Letter to the Right Reverend Charles G. vonRosenberg, Episcopal Bishop of Charleston asking that his churches not host the Sons of Confederate Veterans

The following letter will be sent by certified mail with the mentioned documentation to Right Rev. Charles G. vonRosenberg as well as emailed to the director of communication for the Episcopal Church of South Carolina who has previously contacted me to tell me that Bishop Lawrence is the head of a break away diocese. I will also email the Episcopalians in South Carolina with this letter.

It seems that Bishop Lawrence of the breakaway Episcopalians controls most if not all of the historic churches in Charleston. However, if Bishop vonRosenberg would speak up it would apply a great deal of pressure on Bishop Lawrence not to host the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV).

                                                                                                1/13/2014

                                                                                                esebesta@tx.rr.com

Right Reverend Charles G. vonRosenberg

The Episcopal Church in South Carolina
P.O. Box 20485
Charleston, SC 29413

Dear Right Rev. vonRosenberg:

The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is planning on holding their 2014 convention in Charleston, SC and they will be looking for church facilities to hold their convention service. Enclosed is a table of churches which the SCV conventions have since 1990 to 2013 which is also online at www.templeofdemocracy.com/churchesoftheconfederacy.htm.

The SCV is an extremist and racist organization.Their official literature compares Abraham Lincoln to Hitler, and praises and promotes books that defend slavery and books that laud the Ku Klux Klan. Please find enclosed a dossier on the SCV with detailed footnotes of all quotes and assertions. A dossier about the SCV is also available online at http://www.blackcommentator.com/526/526_confederacy_sebesta_guest_share.html .

Additionally, I enclose a paper on Confederate Christian nationalism which is also online at

http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/ConfederateChristianNationalism.pdf. It was published by the Canadian Review of American Studies at the University of Toronto. Even though the article is about the neo-Confederate League of the South, the religious ideas promoted by the SCV Chaplains Corps (http://www.scv.org/about/chaplainsChronicle.php) are largely the same or similar.

When a church allows the SCV to use their facilities it gives them credibility that a prominent religious organizations would find the SCV to be an organization to which it would be acceptable to lend their facilities. Additionally they gain some of the prestige of the religious organization and the prestige of an architecturally prominent church building for their religious services and hence organization.

Unfortunately it seems that from 1990 to the present the Episcopal church is one of the major enablers of the SCV. I enclose a bar graph of denominations hosting SCV national convention church services from 1990 to 2013. Also enclosed is a table of individual churches that hosted the SCV. Additionally enclosed is a map of churches which hosted either the SCV national convention or the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) convention services from 1990 to 2013. I also have it online along with the bargraphs at www.templeofdemocracy.com/churchesoftheconfederacy.htm. You can see that the Episcopal Church has hosted almost as many neo-Confederate national conventions as all the other denominations combined.

I ask that your church not give support to the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization by allowing them to use your facilities for their activities.

Holly Behre, director of communications for the Episcopal Church in South Carolina, has informed me that there is a division occurring in the church in South Carolina and in reading elsewhere I see that the Episcopal church property is being contested in the courts and that you may not have actual control over many of the churches the Episcopal church has in South Carolina. However, I ask that since you claim them as your property you can publically ask that they not be used to host neo-Confederate organization activities, in particular any activity of the 2014 SCV national convention.

                                                                                                Sincerely Yours,

                                                                                                Edward H. Sebesta