Authority Over Death-Stringfellow

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The Arrests of Peter and John... and Daniel Berrigan

An Authority Over Death

WILLIAM STRINGFELLOW

need for pity or remorse, least of all from us.

To open the Bible then was an obvious, straight-forward, natural thing to do. Berrigan had done

something similar, publicly, when he preached to

the Germantown congregation on texts from the

Letter to the Hebrews. This is a wholly characteris-

tic recourse for Christians since, in the Bible, they

find a holy history that is human history transfig-

ured; and since, in turn, they realize that human

history is holy history; and since, thus, they dwell

in the continuity of the biblical word and the pres-

ent moment.

Through the late spring and the summer I hadbeen engaged with the Babylon passages in the

Book of Revelation. That effort had influenced my

participation in the conversations that were taking

place with Daniel and Anthony. With the abrupt

interruption of our talk on August 11, 1put aside

though not out of ready reachthe Babylon texts

to return to the Acts of the Apostles, and to some

of the letters that are thought to be chronologically

proximate to Acts, specifically James and First

Peter.

Facing the Essential Issues

These testimonies, of course, deal with the issues

of the apostolic church struggling to distinguish it-

self from the sects of Judaism, while at the same

time confronting the political claims and challenges

of the zealots, on one hand, and the manifest bias-

phemy and idolatry of the civic religion of Rome,

on the other. All these subjects are so familiar in

contemporary American reference that it is a temp-

tation to treat them fatalistically (pursuing tritequeries like Is Nixon our Nero? ).

The immediate trauma of the aggression against

our household in which Dan had been taken spared

me from speculations of that sort, however, and I

realized, while reading Acts, that more rudimen-

tary and more fundamental problems had to be

faced. Moreover, I remembered vividly how the

same matters had plagued and confounded me, for

all my precocity, years earlier, and how, in a sense,

the situation of August 11, 1970 had been long since

foreshadowed. The episode of the arrest of Peter

A

S I regard myself, I have never been especially

.religious. Having been reared as an pisco-palian, the pietism of which I may be guilty has

been ambiguousa casual matter and an inconve-

nience more than a matter of consistency or fixed

conviction. Still, as a younger person, particularly

while an undergraduate, I had been precocious the-

ologically and, instead of being attentive to what-

ever it was that students in those days were inter-

ested in, I concentrated much, in the privacy of my

mind, on theology and upon what might be called

heologizing.

I do not mean that I often studied or even readhe works of theologians, but I did begin then to

ead the Bible, in an unordered and spontaneous

way; and I did begin, thus, to be caught up in a

dialectic between an experience with the biblical

witness and my everyday existence as a human be-

ng. I recall that there seemed to me to be a strong

opposition between the biblical story and my own

ife, on one side, and religion and religious moral-

sm, on the other. After a while that opposition took

on greater clarity, and I could discern that the for-

mer has to do with living humanly, while the latterhas to do with dying in a moral sense, and, indeed,

with dying in everysense.

To any one who knows this about me, it will

come as no surprise to learn that in the immediate

aftermath of the seizure by the Federal authorities

of Daniel Berrigan at schaton, the home that

Anthony Towne and I share on Block Island, I

pent what time our suddenly hectic circumstances

would afford with the New Testament. This was no

exercise in solace; neither Anthony nor I had any

egret or grief to be consoled, and we had each be-held the serenity of Dan as he was taken into the

anxious custody of the FBI. The coolness of Berri-

gan had been a startling contrast to the evident

hame and agitation of the agents; and we both

understood that, whatever needs Dan was suffering

n his transition from fugitive to captive, he had no

WILLIAM STRINGFELLOW is, by now, well-known to our readers andthers as a lawyer and lay-theologian. In his last appearance In theseages (June 8 Issue), he wrote about /fJsus the Criminal," with hisriend Dan Berrigan in mind. His latest book, A Second Birthday, in

which he writes about his personal confrontation with illness, pain and

eath, was published a few days ago.

181September 21, 1970


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resurrection in a political context, as the New T

tarnent does, seems a most radical incongruity

unthinkable thought.

