Heresy in Academia

Meandering through some heresy links (when I ought to have been concentrating on something else), I came across a significant discussion of heresy linked to the announcement of The Journal of Controversial Ideas, to be published next year. 

I recognise I'm late to notice them though, in mitigation, I've never worked in academia. And conflict over the acceptability or toleration of ideas in American academia isn't my field or focus. However:

The journal describes itself as

a forum for careful, rigorous, unpolemical discussion of issues that are widely considered controversial, in the sense that certain views about them might be regarded by many people as morally, socially, or ideologically objectionable or offensive. 

The aim of the journal is to enable people to publish ideas that they reasonably expect will be regarded by some as offensive, immoral, or dangerous. Authors may use a pseudonym, if they so choose. (here)

 See the Heterodox Academy (wiki).

Universities in Britain were significant loci of accusations of heresy until the First World War (not all of which resulted in findings of guilt). 

In Scotland, for example, university teaching of theology was largely the preserve of Church of Scotland ministers until approximately the 1870s. Professors were ordained ministers and thus part of the local presbytery which embraced all approved ministers in the area. This association thinned over time. Prosecutions largely took place within the presbytery rather than the university. I think the last accusation against an academic in Scotland was a trivial complaint against Professor John Caird, Principal of Glasgow University, in 1874. It evaporated within a month. Principal Caird had no active association with the presbytery.

Oxford University was particularly prone to a bit of heresy. The first accused after 1689 was Arthur Bury, Rector of Exeter College, in 1690. In the nineteenth century there were a number of cases linked to the Oxford Movement (Wiki). The last heresy accusation in a university (to the best  of my knowledge) was against James Matthew Thompson in Oxford, in 1911, for a book Miracles in the New Testament (1911). Thompson was systematically sceptical of the miraculousness of the biblical miracles.

The Bishop of Winchester was Visitor to the College. He was new and conservative-minded. He announced that he proposed to act against Thompson. The college authorities were not particularly enamoured of the book either, but they were even more opposed to a bishop interfering with academic freedoms. They neutered the charge by moving Thompson sideways from a post subject to such visitation to one that wasn't. 

The following dialogue comes from J.M. Thompson's . On the other hand it is the only time I have ever come across an account of a conversation between a putative heretic and his mother (who was also widow of a clergyman):

 “Well?" she asked.

"I expect you already know most of what I know," he handed her the document from the Bishop.

"Man's a fool." she said, definitively. "Thinks his opinion is infallible and the rest of the world is therefore always in error."

She studied her son. "On the other hand," she said slowly, "you have hurt a lot of people with your ideas." He moved as though to say something. She held up her hand. "I know it's not you on your own. I know it's not entirely new. But I also know that a lot of people have struggled with what you're trying to say – that the Bible isn’t sacred, that Jesus was an ordinary man, that the roots of faith are hollow and when the winds of modern thought really begin to blow it will blow over the whole house of Christianity. It hurts a lot of people and people who are hurt are inclined to lash out."

"Why does it hurt so much?" He asked, as though he had just thought of the question.

"Because, you foolish young man, you’re not merely attacking a set of ideas. You’re not merely trying to challenge nineteen hundred years of Christian teaching. You’re attacking who people are, the depth of what they stand for, what’s so important to them that they not only don"t want to let go, they"re prepared to fight to keep it."

"So, I suppose, one question is: what do you believe, deep down? What would you fight for? What would destroy you if you found that would you had previously believed in was false?"

He looked at his mother with adult eyes, seeing her in a way he had never done before.  

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(The International Society for Heresy Studies seems quiescent - nothing has been posted on their blog since last November when they seemed to be struggling to find submissions to the journal.)