A VICTORY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Yesterday produced a milestone in the long and hard struggle for human rights. The United States Senate passed a bill entitled The Respect for Marriage Act. The act will give federal guarantees for same-sex marriage and interracial marriage. In its 2015 decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment meant that states had to grant and recognize same-sex marriages. The new bill would federally codify and protect this. 

Reflecting the sharp swing in recent public attitudes to same-sex marriage, the vote was not close. It was 61 for and 36 against. Unsurprisingly, both South Carolina senators voted against. A dozen Republicans joined the Democrats to carry the bill over the line. The Senate has 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans.

Perhaps the most remarkable of the Republican Senators to support the bill was Romney of Utah. In fact, in the run-up to the vote, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had very publicly endorsed the bill. At long last, an institution that had invested so much of itself for so long in opposing gay rights came around to support same-sex marriage. Who says people cannot see the light and change their minds? The Mormons are showing the way.

Next, the bill will go to the House of Representatives where it is expected to pass. After that, it will head to the president's desk for signing. Pres. Biden has already said he will sign immediately.

The significance of this should not be missed. The great democratic revolution is on the move and is scoring major victories against the reactionary counter-revolutionaries. To be sure, the war is not over. Just look at the news from Colorado a few days ago. Discrimination, hate, and violence are still there but they cannot stop the rising tide of freedom, equality and justice. For those who love democracy and human rights, today is a day for rejoicing.

HERE is an article giving more info on this.

 

GIVING THANKS

Welcome, blog reader. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Of all the holidays of the year, Thanksgiving is the most social. It is traditionally the time when family and friends gather together to give thanks for all the blessings of life and to (over) indulge on delicious foods. After stuffing, one group might migrate to the television to flop down and yell at a football game while the kids go off to play on their own away from the domineering adults and another gaggle talks non-stop in the kitchen. 

When I was young, Thanksgiving was always a wonderful time. We did not have a "crazy uncle" spouting off and it was understood that no one should speak of religion or politics. Conversations were usually about individual matters as who was about to get married, who was about to have a baby, who was going away to college, who got a new car, that sort of thing. If the house got too busy, there was always the retreat outside to pick up pecans generously deposited by trees as old as my grandmother or to toss a football back and forth. I once spent a Thanksgiving Day in Grenoble, France, where it was not a holiday. I was buried in the archives and had spaghetti for lunch. I have never missed family as much as on that day.

As for the schism, matters are on hold right now although one may assume the two sides are continuing their private negotiations for a final settlement. We will have to wait until the bishops announce what they have agreed on. Meanwhile, there are five issues hung up in court and seeming to go nowhere. Three parishes are still in dispute of disposition: Old Saint Andrew's, Holy Cross, and Good Shepherd. In addition, the Anglican side has a suit in circuit court against the Episcopal side for betterments payments. Finally, the Remittitur of the state supreme court is still standing in the circuit court awaiting implementation. 

Since Thanksgiving is a social time, it is an appropriate moment to consider the social outreach of one's local church. What does your church do for community, both internally, and beyond its walls? Grace Church Cathedral does a great job supporting countless charities in the Charleston area but then it is a large and wealthy parish. Most churches nowadays are small and limited. They cannot do as much as Grace does. 

But then, it is not quantity that counts, it is quality. My local church, St. Luke's, of Jacksonville AL, is a small parish in a small (10,000) town. The people who built this church more than a century and a half ago were very much community-minded people and incorporated service to the community in the parish DNA. Over the years, the understanding of community has evolved and matured. St. Luke's is now well-known as the most welcoming and inclusive church in town and also the most generous in service to the greater community. In its long list of outreach, it is best known in town as the Thanksgiving meal church.

Last year, the church served more than 600 meals free of charge, even delivering hundreds to homes. This project started modestly twenty-seven years ago and has grown beyond anyone's wildest dreams, so much so that the Methodists generously agreed to help out. This year, thirty-five turkeys and mountains of sides are being prepared.

Even though St. Luke's fame comes largely from this meal, it is far from being the parish's only outreach. It is just one among many. Another is the only free food pantry in town. Kept by the local chapter of the Daughters of the King, it has fed many hungry neighbors. (In this picture, my reflection is in the glass.)