At the same time, the simplistic Constantinian

tha t informs American attitudes toward Christia

and the nation allows Americans to view Rome

the ancillary ecclesiastical-political establishm

allowed in the Empire at the time of the crucifix

during the apostolic era as an aberrant versio

the State rather than as an archetypical symboall political institutions and authorities in any t

or place. There are no doubt some serious

tinctions to be kept between Rome and Americ

between the Nazi state and the United States or

tween Sweden and the USA or, for that matter,

tween revolutionary America and contempo

America. But such issues must not obscure the t

that every nation, every political regime, every

power shares a singular characteristic that

weighs whatever may be said to distinguish t

one from another. And it is that common attribof the State as such to which the New Testam

points where the texts deal with the witnes

Christ being condemned as criminal.

The State's Sanction: Death

The sanctionthough it takes different form

is, in principle, the only sanctionupon which

State relies is death. In the healing episodesa

other works within the ministry in Christ, as in

proclamation of the resurrection from the deathe authority of Christ over the moral powe

death is verified as well as asserted. It is this cl

of the Gospel that the State beholds as threaten

it is the audacity to verify this claim in living

thought and word and actionthat the State c

demns as crime. The preaching of the resurrect

rather than being politically innocuous, and

healing incidents, instead of being merely priv

are profoundly, even cosmically, political acts.

This is how on August 11, in the hours s

after Father Berrigans capture and incarceratiothought of Dans ministry and the various way

which he has exercised his vocation through

years that Anthony and I have known himas p

oner, as guest, as fugitive, as convicted felon

Catonsville defendant, as exile, as citizen in pro

as poet, as priestas a man. Confronted with w

I was reading in Acts, I marvelled at the patie

of Berrigans witness. I sensed the humor of wha

has said and done being construed, especially in

churches, as so radical. It seemed utterly obv

that Berrigan had taken his stand in the m

and John, following upon the healing of the lame

beggar at the temple gate, as told in Acts, sums

up the issues:

And as they were speaking to the people, thepriests and the captain of the temple and theSadducees came upon them, annoyed becausethey were teaching the people and proclaimingin Jesus the resurrection from the dead.And theyarrested them and put them in custody. . . ,

Acrs4:13aI read this, and read it and read it. The most

difficult questions of my initiation in Bible study

returned: What does the resurrection from thedead mean if proclaiming it is cause for arrest?Why is healing a cripple so threatening and provoc-ative to the public authorities? Why should this ap-

parent good work count as a crime?

This arrest of Peter and John, associated publicly

with the healing of the lame man and the open

preaching of the resurrection, portended a wider

persecution of Christians and an official repressionof the Gospel. But it also relates back to the rea-

sons for the condemnation and execution of Jesus

in which, it must not be overlooked, Jesus ownministry of healing was interpreted by the incum-

bent authorities as if it were political agitation and

was deemed by them to be a threat to their political

authority. Where healing or, more broadly, the wit-

ness to the resurrection was involved, the compre-

hension and response of Caesar and his surrogates

to Christ as well as to the Apostles was, signifi-

cantly, consistent. Such a witness was judged as acrime against the State.

Christian Witness as Criminal Offense

There is a sentimentalistic (and unbiblical) tradi-

tion of bible stories in American Christendom

that, when coupled with the thriving naivet of

Americans toward their own nation, renders it diffi-

cult for many citizens, particularly churchfolk, to

assimilate the fact that the Christian witness is

treated as a criminal offense, even though this is sobluntly and repeatedly reported in New Testament

texts. Within the American churchly ethos, biblical

references to healing, however they may be inter-

preted medically (as metaphors, magic or miracles),

are generally supposed to be highly private, indi-

vidual and personal happenings, having nothing

categorically to do with politics. Meanwhile, when

it comes to the resurrection as an event and the

meaning of the resurrection as the gist of the Gos-

pel, the sentimentalization of scripture has reached

a quintessence of distortion, so that to regard the

Christianity and182


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would have been to prosecute the defendants on

nominal or minimal charges. There exists ample

precedent for that; and if that had been done, the

authority of the State would have been asserted in

a way that recognized the political and, indeed,

theatrical, character of the actionas distinguished

from one implementing criminal intent. And, it can

be argued, the State might have succeeded in estop-

ping other protests by minimizing their notoriety.

