On December 15th, 1988, Father Matthew Fox was censured by church authorities for teaching Creation Spirituality. A liberation Roman Catholic theologian and progressive visionary, he was silenced by the Vatican and later dismissed from the Dominican order. After dismissal he was received as an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of California. In 1995 Matthew Fox was presented with the Courage of Conscience Award by the Peace Abbey of Sherborn, Mass. [Other recipients of this award include the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, Ernesto Cardenal, and Rosa Parks.] In 1996 Fox received the Tikkun National Ethics Award in recognition of contributions made to the spiritual life of our society.
According to a pagan calendar I have, this day has been set aside by some followers of Matthew Fox's teaching as a day to mourn attempts at the silencing of all religious dissenters and reformers. I haven't been able to find out any more about the observance of December 15th for this purpose, but it does seem an appropriate time for us to consider and honour the courage it takes for non-conformists to express their convictions in the face of disapproval. Rather than preach to you about such dissenters and models of free expression, I'm simply going to tell you some of their stories, which (like that of Hiram Bingham) speak for themselves. Most of these stories have come to me serendipitously, just at the right time for this reflection!
Let's first go back to the 18th century, and to a Philadelphia lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, who actually gave rise to the term "Philadelphia lawyer". (You probably know that the term Philadelphia lawyer can have either positive or negative connotations depending on whether it's being applied to a lawyer who's for or against us. The term can also be applied to anyone who's good at manipulating and obfuscating matters. I think it has mainly positive connotations in the case of Andrew Hamilton; he defended John Peter Zenger, printer and publisher of the New York Weekly Journal, in a 1735 libel case that set the precedent for free speech in America.
The story begins with a financial dispute between the disreputable and disliked Governor of New York Province, William Cosby, and Rip Van Dam, the highly respected senior member of the New York provincial council. Charges were brought and ultimately made their way to the Supreme Court. In the end, Cosby's position was upheld by a vote of 2-1, and Cosby wrote a letter to the dissenting judge demanding that he explain his vote. To Cosby's great displeasure, the explanation appeared not in a private letter back to him but in a pamphlet printed by a German immigrant named John Peter Zenger. Cosby reacted by removing the dissenting Chief Justice and replacing him with one of his own protegees.
There was reaction and counter-reaction, and ss opinion became polarized, Zenger (one of only two printers in the colony), who had printed the troublesome pamphlet, was asked if he would now agree to print a weekly newspaper to be called the New York Weekly Journal. Zenger, who had been making a modest living printing mainly religious tracts, agreed. The Journal's mission was to expose the Governor's control of the only other weekly newspaper, and its "ridiculous flatteries ....... with which our other newspaper [is loaded] which our Governor ..... has the privilege of suffering nothing to be in but what he and [his publisher friend] approve of."
On November 5, 1733, Zenger published the first issue of the Weekly Journal. It, and subsequent issues, contained numerous anti-establishment, anti-Governor articles, and ringing defenses of the right to publish them, such as this offered in the second issue:,
The loss of liberty in general would soon follow the suppression of the liberty of the press; for it is an essential branch of liberty, so perhaps it is the best preservative of the whole. Even a restraint of the press would have a fatal influence. No nation ancient or modern has ever lost the liberty of freely speaking, writing or publishing their sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves.
Cosby put up with the Journal's attacks for two months before deciding that it must be shut down. After many attempts at this had failed, a warrant was issued for the arrest of John Peter Zenger. He was taken to New York's Old City Jail, where he would stay for the next eight months. The Weekly Journal was not published the next day, November 18. It would be the only issue missed in its publishing history. The next week, with the help of Zenger's wife, Anna, the Journal resumed publication. And partly as a result of Zenger's published letters from prison, an outpouring of public sympathy for his cause developed.
