The unanimous decision announced on April 20, 2022 by the South Carolina Supreme Court fulfilled (by its unanimity) at least one of the predictions made in the previous post on this blog after the oral arguments last December. Unanimity, however, in this instance served not to resolve thorny issues of South Carolina law, but rather sent a strong signal that the collective Justices were circling their wagons around their own, in a somewhat transparent attempt to recover the Court’s dignity lost in the fiasco created by its disgraceful disunity in 2017.

The result (reached by implicit design) can, alas, bring peace to neither of the litigating factions. Applying extremely arbitrary criteria of its own devising, the Court decided that of the twenty-nine individual parishes before it, fourteen (by the documents they adopted) allowed the nationwide trust specified in the Dennis Canon to be applied to their properties, while fifteen did not. The hair-splitting on display here is best illustrated by the following passage from footnote 12 of the main opinion by Justice Few:

The analysis of whether Holy Cross, Stateburg satisfied the second element discussed above—intent to create a trust—is the same as our analysis for St. Paul’s, Bennettsville, but the outcome of the case for the two Parishes is different. This is because Holy Cross, Stateburg took affirmative present action in its 2011 Bylaws to “accede[] to the . . . Canons of the [National Church],” but St. Paul’s, Bennettsville merely stated it was “organized under” and “subject to” the Canons.

This strained construction transforms the English word “accede” (“join in, agree and consent to”) into a poison pill that forever dooms the property of the parish using it to belong to the national Church rather than to the parish itself and its members — the latter are entitled to make use of their own property only for as long as they agree to remain with the sinking ecclesiastical shipwreck that is the current Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

The construction has acquired its severity by a questionable legerdemain performed by Justice Few and his colleagues.

Read it all.

A Pastoral Letter To The Clergy And People Of The #Anglican Diocese Of South Carolina in the light of today's #SouthCarolina Supreme Court ruling https://t.co/v6zbK37lCk #law #history #parishministry #religion #lowcountrylife pic.twitter.com/YF8TGr2604

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 20, 2022

From there:

A Petition for Sunday Prayers

Gracious God, every morning your mercies are new, and your faithfulness is great. Pour out your Holy Spirit on us, comfort us in our losses, and fill us with a desire to serve each other in these challenging days. Make known your will and plan for us as we seek to follow the path you prepare.

Lord in your mercy…

Beautiful circumhorizontal arc over Bennettsville right now. 📸 via Connie Freeman. #scwx #ncwx pic.twitter.com/wiVS6P0BVs

— Ed Piotrowski (@EdPiotrowski) April 21, 2022

1 Corinthians 12:26
If one member suffers, all suffer together;
if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is part of it.
1 Corinthians 7:26

Dear St. Michaelites and Friends,

As you may have heard, the South Carolina Supreme Court issued a decision earlier today in the church property case between our diocese and the national Episcopal Church. The opinion is lengthy, and both we and the diocese’s legal team are still digesting it.
What we know so far is that the decision is a mixed bag. We rejoice to read the Court’s determination that St. Michael’s real property is not held in trust for the Episcopal Church or any of its dioceses. That means that our Vestry continues to own and control our real property. At the same time, we are grieved to read the Court’s determination that the real property of 14 churches in our diocese are held in trust for the Episcopal Church, as is Camp St. Christopher, and we lift up in prayer all of the clergy, staff, and congregants affiliated with those churches.
It is too early to know the full ramifications of this decision or what other legal options may exist, and we await further guidance from the diocese on those matters. We will communicate additional information when it becomes available.
In the meantime, we urge you to remain in prayer for our diocese and all of its churches. And we thank you for your incredible faithfulness to doing the work of spreading the Gospel here at St. Michael’s throughout this process.

Blessings in Christ,

The Rev. Al Zadig, Jr+ Rector
Mr. Lee Cox, Senior Warden
Mrs. Laura Waring Gruber, Junior Warden

Saint Michaels Charleston SC #southcarolina #charleston pic.twitter.com/c1FDb5xZua

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) August 10, 2015

Tomb, thou shalt not hold Him longer;
Death is strong, but Life is stronger;
Stronger than the dark, the light;
Stronger than the wrong, the right.
Faith and Hope triumphant say,
Christ will rise on Easter-Day.

