Brebeuf Jesuit vs Indianapolis Archdiocese: Electric Boogaloo

All extremes except extreme devotion to the Enemy are to be encouraged. Not always, of course, but at the present period. Some ages, of which the present is one, are unbalanced and prone to faction, and it is our business to inflame them. Any small coterie, bound together by some interest which other men dislike or ignore, tends to develop towards the outer world a great deal of pride and hatred which is entertained without shame because the ‘Cause’ is its sponsor and it is thought to be impersonal. Even when the little group exists originally for the Enemy’s own purposes, this remains true. We want the Church to be small not only that fewer men may know the Enemy but also that those who do may acquire the uneasy intensity and the defensive self-righteousness of a secret society or a clique. 

—C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

✠     ✠ ✠

You’ve likely heard of the clash between the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and the Jesuit-run Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School over the latter’s refusal to fire a gay teacher for entering a same-sex marriage. Cathedral High School, run by the Holy Cross brothers, did fire a gay teacher for similar reasons at the request of Archbishop Thompson, shortly after the Archbishop declared that Brebeuf would no longer be permitted to describe itself as Catholic. Given the ticklish situation, a.k.a. utter shitshow, that is Catholic-LGBTQ relations, evaluating this stuff is a delicate business, and this piece turns on a dime more than once in trying to sort out the details. I hope you’ll bear with me.

I waited a bit to weigh in on this because I wanted to have more facts at my disposal. Stories are easy to twist; I’m not an expert in canon law; I haven’t met any of these people; and certain relevant details to making a judgment have been, quite reasonably, kept private—even the names of the teachers in question, I believe, have gone unreleased, probably to protect them from harassment. The hate mail or even the loathsome ‘charity’ doled out by some Catholics even to avowed celibates who come out as gay is revolting enough.

For instance, one very pertinent detail that has gone unexamined (as far as I know) in the assorted hot takes on the dispute is: how do the two men in the civil same-sex marriage understand their union? I know more than one Side B couple, committed to chastely celibate lives, who are married in order to be able to extend legal benefits to their partner (insurance, hospital visiting rights, etc.) and who don’t consider this arrangement equivalent to the sacrament of matrimony. If the teachers at Brebeuf and Cathedral were in partnerships of that kind, surely there can be no objection to that? except, possibly, that it risks scandal, but that is easily addressed by just explaining the situation to the people whose business it is. I don’t consider this a likely description of the teachers in question—not because it’s intrinsically implausible, but because the Side B community is in fact fairly small; small enough that I might have heard about this through the grapevine instead of the news, if the teacher in question were connected with one of our groups—but it isn’t something that either the Jesuits or the Archdiocese seem to have considered.

The takes I’ve seen from Fr James Martin and co. have mostly focused on primacy of conscience, which, yes, is a vitally important Catholic moral doctrine. But conscience does not entitle people to their jobs, and disagreeing with Catholic moral teaching (as we may probably, though not certainly, suppose the teachers do) seems like a good enough reason to resign from teaching at a Catholic school. On the other hand, that is a reason to resign, which is not the same thing as cause to be fired. [1]

On the third hand, well, it isn’t intrinsically unreasonable for a Catholic school to ask its teachers to exemplify Catholic beliefs and values, about marriage as much as anything else. This last has, in substance, been the line of argument taken by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. And canon law itself states that ‘teachers must be outstanding in … uprightness of life’—so the argument goes that since homosexuality is held by the Church to be contrary to natural law, i.e. that sphere of conscience which can be discerned by human reason without the special assistance of revelation [2], entering a gay marriage is ipso facto disqualifying to the ‘uprightness of life’ clause, even for a non-Catholic or non-Christian.

Here’s why I don’t buy that. For background, the text of the canons about Catholic schools, in a little more context, reads thus:

Canon 803 §2. Formation and education in a Catholic school must be based on the principles of Catholic doctrine, and the teachers must be outstanding in true doctrine and uprightness of life.
Canon 804 §2. The local Ordinary [normally a bishop] is to be careful that those who are appointed teachers of religion in schools, even non-Catholic ones, are outstanding in true doctrine, in the witness of their Christian life, and in their teaching ability.
Canon 806 §1. The diocesan Bishop has the right to watch over and inspect the Catholic schools situated in his territory, even those established or directed by religious institutes. He also has the right to issue directives concerning the general regulation of Catholic schools: these directives apply also to schools conducted by members of a religious institute, although they retain their autonomy in the internal management of their schools.