Thus, a parish does not have to be a big one to do big work for the community, both within the congregation and beyond the walls. Of course, a positive side effect of all of this is evangelism. I do not know how many people over the years have come to St. Luke's because they wanted to be a part of a congregation so committed to doing God's work in the world. Love is contagious.

So, as you give thanks this year for family and friends, give thanks too for your local worshiping group whether you are in a big beautiful building or not. Contemplate too on what your group is doing to make a better world all around you. Even small churches can accomplish a great deal with a little imagination and a commitment to living out the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the world. But then, in the end, isn't this what Christianity is ultimately all about? We fill ourselves by emptying ourselves.

Happy Thanksgiving Day to you and yours, blog reader. I am thankful to you for being here. 

NOTES,  19 NOVEMBER 2022

Welcome, blog reader. The 232nd annual meeting of the Diocese of South Carolina has concluded. It was held yesterday and today, Nov. 18-19. I watched the sessions that were live streamed on Facebook and also the Eucharist service at Grace Church Cathedral. Here are my thoughts on the convention, for whatever they are worth.

There were two visitors of great interest. One was the archbishop of Ghana and primate of the Anglican Communion province of west Africa. His presence in the convention proved that not all of Equatorial Africa is going along with GAFCON's assault on the Episcopal Church in an attempt to replace TEC with its proxy in the U.S., the Anglican Church in North America. GAFCON has cut off communion with the Episcopal Church, specifically over issues around homosexuality. The other visitor was the bishop of the Diocese of the Dominican Republic. His presence demonstrated his diocese's attachment to the mainstream of the Episcopal Church. Both of these important visitors were morale boosters for the convention-goers.

As for the legal issues of the schism, nothing specifically came out in the sessions. The new chancellor of the diocese, Bert Utsey, made brief remarks and said his written report would have more substance. Unfortunately for me, that report was not posted online, or at least I could not find it.

Of course, there was rejoicing at the return of Episcopal services in five returning parishes (St. John's, St. James, Christ Church, St. David's, and St. Bartholomew's) and at the restoration of Camp St. Christopher which had been hijacked by the breakaways and held captive for nearly ten years.

I found it interesting and a bit curious that the overall theme of the convention was racial reconciliation. To be sure, South Carolina needs racial reconciliation given its distinct history and culture. That is not debatable. The point is that this was not the substance of the schism. The direct cause of the schism was the church's interface with homosexuality. The secondary cause was misogyny, that is, institutionalized subjection of women to male authority. These two have been well documented as the wedge issues of the schism. I believe racism was also a factor in causing the schism but was much more in the background when the break happened in 2012. Some people have speculated that the schism was actually delayed reaction to the Episcopal Church support of the Civil Rights movement, mainly in the 1960's. That may well be, but it has not been documented. Race was not an overt issue boiling up in the diocese in the thirty years leading up to the schism of 2012 the way homosexuality and women's roles were. Yet, equality for and inclusion of homosexuals and women were barely mentioned in the sessions yesterday and today.

The keynote speaker, Stephanie Spellers, certainly did a great job of making the case for racial reconciliation. Her bring-down-the-house "homily" at Grace was a stem winder. As a student of history, I was delighted at her emphasis on recognizing and embracing the past, all of it, as a guide to a better future. Amen. God, and everybody, knows lower South Carolina has an abundance of the past to deal with and much of it is uncomfortably ugly. It is hard to imagine anyone doing a better job of the theme of racism than Spellers did.

I kept waiting for someone to say the word "reparations." I did not hear it. Friend, we are not going to get serious about racial reconciliation until we deal with the question of reparations for slavery. I did not really expect the subject to come up in the meeting. Right now the diocese has all it can do to recover and rebuild after the devastating house fire of ten years. Yet, reparations must be dealt with somewhere down the road if the diocese really means to heal racism in lower South Carolina.

