FAILURE AND SUCCESS 

OF THE SCHISM IN SOUTH CAROLINA

The questions going around in everyone's mind these days are ones such as: What happened in mediation? Why cannot the two sides settle their differences by reasonable compromise? Why does the independent diocese refused to accept the state supreme court ruling as the last word? Why did DSC launch a new lawsuit against TEC, and after mediation had begun? Why is DSC going to the U.S. Supreme Court when it has virtually no chance there, and again after mediation had started? Why is DSC bolting headlong into a federal court when the outlook there is grim for itself? It is clear that it is DSC that is keeping the litigation going in its refusal to cut its losses and rebuild with what it has left. This seems disingenuous and we are left wondering, why?

In trying to comprehend what is happening in the schism in the last dizzying weeks, I think it would help us make sense of things if we step back and look at the big picture again. Therefore, I want to address the issues of the overall failure and success of the schism. 

Although the schism is far, far from over, I think it is not too soon to start assessing its outcomes. In fact, I think this will help us understand where we are now. For all intents and purposes, the big issues of the schism have been settled. The state court has returned the bulk of the properties to the Church. It is only a matter of time now before the actual arrangements of this decision are carried out. DSC's delaying tactics of filing a new lawsuit and appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court are almost certainly doomed to fail. Meanwhile the federal court case shows all the signs of moving to favor the Church. Mediation shows no discernible hope of working. Apparently, the final details will have to be implemented by court action. This will happen. It is just a matter of time. What we will end up with will be essentially what has already been determined.

In order to help us comprehend what on the face seems illogical actions, we have to redirect our thinking about the schism. And, to do this, it is necessary to look at the schism in terms of failure and success. This should guide us to a new way of thinking about the schism and foreseeing what is likely to happen in the future.

FAILURE 

For many years, decisions in the Diocese of South Carolina have been made by a relatively small group of people in the leadership. This clique passes them on to the standing committee which almost always rubber stamps them by unanimous vote. Then the decisions are sent down to the clergy and laity who routinely accept them without question. This is how the schism came about as I have described in my book on its history. Along the way, the clergy and people came to believe the leaders' rationales for their decisions, that they had the legal right to leave the Episcopal Church with the entity of the diocese intact and the diocesan and local properties in hand. 

This is the great failure of the schism. The DSC leaders did not deliver to their people the two great promises of the schism. The court has ruled that the bulk of the properties remain under trust control of the Church and its diocese, as per the Dennis Canon. As for the diocese, the court did not remove Judge Goodstein's Injunction (Jan. 2013) that recognized DSC ownership of the legal entity of the pre-schism diocese. However, the court left the issue of the diocesan ownership to be determined ultimately by the federal court. Since federal takes precedent over state, TEC is almost certainly going to regain the entity of the old diocese in the federal court. Indeed, in its Nov. 19 Complaint in the circuit court, DSC gave implicit recognition that both the diocesan and parish properties belong to the Episcopal Church and its diocese. It should be clear to everyone by now that the schism has been a failure on the basic level of diocese and property.

Adding insult to injury, the people of DSC have had to contribute liberally to pay for all the unsuccessful litigation. We do not know how much money. DSC keeps this secret. However, several years ago, DSC admitted to having spent $2 m on legal costs. My guess is it is two or three times that by now, and still rising with no end in sight.

I would argue that the schism was never really about the two big goals of diocesan and parochial freedom. There is a good deal of evidence to the contrary. The whole trend in the diocese for years has been to increasing centralization and authoritarian control over the parishes. This came to a head in the Marriage Task Force work of 2015 that forced on the diocese and parishes an intolerant conformity (book, p. 455). Of course, the greatest example of diocesan control over the parishes came in the DSC leaders' rejection of TEC's offer of a compromise settlement in June of 2015. In this, the Church offered to give the parishes their independence and properties. The DSC power structure rejected this immediately. If nothing else, this proved the point that the schism was not actually about the property.

