the Confederacy in the Civil War? It was fighting for two self-evident aims, to create a new country of slave states and to defend slavery on which the economy, indeed the whole way of life in those states, rested. The Confederate constitution made it virtually impossible for a slave owner to free his or her slaves. The first (new country) would have been a tactical disaster. The second (slavery) would have been a moral catastrophe. 

We can see today that neither of these goals was a noble or morally justifiable cause. Breaking up the United States and defending slavery were wrong on so many levels. However, to rationalize their ancestors' sacrifices and to keep blacks down in second-class citizenship, southern whites created a romanticized version of The Lost Cause after the war (as evidenced in the book and movie "Gone With the Wind"). Then, they erected large public monuments in the most conspicuous public places of the civil community to glorify the Confederacy. In-your-face promotion of the Lost Cause was glorifying slavery which was the worst kind of racism. For decades to come, southern blacks had no choice but to endure the hateful reminders of the continuing crushing discrimination against them. It was not the monument itself that was so much the problem as where it was located. Sponsors always put them in the most prominent and dominant places of the open civic spaces as town squares, parks, courthouse grounds and the like. The placement itself was a powerful message.

So, the question now, in 2020, is whether we southerners should remove these Confederate monuments. I say yes. Let me explain.

The monuments were erected to promote southern white racism. They were meant to dominate the civic spaces as reminders of racial oppression. These powerful symbols played a useful part in bolstering Jim Crow. The monuments were not so much memorials to the soldiers of the Civil War as they were tools to retain social control over blacks. They should not dominate our public spaces now as we southerners try to build a more free, egalitarian, and just society.

The monuments should not be destroyed à la the Taliban. No, we should not smash them. We should remove them from their places in the public spaces and relocate them to historical parks, museums, cemeteries and the like. They are an indelible part of our past in the south and we should come to terms with our past--all of it. We should keep them as irreplaceable, teachable relics of bygone days. If we are ever going to have a truly egalitarian and just society, we southerners must come to terms with our racist past. There is no way around it. We have a lot of work to do. 

So, I say it is time to remove the Confederate monuments. They have had their day. We should protect and preserve them as the important objects they are. However, we should recognize them for what they are, "monumental" reminders of a dark and racist past.

ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS

Christian, and non-Christian, soldiers moved onward in a big way seventy-six years ago today. D-Day, June 6, 1944, was a pivotal moment in the Twentieth Century and one of the two great turning points (the other was the Battle of Stalingrad) of the Second World War. 

That war was not just another fight over territory or whatever. Of all the conflicts of modern history, World War II was the great clash of competing moral forces. The Nazi regime was arguably the most evil power of modern history. The Nazis directly killed at least fourteen million people; and they started a war that slaughtered at least sixty million. The misery and destruction they inflicted on mankind was incalculable.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was always a religious man, and one of the truest Episcopalians ever to inhabit the White House. In fact, in another life, he might have been a clergyman. Next to his mother, the Rev. Endicott Peabody, whom FDR revered as "Dr. Peabody," was the most important influence on FDR's early life. He was headmaster of Groton School when FDR was there. Too, he officiated at the Roosevelts' wedding. Guided by Peabody, FDR formed a lifelong love of God and of the Book of Common Prayer.

When the Second World War boiled up, FDR came to understand it as a moral crusade of good against evil and he struggled to steer an unwilling country onto the side of good which, by the summer of 1940, was Great Britain standing alone against a seemingly unstoppable Nazi war machine. Prime Minister Churchill was desperate to get the U.S. into the war against Germany. For the meanwhile, however, the two had to work around the edges. To encourage more American support, Churchill met FDR in the north Atlantic in August of 1941. Brilliant man that he was, Churchill organized a church service on the deck of HMS Prince of Wales, one that would appeal to FDR's religious sensibilities. Churchill chose the hymns and oversaw the service which was conducted by Church of England chaplains. "Onward Christian Soldiers" was one of the hymns. FDR was deeply moved. On the way home, he told aides, "We are Christian soldiers marching as to war." Find a video of the FDR-Churchill meeting here .