Instead, the State reacted to what the Catonsville

Nine had done as if it were a crime of magnitude.Precedent was put aside, along with common sense,

and legal process was usurped for a political objec-

tive, namely, the quashing of dissent. The manne

in which the State undertook the prosecution of the

Catonsville Nine betrays a purpose not only to pun-

ish the defendants harshly but also to admonish al

citizens, emphatically, to be quiet, to behave, to

acquiesce, to fear that otherwise they risk a simila

retribution.

The intimidating message of the Catonsville

prosecution, furthermore, does not stand out alone.It is but one among many other recent pathetic

aggressions of the State against citizens, the mos

urgent of which the Black Panthers have suffered.

In the days that have followed upon Dans seizure

many Block Island neighbors, many other friends

and many strangers have told Anthony and me o

their outrage and their apprehensionwhateve

they might think of what the Catonsville Nine did

or of Father Berrigans fugitive interludethat the

State seemed so anxious and overreactive and was in

such hot pursuit of, as one person put it, a harm-In this tentative, uneasy perception, I.less man

believe, a host of citizens, otherwise subdued, grasp

the desperate issue in what is taking place in

America now: the power of death incarnate in the

State violating, enslaving, perverting, imprisoning,

destroying human life in society. To fail or refuse

to act against that power amounts to an abdication

of ones humanness, a renunciation of the gift o

ones own life as well as a rejection of the lives o

other human beings, a very ignominious idolatry of

death. In the face of that power the only way toactno matter how the State judges or what the

State doesis to live in the authority over death

that the resurrection is. A person cannot be human

and be silent about that, as Acts attests:

So they called them and charged them not tospeak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. BuPeter and John answered them, Whether it iright in the sight of God to listen to you rather

you must judge; for we cannot buthan to Godspeak of what we have seen and heard

4:18-20Ac t s

stream of the apostolic tradition and that his course

had been not at all unusual, but simply normative.

I do not imply that Berrigan is engaged in some

self-conscious imitation of Peter or John or any

other of the earlier Christians. I just mean that to

proclaim the resurrection in word and act is an

affront the State cannot forbear because the resur-

rection exposes the subservience of the State to

death as the moral purpose of the society the State

purports to rule.

As has been intimated, the clarity or literalnesswith which the moral dependence upon death of the

State can be discerned may vary greatly, from time

to time and from place to place. Nonetheless, the

American circumstances today represent an instance

in which death is pervasive, aggressive and undis-

guised in its moral domination of the nations ex-

istence. Theologically speaking, the war in Viet

Nam is not just an improvident, wicked or stupid

venture. It epitomizes the militancy and insatiabil-

ity of death as a moral power reigning in the na-

tionas that morality in relation to which every-thing and everyone is supposedly judged and justi-

fied. Thus to oppose the war becomes much more

than a difference over policy. From the viewpoint

of the State protest against the war undermines the

only moral purpose the State has: the work ofdeath. It risks the only punishment of which the

State is capable: consignment to death or to some

status that embodies the same meaning as death,

though it be short of execution, i.e., imprisonment,

prosecution, persecution, loss of reputation or prop-

erty or employment, intimidation to beget silenceand conformity.

Not to Act Is an Abdication

of One's Humanness

To those who may think this a grotesque doctrine

of the State in America in the present day, I cite,

amidst a growing accumulation of other evidence,

what happened in the case of the Catonsville Nine

to the Berrigan brothers and their fellow defen-

dants. Verbal protests against the war and all it

symbolizes had been of little or no avail; and these

citizens dramatized the issue by destroying draft

records with napalm, taking effective precautions

against their action causing violence or any other

harm to human beings since that would vitiate their

witness against the violence of the State.

Let it be conceded that the State could not over-

look the incident (although, in fact, it frequently

does exactly that in circumstances where its dignity

is as much embarrassed). One option for the State

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Authority Over Death-Stringfellow