DSC leaders also failed their followers on the issue of the Anglican Communion. They made a major effort to convince the people that in leaving the Episcopal Church they were still "Anglicans" and in the Anglican Communion. They had DSC join the Anglican Church in North America repeatedly calling the ACNA a "province" and "Anglican." In fact, ACNA is not now, has never been, and almost certainly will not be a province of anything and will never be in the Anglican Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury has made it perfectly clear that he is not in communion with the ACNA. Likewise, the primates of the Anglican Communion, in official council, have rejected the notion of ACNA joining the Communion. The Anglican Consultative Council refused to address the issue. DSC has tried to cover their loss by insisting on being Anglican because some of the Anglican primates "recognize" the ACNA. This does nothing to change the fact that DSC is not in the Anglican Communion and has no prospect of ever being in it. DSC and ACNA are "Anglican" in name only. This is a self-imposed title with no meaning beyond.

Signs of failure abound otherwise as well. For years, the DSC leaders claimed that TEC was dying and that only a turn to "orthodoxy" would bring up membership and liveliness. The idea was that "liberal" religion was doomed to death while "conservative" religion was growing. Well, as we all know all too well, the reverse actually occurred. DSC adopted an increasingly conservative stance that came to bordering, at least, on fundamentalism. Meanwhile, it has suffered a relentless and sharp decline in membership while TECSC has boomed in membership. Every one of the large DSC churches except one has lost significant numbers of communicants. With such staggering losses, the very viability of the institutional entity of the independent diocese is now in doubt. The promise of growth was a fiction.

In terms of building a greater diocese, the schism in SC has failed on many levels, and this is increasingly obvious to everyone.

SUCCESS

In what ways, then can the schism be considered a success? This is the question at hand now, and it is crucial to our understanding of the schism.

It is important to recall that the schism was part of a larger reactionary movement called the Anglican Realignment. This actually originated in the 1970s under the title of "Continuing Anglicanism." This was a backlash against the reforms in the Episcopal Church, particularly the ordination of women. The idea was that conservative (against rights for women) Episcopalians would form a separate church that would "continue" what they considered to be true Anglicanism. By the 1990's, this reactionary movement had come to be called the Anglican Realignment, the name still used.

The Anglican Realignment (see the Wikipedia article here ) really gained force in the late 1990s in reaction to TEC's acceptance of equality for and inclusion of non-celibate homosexuals in the life of the church. (For the best description of this see: Miranda Hassett, Anglican Communion in Crisis.) At that time, the right-wing PAC called the Institute on Religion and Democracy (find the link here ) moved to diminish or destroy the "liberal" (pro-women, pro-homosexual) Episcopal Church as an important cultural force in American life. This was part of the great culture war in America that developed in the wake of the sweeping democratic revolution of the post-Second World War era. Conservative, actually reactionary, forces in America mobilized to stop the liberal, or progressive, reforms they believed were destroying the true values of America. The IRD was then, and is still, backed by deep-pocketed right-wing foundations and individuals (see especially, Jim Naughton, "Following the Money," The Washington Window, April 2006. Find it here ). 

In 1996, the head of IRD, Diane Knippers, and others, formed the American Anglican Council specifically aimed at the Episcopal Church (find their statement here ). It was explicitly devoted to an anti-abortion and anti-homosexual stance. AAC was funded largely by the same conservative donors. Even as late as 2015, 56% of its funding came from these right-wing "foundations." AAC became the driving engine in the campaign to break up the "liberal" Episcopal Church. In 1997, ACC sponsored a conference (Flower Mound TX) that first united the American ultra-conservative Episcopalians and the equatorial African Anglican bishops in the common bond of opposition to rights for homosexuals (that bond later produced GAFCON And ACNA). The Chapman Memo, in December 2003, laid out the blueprint for schism from TEC. AAC was also very instrumental in the Anglican Communion Network that first demanded foreign primatial oversight. ACN members formed the first four schisms and then joined with GAFCON to create the anti-Episcopal Church called the Anglican Church in North America. ACNA was explicitly created to take the place of TEC as the legitimate Anglican province in the U.S. The ultimate goal of the Anglican Realignment was to reduce the Episcopal Church to impotence, or destroy it, and replace it with a reactionary new church devoted to socially conservative stands.

