Commentary
By Canon Gary L'Hommedieu
www.virtueonline.org
10/25/08
"When the wicked rise, people hide themselves." (Proverbs 28:28 ESV)
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The prosecution of thought crime has become commonplace in formerly democratic societies.
That we are unwilling to acknowledge the assaults not only on speech but on the thought that gives rise to it is evidence that we live in dangerous times -- so dangerous that we don't dare think it.
The deposition of Bishop Robert Duncan was not a particularly dangerous or violent act. Given the travesties of truth and justice that are becoming common in our society, it smacked of a certain pathetic mediocrity. It was a very small act by a very unexceptional group huddling together to protect its interests.
It did, however, set an important precedent. And it was possible only because similar precedents have been set not only in the church but even more in the society at large.
Robert Duncan was planning to lead his Diocese out of the Episcopal Church. Whether or not such a departure is possible is a matter that has not been legally tested. Duncan was deposed precisely to prevent such a test. The case was not based on its own merit. It was rather the manufacture of a precedent.
Public comments by ranking members of the Episcopal hierarchy -- most notably, "individuals can leave; dioceses and parishes cannot" -- may be quaint and pointed, but that does not give them the force of law nor the criterion of truth. And yet today the repetition of off-the-cuff legal axioms is the equivalent of what was once Common Law. If you can organize a majority (not even a legally constituted majority) to act on a bad law (or even no law) then it becomes a good law. It may as well now be written in stone.
That is only one of the legal and philosophical catastrophes of the Duncan case, and it isn't the worst.
It has been well publicized that the minority that opposed the deposition did so because Bishop Duncan had not yet "done the deed". He had not yet formally removed the Diocese of Pittsburgh from the Episcopal Church. The Diocesan Convention had not yet passed the resolution altering the "accession clause" in its constitution. That was to happen in a few weeks.
It was no secret that Pittsburgh had every intention of following through with its objective of separating from TEC and that Bishop Duncan was publically leading the charge. Still, the minority bishops, not all of whom sympathized with Duncan's theology, recognized an important distinction between planning to leave and actually leaving. Some who shared his theology would themselves have felt obligated to vote for deposition if the House of Bishops had waited a month or two.
To put it succinctly: Bishop Duncan had not yet challenged the canons, but he was thinking about it.
That may be a bit of hyperbole. Holding meetings and even press conferences, writing and moving legislation -- these are distinct actions. They are not mere "thoughts". Bishop Duncan wasn't "just thinking" about leaving. He was planning to leave and had taken the initial steps to do so.
"Thinking about leaving" would presumably be more private, restricted to a closed circle of associates, with evidences of thought limited to scrawls on newsprint not left for the custodian to tear down and discard. In other words, "thinking" apart from "doing" would by definition be a "hushed" affair.
Such "thinking" is necessarily "hushed" in more and more dioceses of the church in the US and Canada, where bishops publically forbid their clergy to discuss departure or to join well known organizations that are willing to consider a future outside the national church.
Thinking about leaving has become a deposable offense. Episcopal clergy must train themselves not to think about it. They must cultivate reflexes to deflect such thoughts, rendering them innocuous.
In 1973 who would have thought to suppress meetings to plan illegal ordinations in Philadelphia? And who would think today to prohibit membership in an organization like Integrity, a think tank for subverting the canons of the Episcopal Church, not to mention resolutions of the Lambeth Conference and the Primates' Meeting? Apparently not all lawless acts are created equal.
The dissenting bishops who voted against deposition knew instinctively that, while Duncan may have taken concrete steps toward violating the canons, to punish the intention as the act would have been to cross a certain line. It would have had the effect of criminalizing intentions. The precedent would be set next time to prosecute stated intentions, then implied intentions, and finally suspected intentions.
In other words, the Episcopal hierarchy found themselves in the shocking position of legislating thought crime. That was not what they had expected or intended, but it was the obvious and irreversible outcome of their deliberations.
They had already crossed a line.
Sometimes intentions matter and must be controlled. Other times attempts at control take on a life of their own apart from the best intentions.
Next summer the General Convention will pass legislation making Duncan's "irregular" deposition regular and rendering more obscure the distinction between thought and action, granting dictatorial powers to the executive. Strategies to control dissident actions before they take place will become standard. Characteristic of authoritarian societies, the pendulum will continue its swing from presumed innocence to presumed guilt. "Extraordinary powers" for the Presiding Bishop will become ordinary.
The greatest evils are not the crimes by which corrupt persons seek to aggrandize themselves. The greatest evils are the ones no one could have foreseen, the ones perpetrated by no one in particular, which come out of nowhere when a forbidden door is recklessly opened, when a certain line is crossed.
"It gets easier after the first time," hissed the malevolent Cromwell to the ambitious Richard Rich at their first secret meeting where Rich agreed to condemn Sir Thomas More in the interests of the king's business.
Demons have been let loose in our society based upon the need by some to control the imagined or anticipated actions of others. The example that comes to mind is the increasing regulation of "hate speech". The premise is to suppress the kind of utterance that gives rise to violent action. Laws against violence are not sufficient. Individuals must be mentally declawed before thought has a chance to germinate. And, of course, an increasingly centralized power must be given dispensation to enforce the law.
"Hate speech" is a modern name for what Orwell had christened "thought crime".
The fallacy of "hate speech" is that the enforcement of it does not result in a just or safe society. If violence is curbed, it is out of fear, not out of conformity to a just vision. Mute acquiescence stores up violence for another day.
"Hate speech" laws are not intended as a check on violence anyway. Statistical reports of violence against targeted groups (those now advocating special protection under "extraordinary" restrictions on speech) is at an historic low. Bigots have learned to mind their manners and show respect. But that is not enough. A formerly oppressed minority, now in the ascendency, must up the ante of control. "Hate speech" is a strategic attack on thought. Its objective is not domestic tranquility but political power.
A policy of fear is never in the interests of the people as a whole but always in the interests of power. Where power is an end in itself, freedom by definition is suspect.
We have gotten used to the subversive quality of thought and have long begun "correcting" our reflexes, first to avoid thinking altogether, and second not to notice when the "guilty" start disappearing. With the rise of the wicked we have gone into hiding.
The Bishops could not have skirted their own canons and deposed Robert Duncan without pretending the public danger was so great that due process must be suspended. The Fuehrer must be granted extra-constitutional powers and the people's thoughts subjected to scrutiny.
Try getting that genie back in the bottle.
---The Rev. Canon J. Gary L'Hommedieu is Canon for Pastoral Care at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, Florida, and a regular columnist for VirtueOnline
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