Many dioceses in the Episcopal Church have set up payments of reparations or have established commissions to do so. Even the neighboring diocese of GEORGIA has set aside 3% of its unrestricted endowments for a racial reconciliation center. Virginia, Maryland, New York, Massachusetts, and numerous other dioceses have either set up substantial reparations programs or are moving to do so.

In my view, racial reconciliation in the diocese of South Carolina must have two big parts. The first is recognition of and contrition for the evil of slavery. Germany gave us a model on how to do this. In 2015, on the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, Chancellor Merkel led her cabinet to the German Parliament for a most remarkable event. After historians laid out the highly uncomfortable details of Nazi history, in the name of the German people, the assembly embraced the guilt for enabling National Socialism to come to power and the guilt for the war and all the evil that ensued. They begged forgiveness from the rest of the world and promised that they would never again allow such a regime to come to power in Germany. They committed themselves to true democracy and human rights. No nation-state in the history of the world has ever done such a thing. Even before this, Germany had been paying Israel many billions of dollars in "reparations" making Germany second only to the United States in financial support of Israel. Of course the money could never repay the apocalyptic Holocaust that Germany made but it was significant given that Germany itself was struggling to rebuild after a war that destroyed virtually every German city and town.

The second big part has to be material. Talk is easy and cheap. Only when the diocese of SC commits to share a significant part of its wealth to heal the disparities caused by racism can it really call itself doing racial reconciliation. So, down the road, when the diocese is back on its feet, the diocese as an institution should 1-formally apologize for the evil of racism and 2-pay reparations as a goodwill gesture to help make amends. What forms these take would be up to the people and their leaders. In my view, there will not be significant racial reconciliation until both of these things happen in the Diocese of South Carolina (or any other southern diocese for that matter).

On the whole, the convention was a joyous event. It showed the remarkable health and vitality of the diocese. Although only a fraction of what it was before the schism, the diminished old Diocese of South Carolina is bouncing back as well as it can and moving on into the future bravely self-aware of its mission to do God's work in the world.

 

NOTES, 16 NOVEMBER 2022

Greetings, blog reader on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022. The Diocese of South Carolina is about to meet for its 232nd convention. This is history-making in more ways than one.

The first convention was on May 12, 1785, in Charleston, when representatives of eight of the twenty parishes in the state of South Carolina met to begin organizing a state association of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the heir of the Church of England parishes in the old colony. In 1789, the association in SC sent a delegation to Philadelphia to help draw up the Constitution and Canons of the church. SC was one of nine states participating. It has one of the nine little crosses on the church flag today. Except for the brief episode of the Civil War, the Diocese of South Carolina remained very much a part and parcel of the national Episcopal Church for nearly two centuries. In the 1980's this identity began to change and for certain reasons the diocesan leaders opened a long process of disengaging the diocese from the mainstream of the Episcopal Church. One may think of the schism as ten years old, but actually the roots go back much farther, thirty years farther.

After all these years of troubles, the old diocese lies battered and wounded, but still very much alive with a strongly pounding heart. It will not be vanquished, and it will not be because its people refused to bend to the popular but ill-begotten winds of discrimination, hate, dissension and division. They courageously stood for the human rights for all of God's children, even at cost to themselves.

This selflessness for others showed itself clearly last Sunday when Grace Church Cathedral handed out check after check to a very long list of Charleston-area charities. It was quite a crowd in the picture. This was money, a small fortune, made by parishioners in the Tea Room and Mouse Boutique, long traditions at Grace. This remarkable service to the community was horizontal Christianity at its best.

Unfortunately, I will be unable to attend this year's meeting of the Diocese. I will watch whatever is available on live stream. There is a luncheon on Friday at noon followed by a Plenary Session, then 5:30 Eucharist at Grace. The business meeting will be on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. With all the swirling legal issues of the schism, one can imagine lively discussions in the sessions.

Finally, as a long time student of the history of the schism, I must say I am lost in respect and admiration for what the Diocese of South Carolina has done, and is continuing to do, in the face of daunting odds. You did the right thing when it was the hard thing to do. This is my definition of heroism. I want you to know you are my heroes, every one of you because without you, the separatists would have devastated the whole old diocese. You refused to let that happen. So, when you gather together this weekend, I hope you will remember what you have done and put this in perspective. While you grieve for the departed brothers and sisters, you also have good reason to rejoice, for the 232nd time.

