NOTES --- APRIL 8, 2019

It has been ten days since my last posting here. That is because there has been nothing to post, unless one wants to see yet more pictures of my garden. So, this is a good moment to stop and take stock of where we are in the schism.

Waiting. That is the name of the game in the litigation. In the six and a half years since the split of Oct. 2012, we have spent most of our time just waiting on the courts to act. That is where we are now, still waiting.

The strategies of the two sides are clear. The Church side wants implementation while the independent side employs deny and delay. Odds are in favor of the Church side, but the other party can drag this out for a long time to come. They cannot prevent the final settlement in the Church's favor, but they can delay the inevitable. Actually, this is not a bad strategy on their part because it gives them time to harden their identity as a separate religious entity in opposition to the supposedly heretical Episcopal Church. This is the tactic the DSC leaders have been using, to considerable effect, since the SCSC remitted their decision to the circuit court.

In the state courts, the Episcopal Church side has petitioned the South Carolina Supreme Court to order the circuit court to implement the SCSC decision of 2 August 2017. That decision ruled that 29 of the 36 parishes in question plus Camp St. Christopher belong to the Episcopal Church. Here, a year and a half since the SCSC decision, it has still not been put into effect. This is because the circuit judge, Edgar Dickson, sees the decision as unclear. In fact, it is very clear. The TEC/TECSC lawyers have grown tired of Dickson's 14-month dithering. They are taking the highly unusual step of asking the state high court to order Dickson to do his job.

The next step will be for the independent Diocese of South Carolina lawyers to file a counter-argument with the SCSC. That will probably occur this week, unless the lawyers get an extension. We can all take a safe guess at what the DSC lawyers will say: there are five separate opinions, there is no unity, the Aug 2 SCSC decision is unenforceable. Their obvious goal is to get the circuit court, or the SCSC, to re-try the case and render a decision favorable to DSC. 

In my view, it is highly unlikely the SCSC will rule in favor of DSC. The court gave a majority opinion on Aug. 2, 2017. To preserve the integrity and authority of the state high court, the SCSC must defend its earlier ruling. A bedrock principle of American jurisprudence is that the same case cannot be retried once a decision has been made and ordered. The same question(s) can be reconsidered, but not the same case. Bottom line---it is unimaginable that the SCSC would discard and reverse a final opinion that it has made and remitted to the lower court for implementation.

Thus, next we should get the DSC lawyers' counter-petition to the SCSC. Then, the justices of the SCSC will respond to TEC/TECSC's request for a Writ of Mandamus. I expect they will grant the Writ.

In the federal court, we are awaiting Judge Richard Gergel's action. Either he will hand down a judgment himself or will schedule a trial. He has set the date of May 1, 2019, or after, as the time for a trial. I would not be surprised if Gergel should make a ruling on his own, perhaps before then. Both sides have asked for such.

On another subject, the independent diocese recently held its annual meeting under the theme of "The Art of Neighboring." Seriously. Do these people have no sense of irony? Really. They caused a massive break in the church in South Carolina specifically to keep gay and lesbian people from being given equality and inclusion in the church and to keep women from having offices of authority in the church. This is good neighboring? This is loving your neighbor? I don't think so. Turns out, what they meant by "neighboring" was evangelism, or bringing new people into their churches. 

Now, "neighboring" in this context actually makes sense for DSC. As statistics show, the DSC experiment in schism has been a disaster. Their own statistics show that DSC has lost a third of its members since the schism of 2012. Here are the communicant numbers as reported in the DSC annual journals:  

2011 --- 21,993 communicants

2013 --- 17,798      "

2014 --- 16,351      "

2015 --- 15,556      "

2016 --- 14,694      "

Note that DSC has lost members every year since the schism. Overall, the diocese has lost nearly half its members since Mark Lawrence became bishop in 2008, from 27,670 communicants in 2008 to 14,694 in 2016. DSC has refused to release any membership statistics since 2016. I think we can all figure out the reason for that.

Financially, DSC is also in trouble. The litigation is bankrupting them. In 2018, the DSC budget held a deficit of $495,289 out of $2,158,866. In 2019, the DSC budget listed "Legal fees" at $788,520 out of a budget of $2,551,000. 

The long-term viability of the independent diocese is very much in question. Once the dust settles in the courts, it will have six parishes, perhaps a few missions, and lots of debt. It will lose the bulk of the parishes it now occupies as well as the entity of the pre-schism diocese that it also now occupies. If DSC is having troubles surviving now, just wait until the state and federal court judges finally rule. My best guess is that the remnant of the breakaway diocese will merge into the ACNA Diocese of the Carolinas, now under Bishop Steve Wood, rector of St. Andrew's of Mt. Pleasant. If so, the experiment of the schism in South Carolina will have been proved to be a crushing failure. But then, one must bear in mind that the original aim of the "Anglican Realignment" movement in the 1990's was to destroy or greatly diminish the Episcopal Church as a "liberal" force in American life. In that regard, we will have to give the DSC schismatics a certain amount of credit. The damage they will have done in South Carolina, one of the nine original dioceses, will have been remarkable. 

If the communicants of DSC want to know the real art of neighboring, they should read Presiding Bishop Michael Curry's book, The Power of Love. "Love is the way. Love is the only way" he writes. Embracing our neighbors as ourselves means no qualification; no exclusion of gays; no subjugation of women. This is the Jesus Movement.

Moreover, interestingly enough, we have a presidential candidate who personifies this movement. He is Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana. When he announced, he was such a dark horse that everyone said, "Pete who?" Now, he is a phenom drawing huge crowds and a great deal of interest, even in South Carolina. He is definitely one to watch in the crowded field of candidates. 

Pete Buttigieg describes himself as a "devout Episcopalian." He was reared as a Roman Catholic and was drawn to Anglicanism while studying at Oxford. He is overtly religious. He also happens to be married to a man; and, this makes him the first openly homosexual person to be a serious candidate for president of the United States. He has testified that his sexuality has brought him closer to God. Find numerous clips on YouTube in which Buttigieg discusses his faith. If the people of DSC want to know about the art of neighboring, I suggest they listen to what Buttigieg has to say. Too, everyone should read conservative NY Times columnist David Brooks's April 1 opinion piece. Find it here .

Meanwhile, I hope you are enjoying this glorious springtime. I will post only one new picture of my garden. Many plants are in full bloom now, but none begins to rival the present star of the garden, "Snowball," which is about to engulf the sabal minor. This Snowball is full grown at about 15 feet. On far left is a dwarf apple tree in full bloom. 

In church yesterday, we sang hymn 398, "I Sing the Almighty Power of God," words of Isaac Watts. It has this line:

There's not a plant or flower below, but makes thy glories known.

At the moment, none is doing this better in my garden than Viburnum plicatum, aka Japanese Snowball.