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                                OCCUPY Churches

           The four quotes/excerpts, below, are from a blog post by Rev. Jim Wallis, author, and Editor-in-Chief of Sojourners magazine. 

The title of the blog post is: A Church Sanctuary for the Occupy Movement, and it was written, and posted on the Sojourners' website

(sojo.net), on Nov. 17th, 2011.  For the entire post, scroll down further.    

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     "Our faith communities and organizations should swing their doors wide, and greet the Occupiers with open arms,

offering them a feast to say 'thank you' for having the courage to raise the very religious and biblical issue of growing

inequality in our society."

     "If our mayors and police departments are making the Occupiers feel unwelcome, why don’t we welcome them

to stay on our church property if they need someplace to go? Open our church basements and parish halls as safe

places to sleep -- shelter and sanctuary -- as cold weather descends upon many of our cities."

     "The Occupy movement needs a sanctuary. And what better safe and welcome place could these young people

find than with communities of faith?"

     "So as the young protesters are made to feel unwelcome by the municipal authorities in cities around the

country, let us make them feel very genuinely welcomed in our faith communities."

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                          A Church Sanctuary for the Occupy Movement

                                             by Jim Wallis (11-17-2011)

       It’s time to invite the Occupy Movement to church!

       And Thanksgiving is the perfect occasion. Have some of the young protesters — the “99ers” as they’re becoming known — from this

rapidly growing movement over for a big holiday dinner!

       Our faith communities and organizations should swing their doors wide and greet the Occupiers with open arms, offering them a feast to

say “thank you” for having the courage to raise the very religious and biblical issue of growing inequality in our society.

       Concentrations of wealth and power, unfairness in our political process, the loss of opportunity — especially for the next generation — and

the alarming rise of poverty in the world’s richest nation are all fundamental concerns for people of faith. So let’s invite the young occupiers

into our churches and ministries for good conversation and a great meal.

       If our mayors and police departments are making the Occupiers feel unwelcome, why don’t we welcome them to stay on our church

property if they need someplace to go?

       Open our church basements and parish halls as safe places to sleep — shelter and sanctuary as cold weather descends upon many of

our cities.

       It’s time both to embrace and engage this hopeful movement of young people who are articulating the underlying but often unexpressed

feelings of a nation which, by a three-quarters majority, believes, with the protesters, that the economic structure of the country has become

unfair and skewed to benefit the most wealthy.

       These are gospel issues, and are therefore the business of the churches.

       So let’s invite them to our Thanksgiving dinners all across the country, and have “table fellowship,” because that’s what church people do!

       Bring them in out of the cold, and offer them the appreciation and warm hospitality of a thankful faith community. I’d imagine they must be

tired of pizza by now and a turkey — or vegetarian — dinner with all the fixings is likely to attract a crowd (with vegan versions available,

of course).

       New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he “takes full responsibility” for unleashing hundreds of his police in a highly

militarized early Monday morning raid that evicted the young people encamped in Zuccotti Park. So let’s give him that responsibility.

       Bloomberg is the poster child for the “1 percent.” He is the archetypal wealthy man who bought political power, and the uprising in his

city to challenge what he himself stands for has made the mayor uncomfortable about the protests since the beginning.

       That the protests in New York became the flagship of a global movement must be personally embarrassing for Bloomberg, and his clear

signal that this movement for economic equity is not welcome in his city likely now will be mimicked by mayors and police chiefs around

the country.

       The Occupiers in New York already have returned to Zuccotti Park, but tensions and perpetual conflicts between their movement and city

 administrators and police will likely become the status quo dynamic in New York and across the nation.

       The Occupy movement needs a sanctuary. And what better safe and welcome place could these young people find than with

communities of faith?

       As we provide that safe sanctuary for a new generation of protesters who dream of a better world, let us also engage them in the spirituality

of the change they seek.

       My experience with the young protesters in several cities suggests that they are open to that kind of conversation. Many have been

studying other social movements where faith, spirituality, and moral sensibilities played a central role.

     Jesus is a popular guy among the thousands of Occupy sites around the world, and faith is a lively topic — even if religion is suspect as an

institution of an unjust society.