The thing is, Catholic schools habitually hire non-Catholic and even non-Christian employees, up to and including teachers, and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis hasn’t make a peep about that, to my knowledge. I’d be surprised if they had, given that it’s a longstanding practice of Catholic schools, hospitals, charities, and even parish offices. Yet if beliefs that are, you know, Catholic are key to being ‘outstanding in true doctrine’—and I’d hope most Catholic bishops would feel that they are—then how in the name of Elvis is it okay to violate one aspect of Canon 802, but then trot it out as a reason to fire someone for transgressing a different aspect of the exact same canon? How come having a teacher who denies Catholic doctrine as a Protestant or an observant Jew or even an atheist is fine, but having a teacher who denies Catholic doctrine [4] as a gay man is not?

Someone could argue that, e.g., Jews and Protestants are of different faith traditions, and faith is a supernatural gift rather than a matter of natural law, so it isn’t fair to hold them to the same standard. Fine. But why do the beliefs of a gay man (perhaps devoutly religious; look at Pete Buttigieg) count for nothing in this equation? If his religious tradition and convictions inform him that gay sex is intrinsically innocent, then of course we as Catholics disagree, but are we also saying that his religion has somehow ceased to be a religion for that reason? Are we saying that it’s okay to hire Jews and Protestants as long as they’re Catholics? And what about the agnostic or the atheist employee, whose absence of belief or positive disbelief are also described by the Church as being contrary to natural reason? If there are any (and it’s not unlikely), has Archbishop Thompson come down on them?

Maybe canons can be applied with prudent, pastoral consideration by bishops; maybe they can even bent as long as they’re not broken; I don’t know, I’m not a canonist. If they can, I think the Archbishop has in fact acted with great imprudence and in a profoundly unpastoral manner. Applying canons strictly only when it targets LGBTQ people is homophobic, even in the very restrictive definition I gave to it in this post from a few years ago (dating to before I’d lost all moral confidence in the hierarchy). The Catholic tendency to scapegoat gay men is unjust and unreasonable, contrary to the explicit teaching of the Church, and damaging to LGBTQ people in general, especially young people.

Moreover, it causes the exact thing it’s typically framed to avoid: scandal. The world at large already knows the Catholic Church thinks gay sex is wrong. It’s often one of the few Catholic doctrines they do know, in contrast to little things like the Real Presence. Accenting the teaching on homosexuality is not nearly such an urgent necessity as people who are extremely comfortable with that teaching tend to insist. But what a great mass of those outside the Catholic Church do think, is that the Church hates gay people, and that that’s where the teaching comes from. The latter is, I believe, false. Is the former false too?

Think about it. When an archbishop singles out gay people who live out of line with Catholic beliefs and ignores straight people who do the same thing, what message does that send? Not just to gay people and to the world at large, but to the very students they are trying to form as Catholics? Doesn’t it matter that they’re being presented with a decision that, at the absolute best, is going to look like a homophobic double standard? and in the exact, perfect situation where they could have been given a beautiful example of how to respect and embrace people whom we deeply disagree with?

It’s been said that when the Vandals invaded Africa, St Augustine remarked, ‘God has called us to evangelize the nations, and he has just brought the nations to our door.’ How much more is that true of people who aren’t marauding through the countryside in full Conan-mode?

✠     ✠ ✠

[1] Kindly don’t come to me with any ‘He wasn’t going to be fired, they just wouldn’t have renewed his contract!’ nonsense. When you’re relying on a job, losing it is losing it, and the pedantic reasons offered by your ex-boss for why it isn’t his fault do not matter.

[2] For instance, the obligation not to murder people is an obligation we know by natural law [3], an extension of the morally intuitive Silver Rule (do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you); it comes from God like all right and wrong does, but it didn’t need to be specifically revealed to us by supernatural means: the natural witness of conscience and intellect are enough. By contrast, the obligation to get baptized is something we could never get to just by thinking it out. It was revealed by the personal command of Christ, and has since been passed on from one person to another. The Church claims not only that having gay sex is wrong, but that we can know it’s wrong apart from revelation, by natural conscience and reasoning.