After the U.S. officially entered the war, FDR never wavered in his view of the great moral crusade of history. He saw the war as a titanic struggle of good against evil, one that the good would win but only at enormous sacrifice. As D-Day approached in 1944, FDR wrote a prayer himself, with some help from his daughter and son-in-law. On D-Day, he addressed the nation by radio and included his prayer. It was perfect for the occasion. It has gone down as one of the greatest public prayers of human history. Find an audio of it here .

Also on D-Day, King George VI addressed the British empire on the radio. He too saw the war as the great crusade of good against evil. Find the king's address here .

Cemeteries now dot the hills overlooking the beaches of Normandy. They are filled with the bodies of the brave soldiers who gave their lives in the great crusade against evil. To say we are forever in their debt would be an understatement. They saved all of us. They saved civilization.

And so, FDR, Chruchill, and the king were right. They were onward Christian soldiers. They were the side of right. They had to win that war. I will always believe God was there on the beaches of Normandy as I will always believe he remained in the minds and hearts of the great men who did their best to be His soldiers.

So, on this anniversary of one of the greatest days of human history, let us say a prayer of thanksgiving for all the forces that gave us the victory of good over evil all those years ago.

Remember friends, we are here for the living of this hour, just as those valiant men who hit the beaches of Normandy seventy-six years ago were there for the living, and dying, of that hour. Peace.

_______________________________


P.S. Confederate statues continue to fall. My jaw dropped this morning when I learned of the removal of Admiral Semmes from downtown Mobile AL. He had presided over Government Street for 120 years. On yesterday, the city government suddenly and quietly removed the statue and its markings to an undisclosed location. This is yet another "monumental" change in a city steeped in Confederate history. Find a video report of the Semmes removal here . I am now wondering how much longer John Calhoun will preside over Marion Square in Charleston.

ANGLICAN CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA DISCOVERS HUMAN RIGHTS

At long last, the Anglican Church in North America has discovered human rights, or at least it says it has. On May 29, 2020, its archbishop, Foley Beach, published a letter penned by ACNA bishops Jim Hobby, Todd Hunter, Stewart Ruch and Steve Wood. Find the letter here . The letter condemns the killing of George Floyd. We should all rejoice that the ACNA is apparently turning in the right direction. It has a long way to go; and so we should cheer them on as they move forward on their journey championing human rights.

In fact, the Anglican Church in North America was created in 2009 by a coalition of anti-homosexual rights American Episcopal clergy and GAFCON, the equatorial African based union of anti-homosexual rights Anglican bishops. The main impetus in the creation of the ACNA was to stand against equal rights for and inclusion of open homosexuals in the life of the church. They threw in women to boot. In ACNA, women are not allowed to be bishops. They are to remain submissive to male authority. (In fact, Bishop Iker of Ft. Worth declares he is not in communion with other ACNA bishops who ordain women to the priesthood.) Moreover, the ACNA condemns transgender. So there you have three elements that ACNA openly discriminates against. So, ACNA has a lot of work to do as it goes down the road of its newly stated principles.

In the letter the ACNA bishops declared:

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen 1:27)

What happened to George is an affront to God because George's status as an image bearer was not respected. He was treated in a way that denied his basic humanity."

Amen. So, bishops of ACNA it is time for you to start respecting the other "image bearers" of God whom you have diminished by your own pharasitical discrimination: homosexuals, women, and the transgendered. They were made in the image of God just as much as you and George Floyd were. Yet, you have not treated them in a way that respects their basic humanity.

The ACNA has taken a commendable first step in recognizing the inherent rights of all of God's creation. Now let's see how the ACNA bishops apply their newly discovered principle to the children of God whom they have not respected. We are waiting.

_______________________________________________________

Recent assembly of the bishops of ACNA. Of the 41 present, how many people "of color" do you see? I count three (7%). The rest are old white guys. Now that their consciousness of human rights has been awakened, these guys have an awful lot of work to do. Go guys, we are rooting for you.
(Can you find Mark Lawrence? I think he is the tenth from the left.) 

A NEW FRENCH REVOLUTION?

Are we Americans witnessing the start of a new revolution such as the one that swept France from 1789 to 1799? This question has appeared in the media recently; and I thought I would weigh in on it. I spent a large chunk of my life studying, teaching, and writing about the great French Revolution. In my younger days, I even published a vast partially annotated two-volume bibliography of virtually everything ever written about the Revolution. 