I think it is worthwhile to repeat my blog posting of Nov. 3 on where the diocese stands now. Peace.

NOTES,  3 NOVEMBER 2022

Greetings blog reader, on Thursday, November 3, 2022. My last entry, on the sale of the church in Ft. Motte, has generated an energetic response, to say the least. The fact that not one of the emails I have received is printable should tell you something. There is rather strong opinion out there, both pro and con. This should not surprise anyone.

This has been a hard year for the Episcopal side of the schism. In April the South Carolina Supreme Court took away 15 of the 29 parishes it had earlier recognized as property of the Episcopal Church. This just happened to include all of the large parishes of the pre-schism diocese (except Grace). Coincidence? It got worse. In August, the SCSC revisited the scene and snatched away another 6 from TEC. Do you see a trend here? After that, the Episcopal diocese was left with 8 of the original 29. One of the 8 is now in court asking for a redo while another one of the 8 is now buying the property from the Episcopal diocese. So, it is possible the EDSC will wind up with a total of 6, for a loss of 23. Hard to take. 

Moreover, the Episcopal faithful have watched as their bishop announced "settlement" deals that, from what we know so far, were generous to the secessionist side while that side really gave up nothing it actually had. Head scratching. 

At the time of the "settlement" deal in September the separatist bishop made a joint announcement of the terms with the Episcopal bishop. Since then, the secessionist side has gone silent on this matter. Have you noticed that there has been no word about the Ft. Motte sale on the Anglican diocesan website, nor on the St. Matthew's Church website, nor on anglicanink.com, the main anti-Episcopal website? Of course, if they mentioned this they would have to give credit to the Episcopal bishop, something they certainly are loathe to do.

There is at least a good measure of confusion, disappointment, and concern among the Episcopalian faithful about the future of the diocese. This is understandable given the many different factors swirling about. The Episcopal diocese will hold its annual meeting in a few days. This is an appropriate time to put things in perspective. Let's review the big picture of the schism. I think this will help. 

In the second half of the Twentieth Century, the Episcopal Church committed itself to a crusade for the equality and inclusion of all people in America, and particularly in the life of the church. This resulted in sweeping reforms for African Americans, women, and homosexuals, especially in the internal life of the Episcopal Church. 

The schism of 2012 was a concerted and deliberate movement of the diocesan leaders to remove the bulk of the diocese from the Episcopal Church in order to prevent the reforms of the Episcopal Church from settling in lower South Carolina. It worked very well. The majority of the clergy and laity followed their leadership out of the Episcopal Church to form a new Christian denomination based on social conservatism.

The schism was not a sudden or accidental event. In fact, it was the product of a long train of opposition to Episcopal Church reforms. In 2003, the diocese rejected and condemned the Church's affirmation of the first open and partnered homosexual bishop. In 2008, the diocese strongly approved of and adopted the Jerusalem Declaration that condemned homosexuality and broke communion with provinces that had pro-homosexual policies, e.g. TEC. In 2012, the diocesan leaders plotted in advance of General Convention to oppose the expected approval of liturgies blessing same-sex unions. After GC, they used the momentum to finalize a secret plan to remove the bulk of the diocese from TEC. 

After the schism, the new diocese solidified its social reaction. In 2015, it adopted, and made mandatory, a homophobic Statement of Faith. In 2017, it joined the Anglican Church in North America, a non-Anglican Communion body set up to oppose rights for homosexuals and also to keep women from the office of bishop. It also allowed local dioceses to ban women from the priesthood.

As rationales to bolster their social policies, secessionist leaders demonized the Episcopal Church on theological grounds. For instance, they claimed TEC had abandoned the central doctrine of the uniqueness of Christ, something that was demonstrably untrue, but widely believed and still is to this day. They tried to make the break about theology instead of the real reasons, social policies. The deep and pervasive hostility to the Episcopal Church is strongly entrenched among the new diocese with no sign of letting up. It is highly dubious that any amount of concession to them will change this fixed mindset.

