THE LEGACY

OF BISHOP MARK LAWRENCE

Mark J. Lawrence is ending his tenure as a diocesan bishop after fourteen years. He served as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina from 2008 to 2012 and as head of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina from 2012 to 2022. This month, March of 2022, he is being succeeded by a new bishop of ADSC, "Chip" Edgar. It is not too early to start thinking about Lawrence's legacy. What difference did he make? How will history see him? These are fair questions to start asking.

Certainly the obvious first response would be to see him as the bishop of the schism in South Carolina. He led the majority of the clergy and laity of the Episcopal diocese of SC out of the Episcopal Church and into a new denomination. First and foremost, Lawrence will always be remembered as the bishop who presided over the division of one of the nine founding dioceses of the Episcopal Church. This is not controversial. What is controversial is whether this was the right thing or the wrong thing to do. 

We should not jump to conclusions now even though everyone involved has his or her own opinion of Lawrence. In time, history may see things differently in ways that we cannot imagine today. For instance, my father was chief of police of Pensacola FL in the 1960's and 1970's. That town, as every one in the south, was embroiled in racial unrest. Our phone rang off the hook morning noon and night as people for civil rights and people against civil rights turned to him to get the police to help. He was caught in the middle and could seemingly please no one. He was mercilessly criticized and sometimes physically threatened. Nevertheless, he soldiered on and even in the midst of all the civic tumult directed a major reform of the department that made it a professional force for the first time. When he retired, as weary and sad as Lawrence seemed to be last week, we assumed he would always be remembered as the controversial chief of the civil rights era. We were wrong. Now, all these decades later, my father is remembered primarily as the chief who turned the Pensacola police department into a high-level professional force. So, how we see Lawrence's legacy today may not be how people see it years from now.

In beginning to approach an assessment of Lawrence as bishop we should start with the empirical data at hand. This is the best way we can quantify the actual effects of his work as bishop. When Lawrence arrived, in January of 2008, the Diocese of South Carolina listed 31,572 baptized members and 27,670 communicants (active members). In its most recent figures, of 2020, Lawrence's diocese, ADSC, claimed 19,597 baptized members and 11,337 communicants. This is a drop of overall members from 31,572 to 19,597 and active members from 27,670 to 11,337. So, Lawrence's is leaving a diocese 11,000 members and 16,000 active members fewer than the one he gained fourteen years ago. Even if we combine the 7,000 members of the Episcopal diocese of SC today, we would still see a big drop in collective membership. Moreover, the ADSC lost members steadily every year since the schism of 2012. Thus, we can see there has been a severe and unrelenting loss in diocesan membership in the Lawrence years. This is a legacy we know from the irrefutable evidence at hand. If the proof is in the pudding, this pudding is bitter.

Beyond the quantifiable data, there are areas we can partially quantify or are in the process of quantifying. Before the schism, the diocesan leadership led the people of the diocese to believe 1-the diocese could secede from the Episcopal Church intact, and 2-the local parishes could leave the Episcopal Church with their local properties in hand. These issues went to court when Lawrence's contingent sued the Episcopal Church on Jan. 4, 2013, starting a very long course of bitter and expensive litigation. 

As for the first point, the U.S. District court in Charleston ruled that the diocese did not secede from the Episcopal Church, that the departing people formed a new entity in 2012, and that the Episcopal diocese was the legal heir of the old diocese. To boot, the judge issued an Injunction forbidding Lawrence's diocese from claiming in any way to be the heir of the pre-schism diocese. This decision is now on appeal but there is very little chance that it will be overturned. The first claim the schismatics made is on the cusp of being legally denied forever. 

As for the second point, in 2017, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that 29 of the 36 parishes in question were property of the Episcopal Church and that 7 of the parishes owned their own property. The circuit court then nullified this decision; and this nullification is now on appeal before the SCSC. The SCSC can either affirm their 2017 decision or revoke it in favor of the circuit court's nullification. No one should predict how this will turn out, but it is hard to see how the state supreme court could reverse their own decision that had become the law of the land. If in fact the SCSC affirms its 2017 ruling, the diocese that Lawrence led will be left with 6 parishes (one of the 7 was St. Andrew's of Mt. Pleasant which is in Steve Wood's ACNA Diocese of the Carolinas). If the SCSC rules in favor of TEC, the second pre-schism assertion will be disproved. 

If the U.S. appeals court and the SC supreme court finally rule in favor of TEC, both assertions put forth by Lawrence's diocesan leadership in 2012 will be shown to be false. This would be another bitter legacy, at least bitter to the lay people who trusted their diocesan leadership, and in a way bitter to everyone involved on both sides.

Of course, followers of Lawrence may argue that it is not quantity that matters but quality, and they may have a point. Numbers of members and of churches do not necessarily translate into strength. As we all know, sometimes smaller churches can be more active and accomplish more than larger ones. There are many more things to be measured besides just empirical data.