Massive demonstrations, riots in the streets, violent actions against the authorities and property owners, stealing, looting, and killing. This is what is happening in America today. This is what happened in the French Revolution. 

So, are we at the start of a new French Revolution? The short answer is "No."

The long answer requires a bit more explanation. The FR started out as a political revolution spurred on by a rising economy and rising expectations. From the Middle Ages, European countries developed under a ruling power structure of monarch/church/nobility. Only in England did a representative body develop to challenge this. In the Seventeenth Century, the French king Louis XIV altered the medieval alliance to form absolute monarchy (I am the state). He bought off church and aristocracy with favors as tax exemption and privilege. The weakness of absolute monarchy was that it rested on a strong monarch. Louis XVI, who arrived in 1774, was anything but. He was weak, indecisive, and basically incompetent. Meanwhile France enjoyed a great economic development in this period and a large middle class (bourgeoisie) developed. By the 1780s the king was facing huge financial problems (as borrowed money to help the Americans) that came to a head when he could not acquire enough new loans. His helplessness was on full display. 

Seeing an opening, the nobility forced the king to call an ancient body that traditionally had authority to raise new money, the Estates General (had not met in 175 years). It was composed of three houses: clergy, nobility, and commoners. Since all upper clergy were aristocrats, the nobility would control two of the three houses of the EG. This would give them leverage to force the king into power sharing with them.

What the aristocrats did not see was that the middle classes, schooled in the Enlightenment, had developed so much that they would not be pushed aside by resurging medieval powers. When the EG met at Versailles, in 1789, the third house (commoners) seized power, pushed the nobles aside and drew up a constitution setting up a constitutional monarchy resting largely on the middle classes. Now the revolution turned into a social and economic one. With the help of the lower classes, the middle classes cast aside absolute monarchy, established church, and the nobility. A coalition of middle and lower classes then carried out extensive democratically-oriented reforms primarily in the interest of the middle class but with concessions to the poor. When the old power structure resisted, the new power coalition carried out a reign of terror to enforce the new order. Heads rolled including the former king's. Eventually this volatile course of events led to the rise of a military strong man who promised law and order and stability based on the essential reforms of the revolution. In short, the French Revolution was the uprising of every social class, all for different reasons. It started not from poverty and decline but the opposite. On the whole, the capitalist middle classes prevailed and replaced the archaic medieval ruling structure.

The situation I just described is not what we have in America today. So, what do we have?

The French Revolution went through several distinct periods: 1-overthrow of the Old Regime, 2-moderation, 3-radical, 4-counter-revolutionary backlash and compromise between radicals and moderates. After several years of the fourth phase, Napoleon came to power.

We are now in Phase Four of the FR in America. Let me explain. The Twentieth Century was the time of the great democratic revolution in America. The Great Depression established the idea that the government was responsible for the economic welfare of the people. The Second World War established the supremacy of democracy as a political system. The post-Second World War period saw the great expansion of rights and inclusion of social elements heretofore excluded: African Americans, women, the disabled, and homosexuals. Enormous social, cultural, and economic changes came in as part of this revolution. However, there was a counter-revolutionary backlash led by elements that felt threatened of dispossession of power, mainly the angry white working class man, southern whites, and evangelical Christians. Republicans first organized this group in its Southern Strategy of 1968. They combined the economic attitudes of big business with the cultural attitudes of the whites who felt threatened. This was developed by Ronald Reagan and then, more so, by Donald Trump who promised, and enacted, a rolling back of some of the democratic reforms. Thus two coalitions came to clash after 1968: the impetus to extend the democratic reforms and the movement to limit or reverse the reforms for the protection of big business and the pre-democratic revolution power structure.

This is where American stands today. We are having a dramatic clash between those who want to extend liberty and equality, in more than just political ways, and those who want to roll back democracy. In the U.S. this works around the old and major issue of race (which was scarcely an issue in the FR). The important point about President Trump is that he not only wants to reverse democratic change, he wants to dismantle the institutions of the government that gave us the democratic reforms. Indeed, he is offering the counter-revolutionaries an authoritarian government that would virtually discard the constitution and rule by military force ("domination"). So, the upcoming presidential election will be between those who want an extension of democracy in American society (the revolutionaries) and those who want authoritarianism (the counter-revolutionaries). 