[3] I don’t actually subscribe to natural law theory myself, but I’m trying to articulate the argument as well and fairly as I can.

[4] Always supposing the teachers in question do deny Catholic doctrine. Again, that’s plausible and statistically likely, not certain.

I, I, I

It is, of course, much easier to demand a prophet than a priest; and it is far, far easier to become a pseudo-prophet than a pseudo-priest. I will not say that almost anyone can be a priest; it would not be true for the priesthood is a vocation. But certainly almost anyone can imagine himself to be a prophet.

—Charles Williams, The Forgiveness of Sins

I make no attempt to excuse the feelings which awoke in me when I heard the unhuman sound addressing my friend and my friend answering it in the unhuman language. They are, in fact, inexcusable; but if you think they are improbable at such a juncture, I must tell you plainly that you have read neither human history nor your own heart to much effect. They were feelings of resentment, horror, and jealousy. It was in my mind to shout out, ‘Leave your familiar alone, you damned magician, and attend to Me.’

—C. S. Lewis, Perelandra

✠     ✠     ✠

It’s hard to believe it’s only been Lent for a week. Maybe I noticed Shrovetide more keenly this year, maybe it’s because I adopted a relatively easy discipline this year,1 I don’t know. My mind has certainly been elsewhere—one of my favorite things about a fixed liturgy is that, for somebody like me who has a short attention span and a ‘rich inner life,’ it’s much easier to pick up the thread of devotion if the thread is still there when I suddenly realize I haven’t been attending for the last ten minutes.

Unfortunately, the elsewhere has been me: my sinfulness, my needs, my hurt. One has to attend to those things; part of loving your neighbor as yourself is appropriate self-love, i.e. self-love rather than self-indulgence, loving yourself because you are a self made in God’s image, impartially. Save, perhaps, that as the steward of yourself, you have the liberty of sacrificing pleasures and other goods on your own behalf, whereas sacrificing other people’s goods is against ‘the courtesy of Deep Heaven.’2 But mine has not, I think, been a wholesome self-love. (I think a lot of people assume it must be because I’m nice to people, but sadly, terrestrial good manners are pretty compatible with a reserved yet raging egotism.)

My friend Joey and I seem, as a rule, to wander in similar deserts, and we had this exchange earlier via text:

J: I just want to be right with God, but now it seems like the only way to do that is going to be hurting David, and I’m not ready to do that either.

G: What do you feel/think being right with God would consist in?

J: […] I think being right with God would consist in at least attempting not to sin […] Becauuuusssse I know He still loves me but how can I possibly be a man of any integrity when I don’t even make a pretense of following my own principles?

G: Well, you have the integrity of refusing to make a pretense. That is not something; that’s everything—“without are the dogs and sorcerers and idolators and whoever loves and practices a lie.” […]

J: Maybe. I just feel so much on the Wrong Side Of Things. Sort of shut out. … I’ve always thought of myself as the kind of person who wouldn’t make this sort of compromise. So maybe what’s bothering me is that that self image is not accurate.

G: That can be a terribly painful and humbling experience.

J: Yeah. I mean that’s not a bad thing to happen of course

G: […] The schism between who you want to be and who you perceive yourself to be.

J: Hm. Yeah. When I broke up with Adam, I kind of made it about Doing The Right Thing. But it was also, or maybe even mostly, about preserving my self image.

‘You must learn,’ St Teresa of Ávila said, ‘to bear serenely for God’s sake the trial of being displeasing to yourself.’

I’m cautiously hopeful that God is using my straying to break the idol of dignity in me. Hopeful, because pride attacks us on our strong points rather than our weak ones, which is why self-righteous virtue is among the most hideous and nigh-incurable sins. Cautious, because it is so, so easy to use that line of thinking as a justification for sin.

Pride is certainly my most pervasive and characteristic vice, more even than fornication or self-pity. People don’t always notice it, because my pride is of the highly ethical sort that motivated the Pharisees. It’s pride in justice, obedience, insight, even in generosity and gentleness. Sometimes I act on those virtues for God. But often enough, I act on them for my self-image, the great golden idol in the center of my soul, which may be pleasanter to be around than some idols but is not on that account any less the craftsmanship of hell.