 

       So as the young protesters are made to feel unwelcome by the municipal authorities in cities around the country, let us make them feel very

genuinely welcomed in our faith communities.

 

       This could be a great opportunity for hospitality, for ministry, for solidarity, for faith conversation and, yes, for prophetic witness as

churches and people of faith speak up for the economic justice that is at the heart of biblical faith and is an integral part of the gospel.

       It’s also a way to connect the generations in the context of a community for people of all ages. Because all social movements inevitably

generate tension and even outright conflict, they need safe space, places to rest and rejuvenate. They need sanctuary.

      Offering that sanctuary to the Occupiers — at our tables, on our property, in our parish halls and church basements, and in our sanctuaries

for the quiet prayer and reflection that every movement needs to sustain itself — could be the beginning of a powerful relationship between

the faith community and the leaders of an emerging generation that is so clearly and passionately committed to creating a better world.

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Occupy St. Paul’s: Thanks Be to God

                  by Jim Wallis   11-23-2011

Jim Wallis visits the Occupy London at St. Paul's Cathedral, 11/22/11.

(Photo courtesy of Ed Thornton/The Church Times)

 

LONDON — It looks like the stage of a West End theater. The tents are gathered around and almost up against the steps of the historic St. Paul’s Cathedral. Each night, a General Assembly is held on those steps, and the sermons on inequality have a biblical ring to them.

 

This is Occupy London and the Occupiers were having their discussions with each other and visitors in the protective shadow of the Dome of St. Paul’s — as they should be. What a picture of the Incarnation, I thought, marveling at the scene.

 

What makes Christian faith most unique among all the religions of the world is, indeed, the incarnation. In Jesus Christ, God hits the streets — that’s what Incarnation means.

 

So here is the church in the midst of the international conversation that is changing the world — right where we should be.

And what an opportunity it revealed. The vivid metaphor of St. Paul’s in the streets of the public debate over the world’s inequality is a clear call to mission, to ministry, to hospitality, to prayer, and to prophetic ministry. At the steps of the cathedral, the Occupiers of London have found sanctuary.

 

During the day, clergy in collars, and myriads of church and community workers in jeans, wander through the crowds embodying the "ministry of presence,” helping out where they can, listening where they are engaged, offering a word of encouragement (and even advice) where they are needed. And, quietly, the open sanctuary offers the chance for the young protestors to quietly slip inside for a moment of reflection and prayer; something fledgling social movements need.

I ran into Giles Fraser, a canon at St. Paul’s who protected the protestors from the police when they first arrived, defended them from a fearful ecclesial hierarchy, and then resigned when they were threatened with eviction (an act which has, ironically, seemed to help to keep them at the church).

 

Giles showed me around the site and told me the story of St. Paul’s slowly coming to terms with their new ministry.

But a ministry it is, and the dramatic picture it painted was quite inspiring to me as a visual sign of what I have imagined the church could offer this new generation that protests and dreams of a better world.

Isn’t this what we should long for, an opportunity to embrace (endorsement is not the point, or necessary, or even most helpful) and engage this youthful uprising of both frustration and hope at the unjust state of the economy and the world?

 

Here are the “none of the above” when they are asked what religious affiliation they belong to; and the “none’s” are on our very doorstep! Isn’t Jesus likely already walking among them (as he seems so popular at all the Occupy sites)?

 

So why, as his followers, don’t we enter the fray?

 

Could this be the future of this movement, as they are evicted by force by threatened mayors and municipalities; finding sanctuary in the shadow of spiritual spires, warmth in church basements and parish halls, pastoral care in meeting the many needs of such quickly gathered communities, quiet meditation in safe chapels, and, yes, prophetic solidarity in challenging the injustice that has called them into being?

 

I saw a snapshot of that in the footprint of St. Paul's cathedral and it evoked an Anglican response: Thanks Be to God!
 

Jim Wallis is the author of Rediscovering Values: A Guide for Economic and Moral Recovery, and CEO of Sojourners. He blogs at www.godspolitics.com. Follow Jim on Twitter @JimWallis.

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