THE STRANGE BROUHAHA AT THE CHARLESTON MUSIC HALL

The annual conference called "Mere Anglicanism" met last weekend at the Charleston Music Hall, organized and led mostly by clergy of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina. It produced quite a little dust-up, strangely enough not by what speakers said but about what one was prevented from saying. Given the history of the schism and the ADSC, this is saying a lot.

First of all this is not an Anglican conference. Of the nine SPEAKERS identified, I could count only one or two who were members of the Anglican Communion. Second, this conference historically is a love-fest of counter-revolutionary, anti-Episcopal forces out to reinforce each other in their reactionary social and cultural views cloaked in religion. I must confess, I have never attended one of these conferences because I do not think I could sit through something so far afield from the classical Anglicanism I love.

So, the invited speakers are always a bit outspoken in their highly conservative views. That is to be expected. That is why what happened this year is so strange. As far as I can tell, here is what occurred:

One of the invited speakers was the Rev. CALVIN ROBINSON . A simple glance at his Wikipedia page should have raised red flags. He was a high school computer teacher who decided on Holy Orders but was rejected by the Church of England. He joined a small denomination called the Nordic Catholic Church. All the while he made a name for himself as a highly outspoken and opinionated social and cultural reactionary apparently decrying every aspect of what he considered "liberalism," which he seems to blanket identify as "Marxism." Among many other things, he is vehemently opposed to women's ordination. 

From what I gather, he gave his scheduled talk and was preparing for the panel discussion of speakers on the last day when he was suddenly "disinvited" to take part in it. What he was about to say about women's ordination did not pass muster with the conference managers. He went on to post a long accounting of the whole event. Find it HERE . Apparently everything he does not like is "Marxist." I stopped when he said there was no racism. It was all made up by liberals. Really? As a person who grew up in the Jim Crow South, I could him a thing or two about racism.

There was enough disturbance that Bishop Edgar felt compelled to issue a PASTORAL LETTER  about this strange incident. Why was one of the nine speakers of the conference censored? Edgar rushed to the defense of the women in the church in a letter dripping with hypocrisy. The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina has a well-known history of misogyny. No women has ever been rector of a large or medium parish. No woman has ever been chair of a major diocesan committee, e.g. the Standing Committee. Women have never held a majority of seats on any major diocesan committee. In 2017, the ADSC joined the Anglican Church in North America, a new denomination partially set up to keep women from being bishops (holding authority over men). There will never be a woman bishop of ADSC, at least as long as it is in the ACNA. Women are now and apparently always will be second-class citizens in the ADSC. 

What stood out the most about the hypocrisy of the letter was the assertion that the church could have "dual integrities." He meant on whether women should be allowed ordination. He said it was fine for church people to have diametrically opposed stands on women's ordination. If the church can hold two different views on this, why not on homosexuality? All the Episcopal Church asked was for everyone to respect the "integrities" of others whether they agreed with them or not. If a church can have "dual integrities" for women, could not it have the same for homosexuals? Of course. 

Unfortunately, the truth is the ADSC is identified in lower South Carolina as the bunch of disgruntled Episcopalians who refused to accept equality and inclusion of women and gays in the life of the church. No amount of cancelling, or issuing pastoral letters, can change what has already been established. Of course, the ADSC could grant women and gays equality and inclusion but it would have to leave ACNA and repudiate its own raison d'être, something that is not likely in the foreseeable future.