Ideally, I suppose, I’d be pursuing God in the midst of weakness. Acknowledging my failures and flaws, but getting up and beginning again. But I’m so tired. It isn’t so much that it’s embarrassing to go to Confession over and over (I don’t think); but it seems like a slur against my own intelligence to profess a firm purpose of amendment when I don’t, at a heart level, believe that that amendment is possible to me. In brief, I don’t know how I’m supposed to mean to do something I don’t think I’m able to do. I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law at work in my members—except personally I don’t even delight in the law of God in the inward man. Don’t want to. Don’t know how to.

And when I say it isn’t possible to me, I don’t mean that it isn’t possible to God. He can give me whatever grace He pleases at any moment. But He doesn’t seem to be giving me the grace of chastity, or of the desire for chastity, even. Maybe that’s my fault; or maybe it would strengthen the interior idol; I don’t know.

The most I can do is (so to speak) keep repeating the Creed. I can’t white-knuckle my way through my whole life, but I can white-knuckle my way through that. And most of the time, I don’t even have to white-knuckle it. If I stay here and wait, I don’t know what He’ll do, but He will do something.

✠     ✠     ✠

1I’m reading through the Gospel of Luke, according to this forty day schema. Of the four, it’s the one I know least well (John I know best, then Matthew and then Mark), so I thought it’d be wise to spend some time with it.

2A phrase borrowed from That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis, spoken by Elwin Ransom, a man who has been to what we call outer space and what he knows, by experience, to be full of the splendors of angels. ‘This is the courtesy of Deep Heaven: that when you mean well, He always takes you to have meant better than you knew. It will not be enough for always. He is very jealous. He will have you for no one but Himself in the end. But for tonight, it is enough.’

Gay and Catholic, Part I: Gaystation Two

MORE   What’s to be done then?

NORFOLK   (With deep appeal)  Give in.

MORE   (Gently)  I can’t give in, Howard—  (A smile)  You might as well advise a man to change the color of his eyes. I can’t. Our friendship’s more mutable than that.

NORFOLK   Oh, that’s immutable, is it? The one fixed point in a world of changing friendships is that Thomas More will not give in!

MORE   (Urgent to explain)  To me it has to be, for that’s myself! Affection goes as deep in me as you think, but only God is love right through, Howard; and that’s my self.

—Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons, pp. 121-122

✠     ✠     ✠

I’ve written a good deal about how hard it can be to be a gay Catholic—more specifically, one that accepts the Church’s teaching about homosexuality. Why I accept that teaching is a question I usually waive, not because it isn’t important, but because (1) it isn’t usually my direct topic, (2) many of my readers are traditionalists themselves and don’t require any explanation, and (3) it’s painful for me to think about.

However, I’ve found I do my best work when I’m willing to be vulnerable. And plenty of my readers aren’t traditionalists; often enough, because the reasons they were given for the traditional belief were badly reasoned, or their treatment at the hands of traditional believers was horrible, or both.

I don’t know whether to hope to persuade any of my readers of the Catholic view. Anyhow there’s a considerable list of beliefs I’d sooner persuade them of than this one: being Side B isn’t the heart of my faith, and it shouldn’t be the heart of anybody else’s. But I do want to analyze what these beliefs about sexuality are, and why I believe them, hoping that others will find the analysis helpful. If this series does no more than clarify my own convictions to people who still disagree, I’ll be glad of that.

To put things in context, a quick run-down of the Christian views of homosexuality.1 The terminology of sides, though inexact and a bit silly, is nevertheless useful enough to serve as a rough outline, so I’m using it. Sorry about any nuances that get lost. The perspectives taken in our culture can be classified in four groups, which I’ll call Sides A, B, X, and Y.2 What follows are some gross oversimplifications of these views that’ll do to get us going.

Look, it was hard coming up with a title, okay?