While the patient earth lies waking,
Till the morning shall be breaking,
Shuddering ‘neath the burden dread
Of her Master, cold and dead,
Hark! she hears the angels say,
Christ will rise on Easter-Day.
And when sunrise smites the mountains,
Pouring light from heavenly fountains,
Then the earth blooms out to greet
Once again the blessed feet;
And her countless voices say,
Christ has risen on Easter-Day.

Up and down our lives obedient
Walk, dear Christ, with footsteps radiant,
Till those garden lives shall be
Fair with duties done for Thee;
And our thankful spirits say,
Christ arose on Easter-Day.

–Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

Today (4/18): Monday in the Octave of Easter #angels

Station Church: St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican
Michelangelo's Dome

Alleluia
Ps 118:24

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
This is the day the LORD has made;
let us be glad and rejoice in it.
R. Alleluia, alleluia. pic.twitter.com/XmC7m9adPU

— WritingAngels (@LectorGirl85) April 18, 2022

Listen to it all.

Jesus of Nazareth was certainly dead by the Friday evening; Roman soldiers were professional killers and wouldn’t have allowed a not-quite-dead rebel leader to stay that way for long. When the first Christians told the story of what happened next, they were not saying: “I think he’s still with us in a spiritual sense” or “I think he’s gone to heaven”. All these have been suggested by people who have lost their historical and theological nerve.

The historian must explain why Christianity got going in the first place, why it hailed Jesus as Messiah despite His execution (He hadn’t defeated the pagans, or rebuilt the Temple, or brought justice and peace to the world, all of which a Messiah should have done), and why the early Christian movement took the shape that it did. The only explanation that will fit the evidence is the one the early Christians insisted upon – He really had been raised from the dead. His body was not just reanimated. It was transformed, so that it was no longer subject to sickness and death.

Let’s be clear: the stories are not about someone coming back into the present mode of life. They are about someone going on into a new sort of existence, still emphatically bodily, if anything, more so. When St Paul speaks of a “spiritual” resurrection body, he doesn’t mean “non-material”, like a ghost. “Spiritual” is the sort of Greek word that tells you,not what something is made of, but what is animating it. The risen Jesus had a physical body animated by God’s life-giving Spirit. Yes, says St Paul, that same Spirit is at work in us, and will have the same effect – and in the whole world.

Read it all.

Cathedral looking gorgeous in the spring sunshine.#BlossomWatch pic.twitter.com/RPygrp6hiw

— Durham Cathedral Library (@BedesBooks) April 20, 2022

Almighty God, who didst raise up thy servant Anselm to teach the Church of his day to understand its faith in thine eternal Being, perfect justice, and saving mercy: Provide thy Church in every age with devout and learned scholars and teachers, that we may be able to give a reason for the hope that is in us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

#OTD 21 April: feast of St Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury. pic.twitter.com/JDfreG2snX

— Caroline Murray (@Prof_hedgehog) April 21, 2022

O Lord God of our fathers, who didst of old deliver thy people from the prison-house of Egypt through the paschal sacrifice: Mercifully grant that we thy new Israel, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, may be set free from the bondage of evil and serve thee henceforth in the joy and power of the resurrection; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ, who ever liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

Good Morning Cape Cod! Today’s good looking sunrise over the Nauset beach, Orleans. #capecod #sunrise #StormHour pic.twitter.com/yy6vVTGQCk

— Darius Aniunas (@dariusaniunas) April 21, 2022

And Moses said to the people, “Remember this day, in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage, for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place; no leavened bread shall be eaten. This day you are to go forth, in the month of Abib. And when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jeb′usites, which he swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shall keep this service in this month. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days; no leavened bread shall be seen with you, and no leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory. And you shall tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ And it shall be to you as a sign on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt. You shall therefore keep this ordinance at its appointed time from year to year.

–Exodus 13:3-10

Beautiful sunrise view from Downtown Charleston! pic.twitter.com/KYq7sdYLvs

— JoeyLive5 (@JoeySovine) April 21, 2022