Because they are Americans, the Wall Street Occupiers are
suffused with messianic purpose, as are nearly all our nation’s
American political crusades. But the often raggedy Occupiers
themselves do not seem specifically oriented towards organized
religion.
Not to worry. Religious Leftists of all sorts have rallied to
the Occupiers’ bedraggled banners. Guided by the Social Gospel’s
emphasis on social justice over theological details, these
religionists discern God’s Kingdom among the squatters’ tents and
sleeping bags. One group of clergy visited while carrying a mock
golden idol shaped like the dreaded Wall Street Bull, the very
incarnation of greed.
Praising the Occupation is a gamble for liberal evangelicals,
who have tried so hard to appear centrist in recent years, anxious
to softly persuade suburban churchgoers to abandon their
conservative voting habits. Oldline Protestant elites, along with
left-wing Catholic activists, of course welcome the Occupation as a
long overdue 1960s revival.
The Executive Council of the once prestigious Episcopal Church
publicly declared recently “that the growing movement of peaceful
protests in public spaces in the United States and throughout the
world in resistance to the exploitation of people for profit or
power bears faithful witness in the tradition of Jesus to the
sinful inequities in society.”
There was a time, not too long ago, when Wall Street and the
Episcopal Church were viewed, not unfairly, as almost
interchangeable. J. Pierpoint Morgan once famously carried his
denomination’s bishops on his private train to the Episcopal Church
General Convention. It’s doubtful that Episcopal Diocese of Long
Island Bishop Lawrence Provenzano, who personally paid homage to
the Wall Street Occupation, will be getting any train rides from
prominent financiers. After his pilgrimage, the bishop met at
nearby historic Trinity Episcopal Church, Wall Street, with
interfaith leaders to discuss how religions can back the
Occupation’s goals, whatever they are.
Meanwhile, the top Presbyterian Church USA lobbyist on Capitol
Hill also has enthusiastically backed Occupy Wall Street. The Rev.
J. Herbert Nelson, director of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Office of Public Witness, fresh from his October trial for being
arrested this summer in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda protesting federal
budget limits, is now touting the Occupation as the next trendy
cause to rouse ordinarily staid Presbyterians.
“One of the things I am convinced of is that faith has a role to
play in the leadership of these movements,” the Rev. Nelson
recently enthused to a newspaper. “There are people who are angry
because they may not be able to go to school … angry because they
have been locked out and left out for years,” he explained. “When
we begin to talk about a constitutional right to protest … there
will be a time where people will resist,” he even warned, adding
“We could be looking at a Tunisia or Egypt.”
Such dramatic language, predicting Occupy Wall Street could
start to look like the “Arab Spring,” with violent government
crackdowns, and turmoil. Rev. Nelson implied that peaceful church
prelates could offer counsel on how to keep the lid on while still
pursuing the Occupation’s supposedly laudable but vague goals.
United Church of Christ President Geoffrey Black hailed a
popular picture showing Jesus cleansing the temple of money changes
as “The Original ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protester.” The reverend
insisted this illustration is “helpful,” “gives people of faith a
frame with which to assess what is going on with this movement,”
and “makes the relationship between Christian faith and the quest
for economic justice clear for all to see.”
Not to be outdone, the ever left-wing United Methodist Women’s
Division, during their directors meeting in New York City, even
marched down to Wall Street to join the Occupation. Funded by local
church bake sales and church bazaars, they carried their own
protest placards endorsing the Occupation’s assorted demands, which
typically include cancellation of all private debt, open borders,
massive tax hikes, elimination of credit rating agencies, complete
government control of health care, and free college for
everyone.
This call towards utopia, enshrouded simultaneously in
grievance, entitlement, idealism, and youthful naiveté, has
understandably seduced old-style street activists like Jim Wallis
of Sojourners, or even Brian McLaren of the emergent church
movement. “When they stand with the poor, they stand with Jesus,”
Wallis has pronounced, even before himself visiting the Occupation,
which doubtless only amplified his excited nostalgia. “‘The
occupation of God has begun’” might inspire the same fear and hope
among people today as ‘the Kingdom of God is at hand’ inspired in
the first century,” gushed McLaren, after attending his own local
Occupation protest.
Representing a newer generation of Evangelical liberal is Shane
Claiborne, a winsome young white man who typically sports
dreadlocks, a bandana, and a rustic smock, while proclaiming good
news for the poor to attentive middle class evangelical students.
“In a world where 1 percent of the world owns half the world’s
stuff, we are beginning to realize that there is enough for
everyone’s need, but there is not enough for everyone’s greed,” he
recently insisted. “Lots of folks are beginning to say, ‘Maybe God
has a different dream for the world than the Wall Street
dream.’”
The dubious statistic about the wicked “1 percent” aside,
Claiborne speaks some truth. But he and the other religious
enthusiasts for Wall Street aren’t calling for individuals to shed
their wealth for God’s Kingdom. Of course, they primarily want an
all powerful state to seize and redistribute wealth according to
some imagined just formula, after which the lion will lie peaceably
with the lamb. It’s a utopian dream, not based on the Gospels,
always monstrous when attempted, and premised more on resentment
than godly generosity. But it’s a message that will always have an
audience in a covetous world.