Side A is sometimes called the progressivist or pro-gay interpretation of Scripture. Its essential stance is that being gay is a morally neutral part of who we are, just like being a heterosexual is, and that Christians can entirely embrace a gay identity. On this view, sexually active gay relationships are as open to God’s blessing as opposite-sex ones—generally with the same limitations that opposite-sex relationships are supposed to be under, like abstention before marriage, monogamy, &c. The passages of Scripture which seem inconsistent with this view—nicknamed the ‘clobber passages’—are regarded by most Side A theologians as having been misinterpreted, and as referring to something other than the kind of divinely-sanctioned gay relationships they affirm.3 Matthew Vines, Julie Rodgers, Justin Lee, James Brownson, and Rachel Held Evans are contemporary examples of Side A thought.

Side B is a more traditional view. It tends to agree with Side A that simply being gay (as distinct from having gay sex) is morally neutral, and most Side B people think that identifying as gay is perfectly fine: coming out, calling oneself gay, going to see Wicked, you get the idea. However, it doesn’t say this because it considers gay sex and straight sex morally equivalent; it takes the long-standing Christian view that marriage is, of itself, between one man and one woman, and that sexual intimacy is only for marriage. Since two women or two men are, by definition, not the kind of pairing a marriage can happen between in this view, sexual intimacy between them is wrong. Being only or mostly attracted to the same sex, on Side B premises, is therefore a misfortune; but it isn’t a sin and shouldn’t be treated like one, nor should gay people be treated like second-class citizens. Having gay sex, on these premises, would be a sin, but not necessarily a very serious one: it might be very serious indeed if, say, you’re cheating on your wife—but that’s primarily because you’re cheating on your wife, not because you’re doing it with a dude. Several Side B authors (notably Melinda Selmys) are specially concerned with the maltreatment of LGBTs internationally, e.g. in Russia and Uganda, and with widespread prejudice against trans individuals here in the US. Wesley Hill, Eve Tushnet, Anna Magdalena, Joseph Prever, and Ron Belgau are instances of Side B writers.

A popular4 oversimplification of Sides A and B is that Side A believes in gay marriage, while Side B believes gay people should be celibate. It’s quite true that most Side A people hope to marry, and most Side B people expect to be celibate, but it isn’t cut and dry. Side B Christians don’t automatically rule out the possibility of heterosexual marriage; we just don’t expect it, since, you know, we’re not really into that genre of genitals. If God did something weird with us, and/or introduced us to a very exceptional person, we might enter into a heterosexual marriage, and a few of us have done; but we don’t anticipate it the way straight people mostly anticipate getting married one day (and we certainly don’t want ourselves or others like us to be pushed into such marriages, a chronic failure of the ex-gay movement).

And conversely, being Side A doesn’t necessarily mean you plan to get married any more than being straight does. God can call people to celibacy apart from any question of sexual orientation, and believing gay marriage is a good thing isn’t the same as believing it’s what God has planned for you. For that matter, being at peace with your sexuality is just as important—maybe even more so—if you’re going to attempt a celibate life, and if a gay marriage would be equally innocent and good, it is by definition healthier to enter a celibate vocation with that knowledge.

Moving along, Side X. This is ex-gay thought, or SOCE (sexual orientation change efforts). The basic outlook is that same-sex attraction, far from being morally neutral, is a mental disease or even a sin, and that the Christian is responsible to try to change it. Any kind of gay identity, including using words like lesbian and gay and being public about one’s orientation (if it isn’t heterosexual), is typically rejected by Side X: regarding oneself in a different light is considered just as important as a change in attractions, if not more so. Ex-gay views are decidedly out of favor. They seemed fairly popular fifteen and twenty years ago, even in the press; but news of embarrassing lapses on the part of ministers, and of sickening, abusive disciplinary practices towards those who came (or were forcibly sent) to them for help, led to a justly soured image. Not many Side X figures remain in the public eye, although Anne Paulk, Joseph Nicolosi, Robert Gagnon, James Dobson, and Joe Dallas are associated with the movement.

