OLD SAINT ANDREW'S AND REALITY

Of all the fourteen parishes to be returned to the Episcopal Church, the one apparently having the hardest time coming to grips with reality is Old Saint Andrew's, in West Ashley, Charleston. I recommend listening to the rector's homily of today. Find it HERE on Facebook, @29.

We all must understand that the Rev. Marshall Huey and his congregation have been on an emotional roller coaster for years, and for that we must have empathy. Although OSA had a large minority of laity who did not want to leave the Episcopal Church, Huey made a major appeal for secession and his view carried the day in the parish vote to leave TEC. Then, in 2015, the circuit court said OSA owned its own property. In 2017, the SC Supreme Court reversed this and said OSA was property of TEC. Back down at the circuit court, the judge gave a special treatment of OSA awarding them the property again, in 2020. Then, on 20 April 2022, the SCSC overruled the circuit court and went back to its 2017 ruling agreeing that OSA was property of TEC. So, OSA has "changed hands" five times in ten years. I suppose anyone at OSA would be emotionally drained by this point.

For whatever reason, the Rev. Huey insists that he and his flock will stay in OSA:  "God willing, I am, we are going to stay here" he said today. We will "persevere as long as it takes...we have to persevere" as he declared, "my heart is in it."

His stated reason for staying was to proclaim Jesus as THE way and not A way. While Huey did not say so directly, no one could miss his meaning. Years before the schism and ever since, the secessionist leaders insisted that the Episcopal Church no longer believed that Jesus was THE way, just another way of salvation. This was to rationalize the schism. It worked. It is now deeply embedded in the talking points of the anti-Episcopal crowd. 

Several points need to be said about the situation at OSA:

---the Rev. Huey and his followers at OSA are obviously emotionally upset. They are deeply saddened and distressed. They need our prayers and love. They have mine.

---the reality is that the SCSC has ruled. It is all but certain this is final. The Episcopal bishop will return to OSA and Episcopal Church services will resume. This is a given. This is reality.

---if Mr. Huey is upset at anyone, he could include his "friends" in the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina. They threw him under the bus. Both the Standing Committee and the Trustees of ADSC unanimously refused to petition the SCSC for a rehearing. They abandoned the 14 parishes they "lost". They hung them out to dry. Of these, 6 did not even try to get a rehearing. The big parishes of ADSC got what they wanted, hence the actions of the diocese. End of story.

---No one has to leave OSA when the Episcopal bishop returns. Mr. Huey can return to TEC through a set process. The placement of clergy at OSA would be up to the bishop. No one can speak for her now. The people-in-the-pews do not have to go anywhere. However, the vestry and wardens have to give loyalty to the Episcopal bishop.

---There is no truth whatsoever to the popular myth perpetrated by the schismatics that TEC no longer believes that Jesus Christ is THE way. No where in the Constitutions and Canons of the Episcopal Church or in the Prayer Book does it say that Jesus is not the way. Quite the opposite. If Mr. Huey and his congregation want a religion based on Jesus as THE way, hang on. It is returning.

---OSA is indeed an historic parish, the oldest extant church building in SC. It functioned as an Episcopal Church from 1785, except for brief closures, until 2012. TEC is in OSA's DNA. It will be returning home.

So, on the one hand, our hearts have to go out to Mr. Huey and his followers. They are apparently in anguish at what they perceive to be a devastating loss of the property they love.

On the other hand, there is a reality at OSA that is something to be embraced. Isn't life about accepting God's will and receiving the peace and joy that comes with knowing a force far greater than ourselves is in control of the universe?