NOTES,  8 APRIL 2022

"May you live in interesting times," is said to be an old Chinese curse, although its origin is dubious. Uninteresting times would be peaceful, serene, and stable. Interesting times would be strife-filled, tumultuous, and unpredictable. We can all agree, we are definitely living in interesting times. In such times, it is easy to get overwhelmed with the troubles all about us and lose focus on the big picture. We have been in a bitter schism in South Carolina for nearly ten years and still waiting on some elusive resolution. We have been in a pandemic for more than two years watching millions of our fellow human beings suffer and die, including one million Americans. Now we have the worst war on the globe since WWII. The news is so awful these days, I almost dread to turn on my computer or television for fear the new atrocities will be worse than yesterday's. 

Sure enough, this morning came the news of the Russians' most barbaric crime yet, at least of those that have come to light. They fired missiles into a crowd of thousands of innocent civilians waiting at a train station desperate to escape the war. This was after they had bombed one railroad track causing a bottle neck of rail traffic and the build up of a crowd at the station. One missile had the words in Russian, "for the children." The attack killed thirty-nine people and wounded some three hundred. The pictures of the aftermath are beyond gruesome. How can human beings do this to one another, we may ask ourselves in disbelief. We are looking at evil in its most shocking form. God only knows what will be found in Mariupol and the other areas the Russians have attacked. This is not war. It is murderous terrorism and the people who are committing these crimes must be held accountable if we are to have a civilized world.

In order to keep our own sanity amidst all this craziness, I think it is important to bear in mind the big picture of what is going on in the world of our day. Regular readers of this blog will know what I am going to say. The big picture is that we are in the reactionary phase of the great democratic revolution of the Twentieth Century. That century brought the triumph of democracy over monarchism in WWI and over totalitarianism in WWII. Soviet Communism fell a half century later. Democracy did not sweep the entire world but it did large parts of it to become the standard of civic governance. Part and parcel of this revolution was the rise of human rights. In America this translated into freedom and equality for African Americans, women, homosexuals, and the transgendered. Early on, the Episcopal Church resolved to be a champion of freedom and rights; hence, promotion of racial justice, democratized prayer book, and equality and inclusion for women, gays, and the transgendered in the church.

The dramatic and sweeping great democratic revolution was not universally welcomed. Quite the contrary, many powerful forces arose to oppose it or at least some of its effects. A backlash emerged resolved to stop, roll back, or destroy the democratic revolution. Every great revolution in history is followed by a counter-revolution led by forces that feel the most threatened by the revolution. This is the phase we are in now. We are witnessing a great clash between the force of the revolution and the elements of the counter-revolution who are struggling to keep the pre-revolutionary order.

In America, this has brought in a culture war. The white male power structure has formed a backlash and with the help of other anti-democratic elements has put up a fierce reaction. President Trump rode into power on this reactionary wave. In numerous state legislatures across America laws are bring passed by reactionaries to diminish the revolutionary changes. These will reduce voting among minorities, the ability of women to control their own bodies, the rights of the transgendered, and even equality for gays. There is a concurrent war on books promoting equality and inclusion. 

The schism in South Carolina is part of this culture war. Social reactionaries in the Episcopal Church in lower South Carolina organized to remove the diocese from the national church in order to keep homosexuals and women from having equality and inclusion in the local churches. For ten years, the reactionaries have been using the courts to further their cause. If they can convince the justices of the SC supreme court that this is a fight of conservatism over liberalism, they may prevail in that court. If so, they would wind up with the local properties. We are still waiting on a judgment of the court.

The Russian war on Ukraine is also part of the reaction against the great democratic revolution. Putin is a dictator, an anti-democratic ruler. Ukraine is a democracy on his doorstep. He has declared Ukraine does not exist. If he has his way, he will stamp out the country including its democracy.

If history is our guide, and I see no reason to think it is not in this case, the prevailing revolutionary forces will win out although perhaps with significant changes. The reactionary forces will not destroy the revolutionary ones but they can do great damage along the way. Evidence number one is the war in Ukraine.

And so, in the big picture, the great democratic revolution moves on as the greater prevailing force in history. Right now we see a tremendous mile marker in that revolution in America, the first African American woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.

This is a tremendous leap forward. To know just how big this is one has to be a southerner of my age range. Growing up in the Jim Crow south, the idea of a black person on the U.S. Supreme Court would have been unthinkable, let along a black woman. To really understand the great democratic revolution in America, one has to know how life has changed. I am here to tell you the change is incalculable, and I thank God and the good people of America for every bit of it. 

And so, let us keep the big picture in mind as we try to wrestle with the awful trials and tribulations in our lives these days. History is moving in the right direction but it does not move at an even pace. The great democratic revolution is the predominate historical force of our age. And so, the reactionaries will not prevail in the end. Putin will not win. Although battered and bruised, the forces of democracy and human rights will win the day in the world, including little South Carolina.