Finally there is Side Y. This is a term I’ve coined, to denote those who consider homosexual attractions a bad thing, but at the same time don’t necessarily advocate orientation change. This may sound like a bizarre halfway house between Side X and Side B, and I’m a little wary of Side Y myself; the borders between X and Y can be porous. Some groups, like Courage,5 are formally Side Y while allowing space for Side X. Others, like Harvest USA, are Side Y and specifically disclaim orientation change. The essential character of Side Y, I think, is that it disclaims gay identity: insofar as one’s thoughts, feelings, or experiences deviate from the normal heterosexual pattern, they are to be simply opposed, and normally, shared with others only to gain the needed support for living with this—not disease, maybe, but certainly condition. Their accent tends to be on being a new person in Christ, without reference to sexual orientation as an element of identity. Daniel Mattson, Rosaria Butterfield, Fr Paul Check, Matt Moore, and Pope Benedict XVI probably all qualify as examples.6

And me? I’m Side B, and I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I’d far rather be Side A, only I can’t be. Not because the Catholic Church forbids it: she does, but that isn’t the decider for me. It’s because I’m convinced that Side B is the truth. Catholicism does come into that, but my assent to Catholicism is a reasoned assent (even if other people don’t agree with my reasons), not an arbitrary one; and it is my allegiance to the truth that is, to me, inviolably holy. Could I be persuaded something else were true? Sure. But as long as I’m convinced of this, I must be honest with myself and others about the fact; and if I’m right about matter of fact here, then people who don’t believe it, however sincerely, are in that respect not fully equipped to deal with spiritual reality.

William Blake, Jacob's Ladder, 1806

If you told me I could make Side A true by chopping off one of my fingers, my only question would be, ‘Which one?’ But reality doesn’t work that way. It’s just there. Believing this theology that I so hate is an inner conflict that costs me wrenching pain; but lying to myself about what I do and don’t think is true would be a violation of my whole being. I can live with suffering, but not with deliberate, self-willed corruption of my integrity. It’d be cutting off, not a finger, but my head.

But why?

✠     ✠     ✠

1For a variety of reasons, there’s no good phrase for this. Many gay-identifying Christians (I among them) don’t much like being called homosexuals, not because it isn’t true—it is so true, girl—but because the word has a vaguely clinical sound (while phrases like same-sex attracted have not only a clinical sound but a clinical history, and an ugly one); on the other hand, many Christians, especially Catholics, object on philosophical and cultural grounds to the word gay, and alternatives like queer are no better or even worse. The word Christian is also inevitably ambiguous: I use it in the sense of those who profess the faith of the Nicene Creed, as a decently historically grounded point of reference, but many Jesus-centered faith traditions that consider themselves Christian are not Nicene: the Mormon, Unitarian, Jehovah’s Witness, and Christian Science traditions (among many others) are all non-Nicene, and, whatever one’s view of the pale of orthodoxy, they are certainly explicable only in terms of Christianity.

2Side A and Side B, terms popularized by the Gay Christian Network, originated at the now-defunct site Bridges Across the Divide; they equated roughly with their current use. Side X for ex-gay views was formed on analogy with these—I think this took place on the discussion boards at GCN, but the history of such an intuitive phrase (given preëxisting side terms) is surely untraceable. Side Y is my own coinage, meant to fit with the other terms.

3There are Side A Christians who simply dismiss the Bible here. I’m not concerning myself with this perspective, because it is in my opinion a very weak version of Side A. I for one, if I’m going to bother with being a Christian at all, will do so only with an authority I can rely on, and I rather think a lot of other people feel the same. The strong version of Side A is that which takes the authority of Scripture seriously, as Matthew Vines does for example. Therefore, it’s the only kind I want to spend time discussing. There’s something faintly distasteful about attacking the weakness of an opponent’s argument; if you can’t take down the strong point, not much else matters, does it?

4Well, popular among the sort of people who like to talk about this stuff on the internet. Which is admittedly a larger number than I’d have anticipated.

5To date, Courage Apostolate is the only Church-sanctioned Catholic ministry to same-sex attracted people (their terminology). I’ve had a long and uneasy non-relationship with Courage: they’re perfectly orthodox, and they stop short of directly endorsing SOCE, but their online statements have tended to be extremely off-putting to me, even when they aren’t flat-out false in their depiction of the LGBT movement. While I was in college I wanted to find a chapter and couldn’t—or rather, the closest chapter was a state away—and my enthusiasm to spend time with the apostolate in person has only declined. Make of all this what you will.

6Note that saying somebody espouses a position doesn’t mean they’re gay (or whatever) themselves. In describing Fr Check and Pope Benedict as Side Y, I’m not speculating on their own sexual orientations, of which I know nothing; I’m just trying to illustrate what I mean by Side Y.