DSC made itself part of the Anglican Realignment. It was a member of the Anglican Communion Network. It warmly supported GAFCON and the formation of the ACNA. In 2017, it joined ACNA.

Although AAC and ACNA did not reach their ultimate goals of destroying and replacing the Episcopal Church with an "orthodox" replacement, I would argue that this should be seen not so much as a failure but as a success, particularly in South Carolina. Between 2004 and 2012, the grand old Diocese of South Carolina, one of the nine founding units of the Episcopal Church, split into four parts: All Saints of Pawleys Island in 2004, St. Andrew's of Mt. Pleasant in 2010, secessionist DSC in 2012, and the Church diocese. The largest of these four parts, DSC, now has 56% of the pre- 2012 schism diocese (less than 50% if we go back to 2004). All three of the splits were motivated by the Anglican Realignment. The direct cause of all of the three schisms was rejection of TEC's reforms for homosexuals. All three schismatic units in SC are now in ACNA. Today the Episcopal Church diocese in SC has about 7,000 members (DSC had 27,000 communicants when Mark Lawrence became bishop in January of 2008). If the AR goal were to diminish or destroy the Episcopal Church, I would call the case of South Carolina a qualified success. There is no disguising the fact that the Episcopal Church has been grievously wounded in the lower part of SC. 

To get a better understanding of the state of the litigation nowadays, I think we should redirect our thinking about the schism from what it tried to build to what it tried to destroy. I find it most dubious that the schism was all about constructing something new. It was originally motivated by destroying or diminishing something old. As part of the Anglican Realignment, its original goal was the diminution and replacement of the Episcopal Church in lower South Carolina. In this regard, I would rate it a significant, but not total, success. This may explain why the DSC leaders have refused to give up on litigation and why they will drag out the legal war just as long as possible. Although the mediation is in secret, the external signs lead me to doubt that DSC desires any negotiated settlement with TEC. If their fundamental goal is to do as much harm to the Episcopal Church as possible, there is much more that can be done.

If we look at the schism as a movement to destroy the Episcopal Church, the present course of DSC's litigation makes more sense. Even in the face of rising resistance among their own flock, even against court decisions, even against impending defeat, I think the DSC leaders are likely to fight on to the bitter end. They will give up only when the law forces them to do so even if they severely diminish, or destroy their own diocese along the way which they may very well do on their present course. Thousands of innocent victims will feel the effects.

To me the litigation of yesterday, today, and tomorrow becomes clearer if we see it in the light of the ultra-conservatives' resolution to destroy, or render impotent, the Episcopal Church. The litigation is certainly bleeding the Church of funds. There is no doubt the Episcopal Church has been wounded by the AR movement just as there is no doubt the whole Anglican Communion has been shaken by the reactionary counter-revolution within it.

At bottom line, which then, we may ask, carries the greater weight, the failure or the success? I think that depends on where one stands. I suspect the TEC side would rate the schism a failure, but I imagine the DSC leaders would call it a success. Today, I would not disagree with this assessment.

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We here in late 2017 may find it impossible to imagine the return of the great old diocese of pre-schism days. It may seem unthinkable now. However, it is important to bear in mind that the Schism of 1887 went on for a full century. That "schism" (the total racial segregation of the diocese and relegation of African Americans to second-class status) was not resolved for a hundred years. What appeared permanent in 1887 turned out to be not so. It took an incredible amount of work, patience, growth, understanding, faith and devotion to bring it to an end. But, the point is it did come to an end. 

Adversity is an inescapable part of life. People make choices, and sometimes these impact badly on many other people. One of the biggest examples of bad choices in all of human history occurred 76 years ago today, December 7, 1941. The leaders of Japan made a decision that turned out to be nearly catastrophic for the people they led. Yet Japan was not quite destroyed. The nation bounced back, corrected and atoned for their mistakes and now flourishes in the human community. Adversity does not necessarily lead to total destruction.

And so, in the midst of the broken pieces all around, I refuse to give up hope. I refuse to accept the schismatics' "success" in the destruction of the grand old diocese as the end. I believe that a hundred years from now people will look back on 2012 in sorrow and shame as we now look back on 1887. We have to believe that the better angels of our nature have the upper hand.