Lawrence's Anglican Diocese of SC has survived for nearly ten years even though it is on a downward trajectory. One cannot be sure it will go on much longer as an independent entity, even if it wins in the SCSC. Although I know of no hard evidence, I suspect that the diocesan leadership decided before the last bishop's election to go to an outsider and one from the overlapping ACNA diocese. Hence, Edgar, a man who had had no connection with the ADSC was put up against two in-house candidates who had played relatively minor roles in the schism. Nevertheless, there was a surprisingly strong diocesan reaction as Sturdy ran a competitive race before finally losing out to Edgar. This signaled that a lot of laity did not want to lose the separate identity they had nurtured for so many years in the war of the courts. Yet, no one should be surprised if Steve Wood's Diocese of the Carolinas absorbs the larger Anglican Diocese of South Carolina. If ADSC disappears altogether, this would throw another question on Lawrence's legacy.

On a personal note, in the four years I spent researching my history of the schism, I grew to admire many qualities of Lawrence as a person. A big regret I have now is that he did not take me up on my offer for an interview. I have never met him although I have seen him at church functions. Everyone who knew him, even his strongest critics, would admit to certain outstanding aspects of his personality. By all accounts he was a stellar parish rector who, sometimes, against formidable odds, built up thriving congregations. They were almost all devoted to him. He had a certain charisma as a teacher, pastor, and priest. I sometimes wondered if parish ministry were his true calling. He certainly appeared happier then, but perhaps that was just the vigor and idealism of youth.

I wondered too if his critics before and after the schism focused too much on him personally even though as bishop he was naturally the point of the focus. In all fairness, Lawrence did not originate the schism in South Carolina. In fact, he came rather late to the process which really started moving in 1982 when Bishop Allison began a trend of criticizing the Episcopal Church. By the 1990's the anti-TEC movement had gained a lot of steam and some people of the diocese began organizing to oppose the church. The national church's approval of a non-celibate gay man as a bishop and the election of a woman as presiding bishop heightened the rising tide of criticism in SC against TEC. Indeed, testimony was given in court that the search committee consciously and deliberately sought a candidate for bishop who would lead the diocese out of the Episcopal Church. Lawrence did not apply. He was invited, and then tapped. By the time he arrived in 2008, the secession movement in the diocese of SC was well under way after 26 years. So, it is not accurate to blame Lawrence entirely for the schism. However, once he accepted the mantle as leader of a diocese already set in opposition to the national church, he apparently never looked back. Between July and October of 2012, events suggest that the diocesan leadership plotted in secret to remove the diocese from the Episcopal Church. Even though Lawrence did not create the secessionist movement in South Carolina, by all appearances, it seemed to me that he willingly led it as bishop.

Since the winners typically write the histories, much of Lawrence's legacy will depend on how the two court cases end. His best hope is for the SCSC to agree to let Judge Dickson's order stand and for the U.S. court of appeals to overturn Judge Gergel's order. This way, ADSC would hold all the 36 parishes in question and the entity of the old diocese. The worst case scenario for ADSC is for the SCSC to deny Dickson and uphold its 2017 decision and for the appeals court to uphold Gergel. This way, the ADSC will wind up with 6 parishes and nothing of the pre-schism diocese. It would have to relinquish Camp St. Christopher and all the diocesan properties, as the bishop's residence on Smith Street. The people now meeting in the 29 parish churches would have to move out or stay in and return to the Episcopal Church. The best case would brighten Lawrence's legacy, the worst case would diminish it. So, much remains to be seen.

Long term, the future of the Anglican diocese of SC is not good, and not so much because of declining membership and losing court cases, but for the tide of history. History is moving inexorably against the identity of the ADSC. The sweep of history in the last few centuries has been toward human rights. The rise of democracy was a huge part of this. The ADSC was set up to oppose human rights for homosexuals and for women. It and its parent, the Anglican Church in North America, aim to keep non-celibate gays and women out of the church leadership. This is against the tide of history. In time, chances are the tide will wash away the man-made sand dunes of resistance and the people who tried to build those barriers.

Finally, one way to reflect on Lawrence's legacy is to contrast his arrival as bishop and his departure. His consecration, on 26 January 2008, was really a three day festival where hundreds of people from all around the world descended on Charleston for a raucous celebration. His house was overflowing with friends from far and wide, dinners, receptions and the like kept cheerful people up all hours. The procession of bishops in the consecration was so long, it took thirty minutes to finish. By contrast, his leaving office on 11 March 2022 was a sad, tearful, and wearisome litany of thank-yous to groups and friends who had stood by him. After fourteen years, there was no ebullient celebration of victory. What had come in as a roaring lion went out as a quiet lamb. Perhaps this tells us more about Lawrence's legacy than anyone can say now.

As a student of history, I hope that Mark Lawrence will write his memoirs, or at least his account of the schism. We need to know his side of the story. It would give us all a better understanding of what happened in this event that has been so much a part of our lives. Besides, I think his legacy deserves it.