Catholic Anarchy, Part III: Sedition

In this same time … our good Lord shewed a ghostlie sight of his homelie loving: I saw that he is to us all thing that is good and comfortable to our help. … And in this he shewed a litle thing, the quantitie of a hasel-nutt, lying in the palme of my hand, as me seemed; and it was as round as a ball. I looked theron with the eie of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ and it was answered generallie thus: ‘It is all that is made.’ I marvelled how it might last: for me thought it might sodenlie have fallen to naught for litleness. And I was answered in my understanding, ‘It lasteth, and ever shall: for God loveth it. And so hath all thing being by the love of God.’

—Lady Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, ch. 5

✠     ✠     ✠

How, then, is a state to be overthrown? There are two ways of doing so, direct action and indirect action; indirect action (in an ostensibly democratic culture such as ours) tries to elect people who will work to dismantle the structures of power, while direct action simply tries to get on with the dismantling and never mind electing anybody. Of these, only direct action is likely to be any good, because not one man in a thousand is going to dismantle the system that put him in power; he is far likelier to work, as far as in him lies, to render that system hostile to his rivals for power.1

Direct action can again be divided into two kinds: the coercive and the persuasive. Coercive direct action includes all techniques that rest on either violence or the threat of violence, from armed revolt to sabotaging property to holding Cold Stone Creamery executives at gunpoint with demands for socialized ice cream distribution. By contrast, persuasive direct action encompasses the range of tactics that appeal to the opponent’s conscience and intellect, from pamphleteering to strikes to non-coöperation with the law.

As a professed pacifist, I naturally look to persuasive rather than coercive action. But, given that I view my pacifism as a matter of personal calling, not universal obligation, the question remains of whether I prefer persuasion as a matter of liking, or think that it’s simply better strategy than coercion; and I think the latter.

The chief argument in favor of coercive direct action is that it accomplishes radical change in a short period, which persuasion can’t, because some people just won’t be persuaded. The trouble about this argument is that it’s wrong from start to finish.

First of all, let’s talk about radical change. It shouldn’t be confused with merely drastic change. The word radical comes from the Latin radix,2 which means ‘root’; it is change at a root level, a change of heart, that is at stake here. And coercive means can’t effect that. Thinking it could was the error of the Middle Ages at their worst, attempting by force of arms to protect and expand the dominion of the Prince of Peace. Trying to force profound change on a population breeds only hypocrisy; it’s a law of human nature. Radical change has to come from within, and be permitted to flower through patient tending—pulling a plant will not make it grow taller, and the harder you pull, the likelier you are to tear it up.

Persuasion is not the best way of effecting a change of heart: it’s the only way. For many people it may not do its work alone: it may require experiment or experience for them to change their minds. And, yes, there will always be people who can’t be reached. ‘That we should wish to cast [Sauron] down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind.’3 That’s life, and there’s no getting round it.

But the fact is, coercive direct action does accomplish something. It can right certain material injustices, even if it can’t effect radical change as such. Surely that’s better than nothing?

Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on what the coercion brings with it. But we can say this about all coercion, before we know anything else about it: it is, whether implicitly or practically, violent. And if violence is the problem, adding in more violence is doomed to failure. Not all anarchists are pacifists, either personally or philosophically, but the state’s power to compel is something we all object to, and compelling them to cut it out is pure hypocrisy.

The only way it could be justified is to classify the agents of the state as the enemy, an other, not a human neighbor. Both Christianity and democracy forbid such a thing. And anyway, if the problem with the state is the separateness of the state and the people, siding with the people just makes it worse. It doesn’t solve anything. Dehumanizing one’s opponents is always wrong; which is why I describe myself, in the words of Dorothy Day, as a pacifist in the class war.

So what does persuasive direct action actually consist in? It has three primary forms: advocacy; striking; and civil disobedience. Advocacy includes every kind of argument for anarchy, spoken and written, from pamphlets to full-length books. It also encompasses techniques chiefly meant to draw public attention to the cause of anarchism, like protests or artistic displays. The aim here is persuasion in its purest form: gaining a hearing from people, explaining what we mean by anarchy, and trying to convince them to adopt it.