And, so I say America has had its French Revolution. We are now in the last part, the counter-revolutionary or backlash phase. Mass demonstrations and violence were a part of this period in the FR just as now in America. In the FR this eventually settled down into a sort of compromise before Napoleon cast it away and made himself emperor. In the long run, the democratic ideals and reforms of the great French Revolution prevailed in western civilization. In a sense, the world since 1799 has stood in the shadow of the American and French Revolutions.

The primary force in the FR, and in recent America, was the driving impetus to greater liberty and equality across the board. In the FR, the counter-revolutionary backlash ate away at the edges but could not stop the force of human rights in history. The test of today in America is how much the democratic spirit is ingrained in our culture. If it is strong enough, the pro-democracy side will prevail in the upcoming elections. If it is not strong enough, the anti-democratic, authoritarian side will prevail and will strike a severe blow to the historic course of the democratic principles of evolving liberty and equality. The counter-revolutionaries cannot stop history but they can wound and slow it.

So, what we are seeing on TV is not the start of a new French Revolution. What we are witnessing is the fruit of the French Revolution, the ideal that all people everywhere are entitled to the same rights protected by the state. We all deplore and denounce the lawless violence some people are enacting as sidelights of these demonstrations. But, I think we should all take encouragement that thousands of our fellow citizens are willing to get out into the streets all over the country and peacefully demand liberty, equality, and justice even if they are tear gassed and beaten by uniformed people. Today's demonstrators are the children of the great American and French revolutions. They are marching because they have the expectation that they can make a better world. They will prevail because they are on the right side of history.

3 JUNE 2020, NOTES

Welcome, again, blog reader, as we try to take stock of the swirling world around us in this moment of crisis on crisis. There is much to consider today.

PANDEMIC

The sweep of COVID-19 continues unabated. According to the statistics in Worldometer, the disease continues to spread and kill people at about the same rate. In the last week, the rate of infection in the world was 13% whereas it had been 14% the week before. The rising rate of deaths in the world was 9% whereas it had been 8% the week before. The numbers for the United States show a slight easing. In the past week, there was a rise of 9% in new cases while the week before was 10%. As for deaths in the U.S., the rate of increase was 7%, a slight decline from the 8% of the week before. At least 108,062 Americans have died of the plague, all within the last four months. The present death rate is app. 1,000 a day. At this rate, there will be over 200,000 Americans dead of COVID-19 by the First of September. After that, we can expect a big surge in new cases and deaths as fall sets in.

The spread of the disease is uneven in America. The southeastern states are now a "hot spot" in the country. In South Carolina, there were 1,999 new cases in the past week for a total of 12,415. This is a 19% increase, up from the 15 % of the previous week. There were 55 deaths of the disease in the last week for a total of 501. This is a 12% rise, the same as the earlier week. Alabama continues its alarming pattern of spread and mortality. In AL, there were 3,121 new cases last week for a staggering total of 18,771. This is a 20% rise, down slightly from the 23% of the previous week. There were 73 deaths in AL in the last week for a total of 653. This is a 13% rise, well up from the 2% of the earlier week. All in all, SC and AL are suffering shocking surges in the spread and mortality of COVID-19 with no relief in sight. Meanwhile, almost every locality now has re-opened its public places. One can only imagine what this, and the current massive demonstrations, will do to spread this highly contagious disease.

RE-OPENING CHURCHES

The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina resumed in-person worship services three Sundays ago. For the first two Sundays, I could find only two churches of the 50 or so in the diocese that resumed inside services, Old St. Andrew's and St. Luke's of Hilton Head. Both had only sparse congregations. On last Sunday, I counted 6 people in the pews at the 8 a.m. service of OSA and 11 in the pews at the 11 a.m. time. There had been 14 on each of the two previous Sundays. At St. Luke's, I counted about 50 in the congregation last Sunday. There had been about 30 the first Sunday and 37 the second. It seems that people are reluctant to return to one church but are gradually returning to the other. On last Sunday, I found a third church that held public service, St. John's of Johns Island. It was outside and the camera did not show the congregation. So, after three Sundays, the vast majority of the local churches in ADSC remain closed.

The Episcopal diocese of SC is allowing churches to resume public services next Sunday but discouraging inside services. It will be interesting to see how these local churches handle resumption of corporate worship. There are really three choices: continue online only, outside service, inside service. The priorities in EDSC are in that order.

