I just finished reading this marvelous book. One thing that I hadn't thought about before was how complacent the church seems to be about embarking on a heresy trial. In 1966 the very thought of such a trial was anathema to all but a handful of bishops. Today 25% think it's a good idea, and more surprisingly, few of the remaining 75% have condemned it as unhealthy for the church. I guess we've just gotten jaded by 20 years of "discussion" of human sexuality.
The Bishop Pike Affair:
Scandals of Conscience and Heresy, relevance and Solemnity in the
Contemporary Church
William Stringfellow and Anthony Towne
Harper & Row, 1967
Transcribed by Kim Byham
p. 63
A telegram from the Bishop of Ohio, Nelson M. Burroughs, to the Bishop of Southern Florida, Henry I. Louttit, September 30, 1966:
The last heresy trial took place in this city (Cleveland) against William Montgomery Brown. We feel the negative effects of same to this day.
p. 66
On October 3 (1966)Bishop Louttit did meet with in [Presiding] Bishop Hines' New York City office with others who had signed the presentment. The Presiding Bishop reported on a survey he had had taken among leaders in the mass media s to the probable effects of a heresy trial on the image of the Episcopal Church. It was their unanimous opinion, he said, that the consequences would be disastrous.
Cited on this page "the counsel of Gamaliiel" (Acts 5:38f) "So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this undertaking is of men, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!"
p. 70
comments by the Bishop of New York, Horace W. B. Donegan, to Diocesan Council on October 13, 1966:
Of all the methods of dealing with Bishop Pike's views, the very worst is surely a heresy trial! Whatever the result, the good name of the church will be greatly injured. Should there be a presentment and trial of Bishop Pike (which I hope and pray will not happen) the harm, the divisiveness and the lasting bitterness that will be inflicted on the Church we love and serve will be inevitable.
p. 91
On the morning of October 26 George Leslie Cadigan, Bishop of Missouri, read to the House a thoughtful paper on "The Office of a Bishop" the concluding paragraph of which merits recall:
A Bishop is consecrated in the Church of God to provide humble and courageous leadership for all the people of God. By what he does, and more essentially by what he is, will the evidences of reform and renewal emerge from the cloudy multiplicities and perplexities of our times.
p. 95
An inherent difficulty in any heresy proceeding is the question of what heresy is. To many churchmen unsophisticated in dogma, doctrine and discipline -- be they bishops, clergy, or laity -- the word heresy might seem to have a connotation which is objective, definitive, and unambiguous, much as a criminal act is set forth, specified and condemned in statutory law by the state. Lawyers are aware, of course, that the criminal law is not as cut and dried as is so generally reputed, but, by comparison, heresy is clothed with such extraordinary vagueness and illusiveness that it is hardly imaginable, were the state to have initial jurisdiction over heresy charges, that any case would ever be tried or any conviction ever obtained because of the want of any norm, definition r yardstick by which commission of the offense could be determined by reasonable men.
p. 103
There are those who would pursue the query of what heresy is, if it is capable of definition at all, in quite another fashion, without recourse to creedal literalism, or to any lesser formularies, or even to the substantive realms of dogma and doctrine at all.
The authors go on to suggest these might include the Articles of Religion or the Prayer Book.
p. 118
Every accused person suffers some ignominy, some jeopardy to his person or property, by the mere fact of being accused whether the accusation is ultimately established or not. This is perhaps less so where the charge is a traffic violation or tax evasion or drunkenness (though one bishop was deposed for that in 1844) than in a case in which one is charged with adultery or rape or murder.
Though it is not settled whether heresy is an offense of a civil nature or more similar to a crime, the element of humiliation and the risk to liberty and property obviously attach to accusations of heresy, particularly so if the accused be a bishop.
p. 144
In the debate, the Bishop of Vermont, who had written to Bishop Louttit he would not sign the presentment and was "prepared to oppose it as a thoroughly evil thing," echoed the concern of the chaplain in Vietnam, when he declared that "the absence of the spirit of Christ allows us to single out one man to bear the burden of our fear." CBC transcription. Bishop Butterfield was bishop of Vermont.
p. 176
"It seems a pity that the Episcopal hierarchy . . . has turned to heresy and forsaken its mint juleps." San Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 1966
p. 179
The Rt. Rev. Paul Moore, then Suffragan Bishop of Washington, said during the debate:
Why is it that the House has not censured any of the rest of us who have spoken, acted out, and allowed to occur within our dioceses greater blasphemies even than the treatment of items of doctrine less than solemnly? I speak of church doors closed against members of another race, clergy denied backing by their bishops because of their Christian social views, and the public impugning of the motives of fellow bishops.