"To Hell"
As, according to Holy Writ, more divine effort is expended upon one lost sheep and more joy is attendant upon its recovery than upon ninety and nine in the fold, just so does it become necessary for the organized Church Militant to spend more time and trouble upon one pronounced heretic than upon ninety and nine who may be heretics but who, for one reason or another, have never raised the issue.
Be now recorded the further time and trouble in the case of ("Bad") Bishop Brown. Last week came to Cleveland from his Protestant Episcopal diocese of Colorado, Bishop Johnson; from Rhode Island, Bishop Perry; from Louisiana, Bishop Sessums; from Connecticut, Milwaukee, Albany, Virginia, each its Bishop. They clad themselves in robes of black and white. They went to Trinity Cathedral, sat down on a red-carpeted platform slightly lower than a presidential dais occupied by William A. Leonard, the venerable diocesan of Ohio. They were a court of appeal. They proceeded to hear the case of William Montgomery Brown, onetime bishop of Arkansas, now living in retirement in Galion, Ohio, who, some months since, had been pronounced a heretic by another court of bishops.*
Again and again counsel for the accused pleaded error in the original trial; again and again his objections were overruled. Two days passed in litigation and oratory.
On the third day, Bishop Brown himself spoke to the court saying: "I believe in God. Not, to be sure, in a God with arms and legs. . . .
"I believe in God, the Father Almighty. Not, to be sure in a literal, biological sense, is my God a father. Not a being with masculinity as every father must literally be. . . .
"Maker of Heaven and Earth. Not, to be sure, a manufacturer or sculptor, as the minds which first codified this creed conceived their anthropomorphic God to be. . . .
"This faith of mine is no crossword puzzle. It is beyond words. For words at their best are but symbols of the truth. . . .
"I want you to know that I am including in that most holy of all names, Jesus, all the victims of injustice, all the toilers whose unpaid labor has given leisure and luxury to a few, and all those millions who have been sent to war to bleed and die.
"Let us not excuse ourselves. We as a church did help to send them to their myriad crucifixions. We blessed the War. We told them that God was on our side and that they were doing a holy thing in fighting His battles for the good of the world. Their blood is upon us. We sent them into shambles of torture and into Hell's heat."
Thereupon Bishop Leonard said: "It is the judgment of this court that you, William Montgomery Brown, should be deposed from the sacred ministry."
The sentence now awaits a two-thirds vote of the whole House of Bishops.
"I love Bishop Leonard with an eternal love," Bishop Brown said before the meeting. "Forty years ago he encouraged my preaching and writing. I was a high churchman then, and he made me an Archdeacon in Trinity Cathedral.
"Now, isn't it a shame that they can't let me shuffle along in my own way for a few years more. As you know, from the standpoint of the church in convicting me for heresy they are sending me to Hell."
Later he took heart and added: "I can't preach on Episcopal property, but I can hire a hall and get bigger congregations!"
The bishops returned each to his flock.
* ("Bad") Bishop Brown was charged with heresy last May on the basis of his book, Communism and Christianism, of which the central point is: The Brother Jesus of the New Testament, Catholic Creed and Protestant Confessions is not for me a historical personage, but only a symbol of all that is for the good of the world, even as the Uncle Sam of American literature is not a historical personage but only a symbol of all that is good for the U. S." Bishop Brown was tried by a court of eight bishops in Cleveland and proclaimed a heretic. The 'Bad Bishop" contended that there was no such thing as a heretic. He appealed to a special Court of Review.