Striking is normally a refusal of work in some way or other.4 A walkout at a company (especially in fields of work with ‘hard’ products, like farming or construction, as opposed to ‘soft’ products like entertainment or research) is the commonest form, and its aim is to bring about negotiation, or to bolster the cause of the strikers in an ongoing dispute; the same is true of rent strikes, culture strikes, and student strikes. I know only little about this, as I’ve never been in a position to participate in one (partly because I’ve been fairly well treated by my employers to date). Abstaining from voting can be considered a form of striking as well; though, given there's no quorum for electing public officials—i.e., no matter how low voter turnout is, the person who gets the most votes out of that turnout will win the election—it’s largely symbolic, and blends a little into the third category.

Lastly, there is civil disobedience: this is peaceful but direct defiance of the law. This may be a symbolic action, like Gandhi’s Salt March, or it may be simply a result of conscience clashing with legislation. There are times when anybody should do this, anarchist or not, as when the resistance movements in Europe in the 1940s concealed Jews. That isn’t so much anarchism as basic human decency. When it comes to specifically anarchist civil disobedience, though, the technique has a more determinate character. Civil disobedience doesn’t require attention-grabbing defiance of every individual law; after all, many laws do codify right behavior no matter who did the codifying, and many more are just less trouble (and no affront to your dignity as a person) to obey than to make a fuss over.

But some laws aren’t like that. Some laws are simply wrong, and should not be obeyed, or should even be specifically disobeyed: for example, not only should you not turn Jews over to the Nazis (not obeying), you should help them get away, however much you can (disobeying). Rosa Parks’ famous refusal to coöperate with the segregationism of the Montgomery bus system, though not a defiance of a law exactly, is of a kind with civil disobedience. A more exact and contemporary example would be Edward Snowden’s disclosure of surveillance information; that the spying was going on in the first place was wrong, and it was also wrong that it was being kept secret; his publication was, therefore, an act of conscience, a symbolic protest, and a kind of advocacy all in one.

Okay, the pic may be a little melodramatic, but the article's good and hefty.

Other laws, while they may not be violations of justice per se, may still be unwarranted, offensive intrusions into the general human right of liberty. Quiet refusal to fall in line with laws that have no right to be instituted are not usually effective as protests, but, from an anarchist point of view, they’re perfectly legitimate choices ethically (for example, in places where selling alcohol is banned on Sundays, an anarchist would see nothing immoral about selling and buying it anyway).

But what does any of this matter? There are never many Parkses, Snowdens, or Gandhis in any generation. What effect can something as small as one person have on an entire political system? What can one woman or man do?

First, break the spell of size. The state may be huge, but it is made of human beings; there’s nothing else in it. If there are many of them, there are many of everybody else, too. And second, it is our submission to coercion that gives it its power. Sedition doesn’t have to mean conspiracy and rebellion, when it is conducted not against the powerful but against their power; sedition can be as simple and clear as the word No. Realize for a moment that every state would crumble to dust in a day if everyone in its simultaneously refused to coöperate with its directives. Only one thing is needed to bring down principalities and powers: namely, the will to do it. From the moment we choose it, we have liberty. All the rest is the flower; the will is the seed.

How can this sort of sedition have victory? That’s what persuasive direct action is for: annoying your friends into agreeing with you. Because with every person you convince, the number of free people expands. Maybe, one day, the state will crumble; in the meantime, anarchy has already begun.

✠     ✠     ✠

1There have been exceptions: Cincinnatus, the first dictator of republican Rome, was famous for being a dictator that actually followed Roman law and retired when the emergency was over; similarly, King Juan Carlos of Spain, who quietly blended in with the totalitarian regime of Francisco Franco, emerged after the tyrant’s death as a democratic reformer, transforming his own office into a constitutional monarchy. But these men are precisely exceptional. Rulers like Julius Cæsar, William of Orange, Napoleon Bonaparte, Vladimir Lenin, and Augusto Pinochet are the rule. Being trapped in the spider’s web of power politics is a far commoner fate even among would-be reformers, men being what we are.

2From which we also get the word radish, which is why radishes have long been a symbol of political unrest [citation needed].

3Said by Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Book III.

4Hunger strikes are the only exception to this that I’m aware of, but, like the other forms of strike, they are often used as a negotiating tactic, or sometimes for publicity.