REFLECTIONS ON YESTERDAY

Wow, what a day it was yesterday in the history of the schism in South Carolina. For instance, this blog got 10,000 hits. It was a crucial day and seemingly everybody wanted to know what was going on. Be sure to read Steve Skardon's revealing analysis. Find it here .  

So, where do we stand now in the cold light of the morning after? Good question, and I will tell you what I think, for whatever that is worth.

First, let us review what happened yesterday, June 11:

---The United States Supreme Court released its June 7 decision on cert. It denied cert to the independent Diocese of South Carolina's petition of Feb. 9, 2018, for review of the South Carolina supreme court ruling of August 2, 2017.

---The Episcopal Church diocese responded in a statement calling for the implementation of the state supreme court decision: "It is now up to the state's 1st Circuit Court of Common Pleas to execute the lower court's decision." Find it here . 

---The independent DSC issued a response rejecting the validity of the South Carolina supreme court ruling with words such as "fractured," "conflicted," and "no unified legal theory." Most importantly, it charged the decision was "unenforceable." It also suggested the DSC would go back to the state supreme court although it gave no specifics. Find the DSC statement here . 

---Several DSC parishes also posted responses yesterday to the SCOTUS decision. The rector of St. Philip's offered more information about DSC's new legal manueuvers: "we will seek a specific evidentiary inquiry as to whether or not St. Philip's and twenty-eight other parishes actually acceded to the terms of the Dennis Canon." The rector of St. Michael's mostly repeated the DSC talking points insisting "The law and facts of our case still favor us." At Old St. Andrew's, the rector declared the parish was not in the list of churches to be returned to the Episcopal Church and that the diocese would go on "to pursue further legal courses of action."

So, where does all that leave us today, the day after?

To use an analogy from history, this is July 4, the day after the Battle of Gettysburg ended. The turning point of the war has passed. The fate of the war has been sealed. It is only a matter of time before the peace. Lee and his generals know in their hearts they have lost, but cannot bring themselves to admit it and act on it. So, they go on sacrificing lives and treasure, bringing more ruin on their country in a vain effort to reach a cause that is already lost. It was nearly two years after Gettysburg before Lee accepted the reality and surrendered. This is the situation in South Carolina. For all intents and purposes, the legal war is over. The independent diocese failed to secede from the union, property in hand. The high courts of the state and the nation ruled against them. However, the losers refuse to accept the reality and insist on going on sacrificing what they can in a lost cause. I think they know in their hearts they have lost. Admitting defeat is just so hard, for anyone.

To extend the analogy, Confederate leaders believed they would win because it was God's will. The Bible is replete with passages defending slavery, a common institution in the ancient world. DSC leaders too proclaimed God's favor as they cited verses condemning another social element under discrimination. So, you see, we are not so far removed from the Civil War as we might think. The Civil War and the schism were wars for social causes. Both were to keep certain minorities confined in the constraints of the past. And, to state the obvious, both were intimately bound to South Carolina.

The most astonishing event of yesterday was not SCOTUS's denial, which we were fairly certain of, but the DSC's rejection of the state supreme court's ruling that recognized Episcopal Church control over 29 parishes and Camp St. Christopher. DSC declared, on its own, that the ruling was "unenforceable" and indicated they would go back to court to press for the overthrow of the decision. Such an assertion flies in the face of common sense, and the law. Lawyers have a term for a supreme court decision. It is "Res judicata" (see here ). Res judicata is Latin for "a matter judged." According to Wikipedia, "in both civil law and common law legal systems, a case in which there has been a final judgment and is no longer subject to appeal...In the case of res judicata, the matter cannot be raised again, either in the same court or in a different court."

So, my conclusion is that DSC's actions of yesterday were just a lot of blowing smoke. There is no substance, only fog.

My next thought is, why are they doing this? Why keep on when one has lost? Well, anyone who has read my history of the schism (get it at Amazon for as little as $10) should not be surprised at DSC's response yesterday. It fits well into a long pattern of DSC's combative hostility to the Episcopal Church. To put this into the big picture, the schism is part of a much larger movement called the Anglican Realignment which started in the 1990s. The original goal of the AR was either to destroy the Episcopal Church or to severely diminish it so that it would no longer be a significant force in the cultural life of America. This was because TEC had championed equality for and inclusion of women and non-celibate homosexuals. As everyone knows, the issue of homosexuality was the direct cause of the schism. The leaders of the AR aimed to knock off TEC and replace it as the legitimate Anglican province in the U.S., hence the creation of the Anglican Church in North America in 2010 (DSC joined in 2017). The AR has failed but that has not deterred its participants in their culture war. The AR sees TEC as heretical, having been taken over by secular humanism. It seems to me the leaders of DSC see themselves as frontline soldiers in this culture war and they are out to take DSC to a better world, of the past, in which women are subservient and practicing gays are banned. This is how they see "orthodoxy," or, true religion as opposed to TEC's heresy. DSC leaders couch their views in theological terms, but it all boils down to how they see society.

One can understand why the DSC leaders are doing what they are doing, but what about the 15,000 communicants who are following them? In the first place, we human beings are social animals. We naturally tend to follow the herd. We want to belong to the group. In the second place, we want to believe our chosen leaders are acting in our best interests, especially those who claim to be inspired by God. Surely they would not mislead us. Add to that a lot of cultural factors in South Carolina and one can see why the majority of the old diocese went along with the schism. 

And, look at what these people have endured in all of this. They have had to make double payments to lawyers, parochial and diocesan. They have seen relentlessly declining membership and income. They are isolated from the Anglican Communion. Their leaders rejected an offer of TEC to give the parishes independence and the property (June 2015). They were defeated in the state supreme court and in the national supreme court. Their leaders delivered none of the lofty promises they made. The DSC leaders have worked hard to bind the parishes to the diocese, but it remains to be seen what the ordinary people in the pews will do. Remember the schism came from the top down. It was not a popular uprising of the people.

So, to summarize. Here is the way I see things on the morning after:

---the outcome of the legal war has been determined. TEC regained the bulk of the properties.

---the South Carolina supreme court ruling is the law of the land.

---any suggestion that a circuit court judge would overturn a supreme court decision is nonsense.

---the issue of the ownership of the pre-schism diocese is still to be settled in the federal court. However, odds are very strong now that TEC will prevail. We should know soon, perhaps by the end of this year.

The DSC legal maneuvers may add up to a lot of delay, but that is all. Exactly how much delay we cannot know. It is clear the losing side will fight to the bitter end even if the outcome is already obvious to everyone else.


Comments, questions? Email me at the address above. Your thoughts are important to me.