So, as a longtime student of the schism in SC, my advice, for whatever it is worth, to the good folks of the Episcopal diocese is to stand back and reconsider the big picture. Take stock of where you are.

You are in a moral crusade to promote the God-given worth and dignity of every human being. There is a right side and a wrong side in this conflict. It is not a clash of two equals. In the first place, you are in a war of sorts. In the second place, this war was not of your doing. It was deliberately made by people who opposed the social reforms of the Episcopal Church. The fight was presented to you through no fault of your own. However, it is now on your plate for the time that God has allotted to you for your life. You did not choose it. You did not deserve it. Nevertheless, here it is. It is the right thing to do to fight the good fight. 

Nothing differentiates the two sides better than the services of baptism in their respective prayer books. In the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer we find the Baptismal Covenant  (p. 305):

Will you seek to serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

The keys are serving Christ in all people, loving your neighbor, striving for justice and peace, and respecting the dignity of every person.

The Anglican (ACNA) prayer book (p. 165-166) completely omitted this Covenant. It skipped from the Apostles' Creed to prayers. Coincidence? Certainly not. This speaks volumes about the separation of the social reactionaries from the Episcopal Church.

So, my point of the day is to remind the Episcopalians of lower South Carolina on the eve of your convention why you are in this fight. It was presented to you. Your had a choice to stand or flee. You chose to stand. This is a moral crusade. You are in it for the right reasons. They are the promises you made, or that were made for you, at your baptism. I, for one, am lost in admiration for your faithful courage and endurance.

Often in life the right thing is also the hard thing to do. Yet, we do it anyway because it is the right thing to do and that is what our religion has taught us. Please bear this in mind regardless of whatever is going on around you in the courts or in institutional or administrative issues. Peace. 

 

THE WINNER:  DEMOCRACY

Greetings, blog reader on the day after the mid-term elections of 2022. On yesterday, the American people went to the polls to vote for the entire House of Representatives, a third of the Senate, and many state races. The turnout was heavy. My polling place had twice the usual numbers of voters.

So, on the day after, what do the election results tell us? Votes are still being counted and numerous races are still too close to call but the big picture is clear. Yesterday was a major victory for the great democratic revolution over the reactionary anti-democratic counter-revolution. The historical importance of this should not be underestimated.

As of this moment, it looks as if the Democrats will keep control of the Senate and the Republicans will have a slight majority in the House of Representatives. Historically, the party out of power (the Republicans in this case) gains a big win in the off-year elections. This did not happen yesterday. There was no "red wave." In effect, we have a split Congress.

If the big winner of the day was democracy, the big loser was the Republican Party even though they won the majority in the House. This is true for several reasons. In the first place, voters all over the country arose to stand for a woman's right of freedom over her own body. Even in conservative states, the people arose to defend women's rights. Everyone knows it was the Republican Party that packed the Supreme Court with anti-abortion justices. 

Even more serious for the Republican Party is the lurking Frankenstein's monster they created and is now threatening to devour them. The ex-president, Donald Trump, is not leaving the stage. His ego will not allow it. He still dominates the Republican Party. As of this moment, he will still get the nomination of the Party in 2024 if he wants it. He has shown every sign of going for it. Along the way, he will destroy anyone who gets in his way, just as he did in 2016. He has already zeroed in on his main competitor, the governor of Florida. It will be very interesting to see if Desantis puts up a fight or quietly steps aside for Trump. As of now, the Republican Party is the Trump party.

If Trump gets the Republican nomination in 2024, he is almost certainly going to lose, and drag down much of the Republican Party with him. He has never won a popular election. This will be bad for both the Party and the nation. Democracy works best on a strong two-party system.

As the good folks of lower South Carolina know all too well, the culture war is far from over, but I have the sense that it has passed an important milestone. Donald Trump and his followers tried to overthrow our constitutional democratic republic. He unleashed a mob on Congress. He watched gleefully for hours as the mob sought to capture and or kill his own vice president and the Speaker of the House. The American people have arisen to reject Trump and his threat.

Bottom line:  the American experiment in building a democratic nation-state is safer today than it was two days ago. It is safer because the people have made it so.