A DECADE OF SCHISM:

Reflections on the break, the causes and the results of the Episcopal Church split of 2012 in South Carolina

Part 2. The Causes

B. The Direct Cause

This is the third in our series on essays on the schism of 2012 in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the break. The first was on what happened in the break itself. The second was on the underlying causes of the schism. The underlying causes came primarily from the innate social conservatism of the Diocese of South Carolina and the increasing divide between an evermore horizontal national church and a vertical local diocese. However, conservatism itself does not explain sufficiently the causes of the schism. It is doubtful that lower South Carolina is any more conservative than the rest of the Dixiecrat belt of South Carolina to Louisiana. Yet, not a single diocese in any other southeastern state experienced a schism. Our next problem is, why did lower South Carolina alone in its region vote to break from the national Episcopal Church; that is, what was the direct cause of the schism?

There is still much that is unknown and unclear about the schism in South Carolina, but the problem of the direct cause is not in this category. Without question, the issue of homosexuality was the direct cause. So now, let us flesh this out. Exactly how did this issue make the break?

In spite of overwhelming empirical evidence, many people on the secessionist side denied, and continue to deny, that the issue of homosexuality caused the schism. The common cry on the breakaway side was, and still is, the break was about theology. Even years before 2012, the diocesan leaders promoted the concept that the Episcopal Church had devolved into heresy, specifically that it no longer accepted the "Uniqueness of Christ, that is, that Jesus Christ alone brought salvation to humankind and faith in Him alone brings salvation. To support this dramatic charge, the leaders claimed Episcopal bishops were on record denying the uniqueness. What some people in the diocese did was to take certain remarks some bishops had made, remove them from the context, and extrapolate the remarks onto the whole Episcopal Church. This was intellectual dishonesty, but it was effective. By the time of the schism, it was commonly held in the separatist local churches that the national church had fallen from grace. 

In fact, the Episcopal Church had not changed its religious understandings. It had changed its social ones. Any alteration of the doctrines, or beliefs, of the Episcopal Church would require resolutions of the General Convention which never happened and certainly would not happen. However, the facts did not matter in this case. So, today, the commonly held concept among the separatist parishes is that the Episcopal Church abandoned the true faith; hence, the schism was justified, and it had nothing to do with homosexuality. The demonstrable facts show this view to be nonsense.

The issue of homosexuality was the direct cause of the schism but it took thirty years for this to work itself out. Space here does not allow all the details (see the conclusion of my book for this), so here are the highlights.

In 1982, the Diocese of South Carolina got a new leader, Bishop Allison. He was a driven Evangelical who had been instrumental in creating what is now Trinity School for Ministry as a bastion of Evangelical Anglicanism. Right off, he became an outspoken critic of the national church, particularly on the issue of homosexuality. He filled all the ranks he could in lower SC with like-minded alumni of TSM. By 1990, the diocese had taken a hard turn to the Evangelical side of the Episcopal Church. This trend was only to continue all the way to schism.

It is important here to look at the relationship between Evangelicalism and homophobia. Why do conservative Christians condemn homosexuality? In my understanding, it has to do with their views of God and the relationship between human beings and God.

Evangelicals/fundamentalists/pentecostals and the like tend to see God as the all powerful ruler of the universe who is a being in space somewhere and like humans only greater. As he rules the universe, he sets into motion all things including society. He created and rules over the social order. It is not man's place to question this, much less try to change it. This is why 80% of Evangelicals voting in 2016 and 2020 voted for Trump, even though he was commonly criticized as, well, morally and ethically challenged. What mattered to the Evangelical voters was that he stood to maintain, or restore, the old social order. This paid off as the Supreme Court revoked settled law and turned abortion over to the individual states. This was a huge blow to the gains women had made in social reform.

As the Episcopal Church moved, step by step, to incorporate non-celibate homosexuals in the church and to open church liturgies to homosexual couples, the Diocese of South Carolina reacted by moving step by step away from the national church. The crucial period in the Episcopal Church was 1989 to 1996. It was in this time that the issues around homosexuality were virtually settled in the Episcopal Church. Right away, a movement sprang up in SC to go beyond the national church.

One of the unanswered questions about the schism in SC was when the turning point occurred. At what point did the diocesan leadership decide on schism? We still do not have enough evidence to answer this question definitely. However, my best guess at this time is the turning point occurred between the Robinson affair of the summer of 2003 and the formation of the bishop's search committee in May of 2004. We have sworn testimony in court that by the time the search committee went to work looking for a new bishop it wanted one to lead the diocese out of the national church. In the end, the committee united around Mark Lawrence, who had made a name for himself speaking out against the affirmation of Robinson. (In 2003 the General Convention affirmed Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire, the first openly non-celibate homosexual person to be named a bishop. In SC, a diocesan convention met and nullified recognition of this.)

Lawrence was consecrated bishop in January of 2008. The schism occurred four, nearly five, years later. Why did it take so long? I think it was a combination of factors. I see three periods in the Lawrence episcopate leading to the schism. The first was 2008-2009. In this he bonded himself to the majority of people in the diocese. He had to have time to get to know the diocese and for the people to get to know him. The second was 2009-2010. In this he called frequent meetings of the diocesan convention that did two big things: declared the sovereignty of the diocese and revoked diocesan accession to the canons of the Episcopal Church. The third period was 2011-2012, the putting into effect of the schism. 

In September of 2012, the Disciplinary Board for Bishops voted that Bishop Lawrence had abandoned the church primarily by issuing quit claim deed to all local parishes. This was in disregard of the Dennis Canon of TEC that required all local properties to be held in trust for the Episcopal Church and its local diocese. He had given out the deeds in 2011.

Everyone knew that the General Convention of 2012 was likely to adopt new liturgies for the blessing of same-sex unions. The leaders in SC spent the first half of the year rousing the diocese to oppose the national church, something that by this point was not hard to do. The bishop and the delegates from SC went to the GC with a pre-made plan to stage a dramatic walk-out when the controversial resolutions passed. After the convention, apparently the diocesan leaders met in secret to formulate the break. Long story short, on Oct. 2, 2012, the Standing Committee, upon the authority they believed they had from the bishop, voted secretly to disaffiliate the diocese from the Episcopal Church if the church took any action of any kind against Lawrence. It was the issue of homosexuality at the 2012 GC that presented the stage for the schism.

So, the issue of the interface between the church and homosexuality percolated up in the 1980's, just at the time a strongly Evangelical bishop was leading the Diocese of South Carolina. He set a tone of criticism of the national church, particularly on issues of sexuality. He brought in like-minded clergy. In SC, hostility to the Episcopal Church grew in the 1990's as the national church moved ever closer to rights and inclusion of non-celibate homosexuals. The crescendo was the Robinson affair in 2003. Apparently soon after this, the attitude among the leadership in SC was set toward secession. If this theory is true, Bishop Lawrence was the executor and not the creator of the schism. We simply do not have enough evidence at this point to say conclusively what happened among the diocesan leaders right after Robinson. We do know, however, there was deep hostility to the national church, among diocesan leaders, by 2008.

The evidence we do have is clear that it was the issue of homosexuality that drove the wedge between the majority of clergy and laity of the diocese of South Carolina and the Episcopal Church. The other dioceses in the southeastern U.S. did not move to schism because they had leadership that was more broad minded about the institution of the national church. They were more accepting and less judgmental about the views of others. The schism in SC was from the top down, not from the bottom up. The crucial factor was leadership. The uniqueness of the schism in SC meant the uniqueness of the leadership in SC.