PRESIDENT TRUMP'S PHOTO OP

On last Monday, police forcibly removed peaceful demonstrators, exercising their constitutional rights, from the area around St. John's Episcopal Church, at the edge of Lafayette Park, the public space on the north side of the White House. This was to clear the space for a presidential photo op. St. John's, a masterpiece of Benjamin Latrobe, has been "the presidents' church" since it was built in 1816. The president and his closest advisors then walked from the White House to the church. Trump stood outside of the boarded up windows of the parish house, under the Episcopal Church flag. He held up a Bible and stood for photos. He was then joined by some officials for another photo op. All of this was done without prior knowledge of Episcopal Church officials.

The bishop of Washington, Mariann Budde, usually a calm person, was beside herself with "outrage" that the president would use her church, and the Bible, as props for what she described as words and policies "antithetical" to the Christian religion. Likewise, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington was offended that a Catholic shrine would be used as for another photo op, on Tuesday. Numerous bishops and other religious leaders across America have spoken out against Trump's misuse of religion as well as his heavy-handed tactics against peaceful demonstrators. For instance, the bishops of New England issued a strong rebuke. Find it here. I am awaiting a statement from the EDSC and from Episcopal bishops of the south. What they say carries a lot of weight in the midst of our present social crisis. No one knows racism better than we southerners.

MONUMENTAL CHANGES

Symbols are important in any society. As societies change and evolve so do their public symbols. We southerners are witnessing monumental change, at least in the most visible symbols of our racist past. Nothing exemplifies this better than the fall of the great Confederate obelisk in the middle of downtown Birmingham. 

A few days ago, demonstrations began in downtown Birmingham, as they did in virtually every American big city. The heart of the downtown is built around a large square named Linn Park. The center piece of the park was a 52 foot tall granite obelisk erected in 1905 as a memorial to the Confederacy. The city of Birmingham, about 70% African American, has been trying for years to get rid of the hated reminder of slavery. A few years ago, the AL state legislature and governor made a law forbidding the removal of any public monument more than 40 years old (virtually every one of the ubiquitous Confederate monuments in the south is more than 40 years old). So, the city government of Birmingham built a plywood wall around their towering obelisk. Still, that was not enough for many local residents. On last Saturday and Sunday, crowds proceeded to attack the obelisk in an attempt to destroy it. It did not work. Then, the city government resolved to remove the entire monument, in violation of the state law. They were informed this would be illegal and would carry a fine of $25,000. A GoFundMe fund raised the money. On Monday and Tuesday, crews dismantled and removed the Confederate monument that had presided over the city for more than a century. Find a TV report of this here . Let us southerners hope and pray this "monumental" change will help us put our racist past behind us and get on with building a more just and egalitarian society. It is high time. Perhaps this will be the good that will come of the turmoil boiling all around us.

As an old, lifelong student of history, I sense we Americans are at a crossroads in our nation's life. I see two great competing forces pulling us in opposite directions. The situation has heightened immensely in the last couple of weeks in the backdrop of the enormous social stresses of the pandemic and racism. On the one hand, we have the pull to move to a more democratic society, one that gives equal opportunity to all people regardless of differences. This would be a continuation of the great American democratic revolution of the post-Second World War age. On the other hand, we have the pull to move to a more authoritarian society, one in which the propertied minority would exercise power and retain control by force. This would lead us into a fascist state possible only by military control over the majority. In short, I see us moving to a more democratic society or to a fascist state. In my view, the reelection of President Trump would be a giant step to the latter. Thus, we are at the most consequential moment in American history at least since the end of the Second World War, seventy-five years ago.

All of this is a lot to process. It is a lot to take in. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, or as Bishop Budde said, I cannot believe what my eyes are seeing. Is this really happening? Whatever next? 

We are obviously at an important point in history. There is no doubt about that. What comes out of this will profoundly affect the future of all of us. It is easy to get bewildered, apprehensive, and even frightened about it. As people of faith, we must keep the big picture. There is an order in the universe. Regardless of what is going on around us, we are called to love God and our neighbor, what the presiding bishop calls the way of love. This is our calling, and this will see us through. It has gotten humanity through thick and thin for two thousand years. It will see us through our lifetimes too.

Remember, we are here for the living of this hour. Peace.