When the case went to trial, Zenger's defense lawyer was the elderly Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia, perhaps the ablest and most eloquent attorney in the colonies. He announced that his client would not contest having printed and published the allegedly libellous materials contained in the Weekly Journal. The prosecution naturally claimed that this must result in a guilty verdict! But Andrew Hamilton rose to argue that the law ought not to be interpreted to prohibit "the just complaints of a number of men who suffer under a bad administration." He suggested that the Zenger case was of transcendent importance and rested on the truth of what had been published. We might take that for granted, but at that time in America Hamilton had almost no law to support his position that the truth should be a defense to the charge of libel. His final speech to the jury was against massive odds, and still stands as an eloquent defense not just of a particular printer, but of a free press. He said:
It is natural, it is a privilege, I will go farther, it is a right, which all free men claim, that they are entitled to complain when they are hurt. They have a right publicly to remonstrate against the abuses of power in the strongest terms, to put their neighbors upon their guard against the craft or open violence of men in authority, and to assert with courage the sense they have of the blessings of liberty, the value they put upon it, and their resolution at all hazards to preserve it .... The loss of liberty, to a generous mind, is worse than death. ........ let us at least do our duty, and like wise men who value freedom use our utmost care to support liberty, the only bulwark against lawless power, which in all ages has sacrificed to its wild lust and boundless ambition the blood of the best men that ever lived .... .... I should think it my duty, if required, to go to the utmost part of the land where my services could be of any use in assisting to quench the flame of prosecutions [designed] to deprive a people of the right of remonstrating and complaining, too, of the arbitrary attempts of men in power....
The question before the Court and you, Gentlemen of the jury, is not of small or private concern. It is not the cause of one poor printer, nor of New York alone, which you are now trying. No! .... It is the cause of liberty ..... liberty of both exposing and opposing arbitrary power (in these parts of the world at least) by speaking and writing truth.
The Judge instructed the jury that its duty under the law was clear. There were no facts for it to decide, and it was not to judge the law. He all but ordered the jury to return a verdict of "Guilty," but they found "Not Guilty," and shouts of joy erupted. From then on, press freedom in America began to blossom. A half-century afterwards, one of the Constitution's drafters would write of the Zenger case: "The trial of Zenger in 1735 was the germ of American freedom, the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America." Think of Alexander Hamilton, and freedom of the press, if you ever hear the term "Philadelphia lawyer"!
Back to Canada and the present day. About a month ago, I received an appeal by email which I was asked to sign and circulate - as those of us who use the Internet are often asked. I don't always respond, by any means, but I did to this one, because I found it of the same kind of importance as freedom of the press. This was about freedom of demonstration, and here's some of the material that came my way, headed "Civil Rights on Trial":
Three members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty will appear in a Toronto courtroom beginning on January 13, 2003, charged with 'participating in a riot','counseling to participate in a riot,' and 'counseling to assault police.' These draconian charges, which refer to their participation in the June 15, 2000 anti-poverty demonstration at Queen's Park, have been laid under some of the most antiquated and regressive sections of the Criminal Code. Each charge involves potential jail terms of between two and five years.
In one jurisdiction after another, the laying of hundreds of criminal charges has become the latest tactic used by police and authorities to squash political protest and dissent. By imposing fines and jail terms on progressive movements, and by tying up their energies and resources in legal battles, governments and police forces are enforcing a 'tax on activism' designed to debilitate struggles for social justice. So far, three quarters of the charges laid as a result of June 15, 2000 have been withdrawn or dismissed ....... We cannot allow civil rights to be threatened, nor can we tolerate a situation in which those who challenge poverty and homelessness are criminalized. ..... We call on all those committed to social justice and the rights of political protest to ....... contribute to the acquittal of these activists ...... [and to] social justice everywhere.
All I would add to this is to ask you to remember what Alexander Hamilton said in another time and context:
[I]t is a right, which all free people claim, that they are entitled to complain when they are hurt. They have a right publicly to remonstrate against the abuses of power in the strongest terms ........
Surely we, in 21st century Canada, have not regressed since the 18th century in America?!
I'd like to say right now, in case you were wondering, that although I'm certainly not immune from personal biases, I think it's very important to try to uphold freedom of expression whether or not I agree with what's being said or printed. In any of the stories I'm telling today, my admiration is for the courage that's required to be a dissenter from conventional or popular or established opinion, rather than for what's being said. Please don't take my telling of these stories as an endorsement of any point of view other than that of freedom of expression. Having said that, let me tell you about Pius Ncube.
The quiet-spoken Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Pius Ncube has become the leading hate-figure for Robert Mugabe's propaganda machine. Enraged by renewed charges from the archbishop - and many others - that the regime is using food aid as a political weapon by blocking supplies to opposition areas, the Information Minister has denounced Ncube as a "mad bishop," and called for his resignation. "He is a desperate and very troubled soul ... someone who needs help, and if you are fair you provide that help," the Minister said in remarks that appeared to many to have an ominous and sinister undertone. Leaders of the other Christian churches in Bulawayo have rallied round Ncube in his latest confrontation with Mugabe's regime. And friends in the city say measures are being taken continuously to try to ensure the archbishop's safety following a series of anonymous death threats and calls on him by the feared Central Intelligence Organisation.
