T he Occupy Wall Street movement began on September 17, 2011 in New York City. Since then, it has escalated to 95 cities, across 82 countries. At one point, there were 600 Occupy sites in the U.S. alone.
However, the spark for the movement’s fire actually began in Vancouver through the creative minds at the anti-consumerist magazine, Adbusters.
In mid-2011, the magazine proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest the corporate greed and its influence on democracy, the growing disparity between the wealthy and the poor, and the absence of legal accountability behind the recent global financial crisis.
This theoretical proposal was enfleshed in what we have seen in Zuccotti Park in the financial district of New York City. The movement came back to the city of its origins in the Occupy Vancouver encampment at the Vancouver Art Gallery and, most recently, on the B.C. Court of Appeal steps.
There has been extensive local media coverage of the protest, much of it focused on the legality of the site itself, and even though the tent city is gone, local media have largely failed to cover the actual message of the protestors.
In a personal attempt to uncover the message, I recently made several visits to the Art Gallery encampment.
My first visit was at the same time that a young woman, Ashlie Gough, was discovered dead in her tent. There was a chaotic spasm of activity as several dozen police, firefighters and medics descended on the site. I stood off to the side and watched the scene unfold. At the same time, a local punk band with the unfortunate name DOA (Dead On Arrival) took the stage. The scene was loud and chaotic.
I wandered around the site. There was a full kitchen set up serving free meals, complete with a sink for washing up. There was a library filled with several hundred books, a ‘kidzone,’ a tent distributing free clothes, a first-aid centre, a media centre and an info booth.
I was stunned by the organization and resourcefulness of the site. It was a type of organized chaos. The majority of the people I spoke with indicated that they were concerned about poverty, homelessness and the lack of local government to address these issues. Everyone I spoke with was intelligent, articulate and passionate about the movement.
In London, the Occupy movement camped out in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Their presence blocked tourists from entering the cathedral. This led to a significant drop in donations to the church. In response, a number of church leaders contacted the city of London about evicting the protestors. This in turn led a number of ministers to resign in protest – citing the fact that the church leadership seems more concerned about money than listening to the voices of the marginalized.
In the U.S., progressive evangelical groups have reached out to the movement. Sojourners, led by Jim Wallis, has provided prayers and liturgies to be used by Christian groups who have joined in with the protests. They have also called for Christians to extend hospitality and practical support to Occupiers at local sites. Judson Memorial Church in New York has participated in protests and recently allowed Occupiers to stay in the church when they were evicted from Zuccotti Park.
There has been no parallel movement in Canada. In Occupy Vancouver there are no Christian groups represented, and there have been no public statements by any Christian body in support or condemnation of the movement.
However, there are Christians involved in Occupy Vancouver. Britta Fluevog is a young Christian woman who has joined the protestors, staying in a tent onsite with them. Fluevog is an artist who is actively involved in both her local church and the group Streams of Justice. I spoke with her on a cold, wet day at the site.
Fluevog feels that the church should be involved in supporting Occupy, but she doesn’t expect it to happen anytime soon.
“The Bible is all about the underdog,” said Fluevog. “The ‘overdog’ is usually the oppressor and the example of what not to be.”
She admits the irony that a movement that is about economic injustice at its heart lacks a strong Christian presence.
“Christians are scared of breaking the law or challenging power – which in my opinion is not very Christian,” said Fluevog.
As we were speaking, Fluevog pointed out Dave Diewert standing across from us. Diewert taught at Regent College for many years before leaving to devote his life to poverty and justice issues.
Diewert said the Occupy movement has created a “space” where issues such as homelessness and systematic poverty can be discussed. “The tents serve as a way of holding on to that space,” he told me.
However, he said the church in Vancouver is “not very politicized, except in terms of maintaining and supporting the status quo.”
At Occupy Vancouver there are homeless people who are relishing the gift of community that has sprung up around them. There are others who are using the encampment as a soapbox to voice their own views. And then there are those like Fluevog and Diewertwho are passionate about the poor, the homeless and marginalized.
How will the church to react to this movement? Will we support and embrace it? Or will we stay in our middle class bubble and condemn from a distance? The Bible contains over 2000 verses that advocate the cause of the poor. Jesus said he came to bring “good news to the poor.” Even a cursory reading of scripture shows this overriding concern for the alien, widow and orphan – the underdog, as Fluevog puts it.
Could the Occupy Movement be a movement of the Spirit to awaken the world to the cry emanating from the very heart of God? In my brief few hours at the site, I heard more about justice, economic equality and homelessness than I have in my decades in evangelical churches.
Why is the message of justice emanating out of scruffy tent dwellers, instead of our pulpits and seminaries? Have we been so embedded in middle class consumerist culture that these messages now only fall on deaf ears?
The Pharisees rebuked Jesus’ disciples for their worship of him. To this Jesus replied, “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” The evangelical church in Vancouver has, for the most part, kept quiet when it comes to justice. This silence has awakened others in the Occupy movement to cry out for those whom we have shut out.
Let’s open our ears and listen.
I can’t imagine what it would look like if churches in Vancouver rose up and committed to provide food, warm clothing and other support to the Occupiers. We might see the most powerful and boldest advancement of the Kingdom in the history of our city.
Original article here.
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