My latest experience in southern culture is getting up close and personal with the civil war in the Episcopal Church. This issue is not confined to the south but it is really big here. For those of you who live on Venus, this has blown up over the issue of gay marriage. I understand from my neighbors in the struggle that attitudes about sexuality are not the only issue but it’s probably the issue that precipitated the big flare-up and it’s certainly the issue of wide popular interest.
How did I get up close and personal in this? A retired friend here is a former Episcopal rector. I know my close friends, especially in the heathen west, cannot picture me being friends with a clergyman. But, this is a real regular guy who has traits I admire like a liberal theological and political ideology and the spunk to cuss a stupid motorist with colorful eloquence. He invited me to attend an important church service of a minority group of Edisto Episcopalians who…(pause for disclaimer) OK, I’m a real outsider to theology so I’ll probably get this screwed up, and certainly oversimplified, but here goes. It seems that the diocese of South Carolina seceded from the overall Episcopal Church over issues crowned (at least) by the gay marriage issue. Then, a minority group, within the seceded diocese, is seceding its way out of the seceded diocese and back into the Episcopal Church. (South Carolina is big on secession.)
All this splintering off wont seem like a big deal to most of my friends who have only lived in their current home states for a couple measly generations to as little as only a few months. However, the real estate helps make it a really big deal here on Edisto Island. Not only is there a lot of dollar value in the church buildings and grounds, there is a tremendous emotional or spiritual tie to the land. Some people have ancestors in the church cemetery tracing all the way back to when Adam slew his first dinosaur. They feel their very souls dwell not just in their bodies, but also in the hallowed halls of the sanctuary, and the massive spreading Live Oak trees draped in vestments of Spanish moss. Right now, the minority group (the one that wants to stick with the national church and its more liberal attitude toward gay marriage and other stuff) is on the outside without property.
This real estate struggle ensures that the lawyers will be making a killing on this deal. For the present, the minority group has borrowed what they call “St. Bobo's Cathedral” for their Sunday worship services. Other than on Sunday morning this cathedral is known as “Bobo’s Po Pigs Barbeque.” Bobo is not the owner’s real name of course. About everyone in the south has a nickname. His real name is (Yankee friends, I’m not making this up.) Robert E. Lee.
I know this is shaping up like a southern caricature farce but it’s not right down the formula script line. Bobo is a Clemson grad and a Democrat, which doesn’t fit the formula script. Also there is some pretty real heartbreak in this rift. People in the breakaway minority love their friends with whom they disagree and they don’t want to lose their relationship with them any more than they want to lose their claim on the church facility and the white sandy soil upon which it sits. I’m sure most folks in the majority group feel the same and I hear many of them are on the fence in this issue or just hope for any reuniting resolution. I hope they get this healed up as soon as possible. As for me, I’m sticking with my Unitarian Church, which is very accepting, multi-faith, and tolerant. And, if you, gentle reader, are not accepting and multi-faith tolerant, I hope you keep your ass out of my UU church.