Agents of the Central Intelligence Organisation began questioning the archbishop about his sermons in April 2000. But public support from Ncube's fellow Catholic bishops in Zimbabwe, who include apologists for the regime, is conspicuously lacking. And the Anglican Bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga, is a blatant supporter of Mugabe, and recently tried to have a group of lay Anglicans banned from the cathedral for drowning his pro-Mugabe sermons with hymn-singing. The Catholic Archbishop of Harare, a longstanding friend of Mugabe, has been silent, having tried unsuccessfully to suppress a Catholic Justice and Peace Commission report into 1982-87 atrocities in Matabeleland. Catholic Bishop Alexio Muchabaiwa has shrunk from denouncing the expulsion of a Catholic priest from his parish. "One has to be very careful in matters of this nature because you are putting many lives in danger," Muchabaiwa said when questioned by journalists. I do feel for him, don't you? It truly is extremely hard to know when to speak out and when to remain silent, if you know that your speaking out may put many lives in danger. All one can do, I think, is to honour those who take a stand, who cannot do otherwise.
And in that vein there's Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose story was told in the British newspaper The Guardian a month or so ago:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a 32-year-old Somali-born Muslim immigrant to the Netherlands ...... has been forced to flee that country under threat of death. Ms. Ali launched a stinging attack on the cruelty and abuse meted out to many Muslim women living in Western societies, and in doing so she earned the enmity of the religious and political authorities she targeted. The fact that the criticism came from a woman made her situation worse, and so did her strong attack on the Netherlands' programme of multiculturalism, which she said encouraged the isolation of Muslim women.
Within days, Hirsi Ali had received several serious death threats. ...... Now she has fled the Netherlands, a refugee once again, hounded out by a torrent of messages of hate. The enmity comes from many angles - to some people, her words seemed to play into the hands of those demanding a clampdown on immigration. On the other hand, more than 100 Dutch writers took out newspaper ads offering her their support. One political journalist says: 'The feeling on the street is that it is ridiculous that a woman like this can't say what she wants.'
Hirsi Ali ....... has refused to moderate her views in the face of the death threats and does not intend to hide away forever. 'Either I stop my work, or I learn to live with the feeling that I'm not safe,' she said. 'I'm not stopping.'
Another case of, "Here I stand; I can do no other." I don't know if Ayaan Hirsi Ali is right or not. I do know that I deeply admire her courage and hope that I will never shrink from taking the very much smaller risks which go along with speaking up for what I believe - because freedom of expression demands that people of conscience express themselves.
Let's come back to Canada to conclude this story-telling time. There was an email conversation recently among Canadian Unitarians about what's at the core of our tradition. Craig Beam and I were among those who responded to Anne Orfald, the Minister in Peterborough, who suggested that Unitarians are not the only denomination with a concern for freedom of belief and expression. Anne and I have continued the conversation and she gave me permission to quote from a talk she gave two weeks ago. She says,
In the end I came around to agreeing with those with whom I was arguing. While there are many people in other faiths who do respect the values of freedom and responsibility in their personal search for truth and meaning, they are not likely to put that principle at the centre, or say this is the distinctive point of their faith. I have to agree with that. [But] I feel some discomfort at holding that freedom is at the core of our faith. ....... it's more than freedom. It's freedom and responsibility. The freedom has a purpose, and that is to help us to be responsible not only for ourselves, but also for others. ....... To question is not the answer... not by itself. It is a means, with ethical decisions and actions of justice being the end.
I suggest to you that the freedom of expression which we value so highly, and which we've honoured by the telling of stories today, carries with it a responsibility for expression. No-one can say how much speaking-up is possible or wise for another person, but as responsible Unitarians we can say that trying to act on your beliefs, expressing them in the way you live day-by-day, on your own and with others, is not just an option: it's of the essence, it's essential.
The way we exercise our freedom of expression will be different for each of us. In case you're reeling from all these intense instances of courageous expression, I'll end (just for fun) with a variation of the old light-bulb joke, which I hope may illuminate the topic in a different way!
Q: How many Unitarians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: We choose not to make a statement either in favour of or against the need for a light bulb; however, if, in your own journey, you have found that light bulbs work for you, that is fine. You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your personal relationship with your source of light and present it at our next Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, three-way, long-life and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.
Search freely for truth and meaning, friends. And then, may the glimmerings of insight you find be translated into your own poem or dance of life, your own free expression. No one, in the end, can take that freedom away from you, even if you want to give it up. It is both a burden and a pearl of great price. Use it wisely, as the precious treasure it is. So may it be.