Separation of Church and Church

Mike Seagle is having a hard time swallowing the irony of where he attends church services these days — in a funeral home.
Seagle is a former member of Old St. Andrew’s Parish Church in West Ashley, one of the oldest churches in the South. The former Episcopalian parish’s grounds located on Ashley River Road are replete with an historic main church building dating back to 1706, a water garden, and moss-draped trees.
It should be a movie set.
Now, Seagle tries to find his pathway to eternal life in the same chapel where others bid adieu to this mortal coil — the J. Henry Stuhr Funeral Home located on Glenn McConnell Parkway.
Seagle is an Episcopalian who decided in February to stay true to what he sees as “his” church; the one he found as an adult, the one that didn’t judge others, the one that valued reasoned discussion and mutual respect – the national Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
In short, Seagle was among the minority of members of the St. Andrew’s parish who voted in February to remain with the Episcopal Church.
The majority, following the Rt. Rev. Mark J. Lawrence and the many other South Carolina parishes that had comprised what had been the state’s diocese, voted to disassociate from the national church and identify themselves as Anglican.
Fittingly, they did so in the same town where the first shots were fired in a previous American secessionist war.
And then the majority took Seagle’s church. Not surprising, since none of the other West Ashley Episcopalian churches remained aligned with the national church.
“I don’t understand how the people who leave the church get to keep the church buildings,” said Seagle, a retired naval aviator who now works in cybersecurity.
At first, Seagle and about 30 worshipers met for services in the living room of the parish’s former assistant rector, “Mother” Jean McGraw, in her West Ashley home.
A new Episcopalian state diocese has been formed, albeit in a nascent form, as the majority of state parishes followed Bishop Lawrence.
Today, the Rt. Rev. Charles vonRosenberg works from an office in Grace Episcopal Church, working as its newly installed bishop, working to guide it out of its infancy.
Both sides say that differences in biblical interpretation preceded the split. Both sides deny that the ordination of openly gay bishops by the national church was the force driving the wedge through the denomination, alienating conservative Episcopal parishes and dioceses throughout the world.
Seagle said that while he may be “two steps to the right of Attila the Hun,” he believes that people should be able to lead their lives as they see fit and that he should leave the judging of them in God’s “job jar.”
Last week, Bishop Lawrence welcomed to Charleston a group of East African bishops who’d also broken away from the church, who came in support of the disassociation. Reading between the lines of their comments, it’s not hard to sense the presence of more than just liturgical disagreements.
Today, Bishop vonRosenberg, who came out of retirement, said the new diocese’s biggest challenge would be educating people about who the church is and what it stands for.
He said he has already found joy in the enthusiasm the new members have shown in working for their church. “Enthusiasm,” according to linguists, is Greek for “in the spirit of God” – En Theus.
Andrea McKeller, siding with McGraw and Seagle, said she’s was raised Episcopalian and isn’t ready to leave yet. She said she wished her former parishioners had respected the national church’s hierarchy and stayed as one.
That said, McKeller said she harbors no ill will for those who voted differently from her. “We left amicably; there was no door slamming or recriminations,” said McKeller, whose affection for her former church was evident in her shortened breath when she spoke of it.
Mother Jean said that close to 20 state parishes stayed with the national church, while close to 50 went with Bishop Lawrence. And with churchgoers like Seagle and McKeller, and donations from sympathetic dioceses and churches across the country, she said she would focus on leading her congregation into its new future.
As a totem of the church’s rebirth, Mother Jean lead the Easter service, her group’s first, at the funeral home, where the motif of “death into life” has been preached many, many times.