FOCUSING ON THE ELECTION
One week from tomorrow, on Saturday, May 1, 2021, the Diocese of South Carolina will select its candidate to be the XV bishop of the diocese. We have to say "candidate" or "bishop-elect" because he or she will have to be approved by a majority of the bishops and the standing committees in the Episcopal Church before he or she can be ordained and consecrated as XV. The consents have to be given within 120 days of the election. Although there have been provisional bishops, there has not been a diocesan bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina since Bishop Mark Lawrence left the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of South Carolina on October 15, 2012. He and his followers formed a new religious organization now known as the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina, although it is not in the Anglican Communion. The Diocese of South Carolina has gone eight and a half years without a "regular" bishop. Thus, the election on the 1st will be a monumental milestone on the road to recovery after the schism of 2012. With this in mind, it is time for all eyes in the diocese to turn to the process of choosing the new bishop. It is time for a lot of thought and prayer as the hour of decision draws near.
All the information one needs to know about the election convention is available on the diocesan website. Find it here . There is an excellent list of Questions and Answers that should give one what one needs to know about the process.
The election is up to the clergy and laypeople of the diocese. The voting will be in two orders, Clergy Order and Laity Order. There must be a concurrent majority of votes in both orders to secure an election. The Q and A mentioned above provides the official list (made on Apr. 22) of the certified clergy and lay delegates to the election convention. Find the list here . There are 34 clergy in the Clergy Order and 12 parishes and 15 missions in the Laity Order (the worshiping group in Cheraw is on the list, but it is not a mission). This would mean possibly as many as 34 votes in Clergy and 19.5 votes in Laity.
Since gender is a factor in the election for the first time in the long history of the diocese, it is interesting to note the numbers of men and women in the two orders. Among the Clergy, I count 8 women and 26 men. In the Laity Order, I count 45 women and 36 men delegates. Men outnumber women in the clergy; and women outnumber men in the laity. Make out of that what you wish in terms of voting.
Speaking of gender, there is a great deal of interest in the two women candidates in the race, Calhoun Walpole, Archdeacon of the Diocese of South Carolina, and Ruth Woodliff-Stanley. I have been tracking the "Views" of the separate Interviews with the five nominees conducted by Elsa McDowell, and posted on Youtube on April 7. While I think we should not make too much of these numbers, they still show us relative public interest in the nominees. As of this morning here are the numbers of Views and percentages (Apr. 7-23):
Calhoun Walpole 454 (22.3%)
Ruth Woodliff-Stanley 440 (21.6%)
Terence Lee 403 (19.8%)
Geoffrey Hoare 384 (18.8%)
Kevin Johnson 352 (17.3%)
What to make of these figures? The two women nominees are clearly of most interest. Together they have drawn nearly half of all of the 2,033 Views. There is quite a gap between them and the three male contestants. Walpole has led consistently in the numbers race since the Interviews were posted on the 7th. This is true even though she started out as the best-known nominee having served for years as Archdeacon of the diocese and sub-dean at Grace Church Cathedral.
Besides McDowell's Interviews, there are also on Youtube the Candidate Conversations of April 12, 13, 14. These run about two hours each and involve all of the nominees. This is another way to get to know them. However, these Conversations have turned out to be far less popular than the Interviews, and I am sure we all know why: long, repetitious, not very revelatory. If you have six hours to kill, you could watch the Conversations, but, as for myself, once was enough. With that kind of time on your hands, I would recommend Wagner's opera cycle "Der Ring des Nibelungen," at 15 hours. It is far more exciting. As of this morning, Conversation Number 1 listed 474 Views, Conversation Number 2 had 297 Views, and Conversation Number 3 cited 253 Views. Do you see a pattern here? My point is that the Interviews tell us more about public interest in the individual nominees than the Conversations do.
(The Ride of the Valkyries, from Der Ring...)
The election may be decided on the first go around of voting. The last two bishop's elections in the Diocese were settled on the First Ballot. Bishops Salmon and Lawrence pulled majorities in both Orders right away. What if no one gets a majority in both orders on the First Ballot? In all of the bishop's elections with which I am familiar, the person who led in the voting on the First Ballot went on to win the election even if it required more than one following ballot. I am not familiar with any case in which a dark horse candidate came from behind to win.
Let us take the example of the Presiding Bishop's election in the General Convention of 2006. There were seven candidates: Katharine Jefferts-Schori, Henry Parsley, J. Neil Alexander, Edwin F. Gulick, Francisco Duque-Gomez, Stacy F. Sauls, and Charles E. Jenkins. The First Ballot in the House of Bishops:
Jefferts-Schori 44
Parsley 36
Alexander 26
Jenkins 29
Sauls 20
Duque-Gomez 18
Gulick 15
Jefferts-Schori came in first place and Parsley came in second place. Then there was a gap between them and the rest of the field that ran in a fairly narrow range (26-15 votes).
The Second Ballot:
Jefferts-Schori 49
Parsley 49
Alexander 26
Jenkins 30
Sauls 17
Duque-Gomez 10
Gulick 7
Thus, on the Second Ballot there was great movement away from the bottom two candidates toward the top two. Parsley gained 13 new votes to tie Jefferts-Schori who gained 5 new votes. At this point it was entirely clear the race was between Jeffeets-Schori (identified as a "liberal") and Parsley (identified as a "moderate"). After the Second Ballot there was a stampede away from the bottom five candidates toward the top two. The question was: Which of the top two to choose? The top two were tied.
On the Third Ballot, Jefferts-Schori scored 68 wile Parsley got 63. All of the lower five lost votes. It was clear from this there was a stronger movement from the bottom candidates toward J-S than toward Parsley. On the Fourth Ballot, J-S jumped far up to 88 votes while Parsley rose to 79. Finally, on the Fifth Ballot, J-S won 95 votes to Parsley's 82. This gave her the majority in the House of Bishops. In sum, Jefferts-Schori was the top vote-getter on the First Ballot. She wound up winning although it took four more rounds to finish it. After the House of Bishops' vote, the election went to the House of Deputies which overwhelmingly approved the Bishops' decision.
The election on the 1st will be up to two groups, the clergy and the laity of the Diocese of South Carolina. I suggest both of these do their homework. This is a monumental decision which is going to be highly consequential in church life for years to come. Study the résumés of the nominees, review McDowell's Interviews, talk to one's peers about what is important to your church life. Lay people should find out who their delegates are and share their views with them. The parish and mission delegates will be voting for the entire local church (lay voting is by church, not individual).
The Election Convention on the 1st will be on Zoom and live-streamed on Youtube starting at 9 a.m. According to the certified list, there are 34 clergy eligible to vote. This would mean 18 will be required for a majority in that Order. There are 12 parishes and 15 missions listed. This would total 19.5 votes, of which 10 votes would be necessary for a majority. Of course, majorities would depend on the numbers of clergy and churches participating in the election.
The people of the Diocese of South Carolina are now focusing on a great decision before them. These are people for whom I have no bound of admiration. They are heroes who took the hard way because it was the right way. They stood for the equal rights of all of God's children even at great cost to themselves. They refused to be vanquished by the Pharisees. I would trust my life to these good people and the church should do the same. They have shown right judgment so far. I am certain they will again when the fateful hour arrives in eight days.
