EDGAR CONSECRATED;

YOU ARE PLANTED TO PRODUCE

"You are planted to produce," shouted the preacher from the pulpit of St. Luke and St. Paul, in Charleston, this morning. According to him, God plants his people to bring souls to Christ. Curious point given the history of the schismatic diocese in South Carolina. So, what is the report on the productive work of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina? How well are they doing God's work "to produce"?

Let's look at the statistics from the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina. According to the official reports, the fifty churches that went along with the schism had 21,993 communicants in 2011, just before the schism. In 2020, those same churches reported 11,337 communicants. Thus, since the schism, the ADSC has lost almost half its active members. Although artificially inflated, "baptized members" of ADSC also show decline, from 23,455 in 2012 to 19,597 in 2020. Following the preacher's logic, we would have to conclude that the ADSC is not favored of God.

The whole service of ordination/consecration today struck me as a big festival of vertical religion. It was all about me and Christ. There was no interest at all in my neighbor. The war in Ukraine was never mentioned. The sins of society all around us never gained a nod. Praise to Christ that I am saved repeated endlessly and selfishly. 

(Memo to the good people of ADSC---God is God. He/she does not rely on or even need humans' "praise." A human being's connection to God, essential that it is, is the starting place, not the ending place of religion. God created humans in God's own image to be his/her representatives in the world. Our mission is to do God's work in the world around us. Vertical religion is immature until it reaches its mature horizontal manifestation: faith without works is dead.)

I was a bit put off too by the egregious parading of women and African Americans in the service today. This struck me as obviously cynical by the white men in control. Let us remember that the schism of 2012 was caused by opposition to equality and inclusion of non-celibate gays and of women in the life of the church. The Anglican Church in North America was set up in 2009 explicitly to keep gays out of the church and women in submission. The very reason for being of ACNA is to oppose the God given human rights due to all people.

In ADSC/ACNA, women are made submissive and excluded from authority over men. Women cannot be bishops in ACNA. African Americans are allowed but there are very few. Today I counted 17 bishops present, two of whom were black. ADSC and ACNA were set up to preserve white male power structures. So, putting women and blacks into the service today was not fooling anyone. However, it does suggest that the power structure knows what they are doing.

Another point that stuck me in today's service was the prominence of Steve Wood, the bishop of the ACNA Diocese of the Carolinas. This is the diocese of which Chip Edgar was the dean of the cathedral, in Columbia. Wood is also rector of St. Andrew's, in Mt. Pleasant, a suburb of Charleston. I would not be surprised to see the two ACNA dioceses, ADSC and Anglican Diocese of the Carolinas, merge at some point in the near future. I expect much depends on the upcoming SC Supreme Court decision. If the SCSC rules in favor of TEC, the ADSC will be left with six parishes, none in Charleston. Indeed, the Cathedral Church of St. Luke and St. Paul, the site of today's event, is one of the 29 parishes to be returned to the Episcopal diocese.

Some scenes from the livestream today:

"Chip" Edgar prepares for consecration. The presiding officer is "His Grace," Foley Beach, the "Archbishop" of ACNA. 

The candidate lies prostrate before the altar as a sign of humility and obedience. Note that Mark Lawrence is on Beach's left and Steve Wood is on his right.

The laying on of the hands by the bishops. I counted 17 bishops, 2 African Americans. Most of the bishops here gained apostolic succession through the Episcopal Church. As Episcopal bishops they all took vows to submit to the discipline of the Episcopal Church. Obviously they did not hold those vows very seriously. Since ACNA is not in the Anglican Communion, none of the bishops in this picture will be invited to the Lambeth conference this year, the gathering of all Anglican Communion bishops.

The bishops' wives. In ACNA, women are valuable as help-mates to the men, not as equals.

So, the denomination that broke off from the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of South Carolina, in 2012, goes on with a new bishop into an uncertain future. The first problem it will have is the pending decision of the state supreme court. Either way the court goes, the leaders of ADSC will have a lot of work to do. If they lose, their very existence moving into the future will be in doubt. If they win, they will confront declining membership and resources. Either way, merger with Wood's diocese is a real possibility. The prominence of Beach and Wood today perhaps foreshadows this. All in all, the contingent that left TEC in 2012 has not fared well. In the long run, it is not likely to fare well either. A religion devoted to discrimination against gays and women does not have a bright future in a society that is increasingly repudiating that discrimination.