Clergy Bless The Occupiers

Clergy taking out their "We Pretend to Care for You" stoles! Seriously.
As a regular church goer, I will look forward to seeing this cause listed in church bulletins this weekend. YEAH RIGHT! Nice photo op.

It was on the front page of my church newsletter this week (Christ Church Episcopal), and many of the most active "Occupy" participants in New Haven have been Episcopal and UCC clergy and lay people. The current participants of St. Hilda's House (http://www.sainthildashouse.org/About-us.php) are getting very involved here, and staff at Judson Church in New York were responsible for one of the greatest images of the protest on Wall Street thus far: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donna-schaper/occupy-wall-street-the-go_b_1004946.html

As a regular church goer I do expect to find this discussed in church this Sunday. And listed in the bulletiin too! The discussion revolves around this guy name Jesus, and what he said about the corrupting power of greed and self-centered consumerism.

When will this movement produce a story about something that actually resembles anything it originally espoused - challenging corporate greed and oppression, siding with people whose houses are being foreclosed on, raising taxes on the rich, stopping handouts to military contractors, and so on??? This local chapter of Occupy is meandering into absurdity. Don't become irrelevant! How about getting out into the neighborhoods of New Haven, and enlisting people who are dealing with financial struggle each and every day?? Thus far, this local movement hasn't resonated much beyond about a 2-block radius of the upper green.

@aaarrrggghh!: I think you're absolutely right. My personal hope has been that the Green at the very least could be a kind of platform where people could demonstrate what's needed in our communities, how problems have recently been addressed in serious, meaningful ways (e.g., Abraham's Tent and New Haven Reads), how all of this ties into our current legal and economic systems, and how people can begin volunteering in long-term, hands-on, boring ways that actually make a difference. I work at a local nonprofit well over full-time and have not had the chance I'd hoped I would to contribute much to this. The progressive religious organizations in town seem to be making a real effort to channel this energy and bring practical ideas and resources to the table, and several members of the education group are clearly trying hard to get things moving, but there seems to be a lot standing in the way. What do you think are the best specific ways to get into the communities beyond the Upper Green?

Yeah but wasn't there some story in the bible about Jesus getting super pissed about merchants trading in the temple and, as opposed to some sort of hand holding kumbayah drum circle sort of thing instead he went in and totally jacked them up ("them" being merchants and "jacking up" meaning kicking their @$$es)?

Just askin.

@Scott H,
Please enlighten us and tell us how Jesus criticized the government aka the Romans?

So the occupy protest is a group of people asking for handouts? If it were really a collective they would pool their wages (as I read it some of them do have jobs) and buy what they need, according to the ideals that they are claiming to stand for (democratic communalism). And that is what the clergy should've told them to do. The city's churches already help the real homeless people and their limited resources are spread thin doing so. They (the churches) do not need the extra burden of supporting an aimless (and to some pointless) protest.

Hi, flaxwell. I preached on this to my congregation last week. The scripture was the story of Jesus receiving a question about taxes in which he pointed out the hypocrisy of the temple leaders.

Nice photo op? Meh. It's just news being news.

Also, please please please no diesel generators! The health effects of diesel emissions are huge and horrible: increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and.. of course, breathing problems. Please, wonderful occupiers, do not create a new problem for us.

What the "movement" should really be focused on is hunting down the vampire squid aka Goldman Sachs (which is about to be bailed out by European taxpayers much as it was by US taxpayers when AIG collapsed).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/business/dexias-collapse-in-europe-points-to-global-risks.html?pagewanted=all

@Will_B: The outreach can be done through neighborhood associations, management teams, faith communities, and other established ways people come together on a regular basis in most of the neighborhoods around New Haven. That's a start. Or head down to the Grove (on Orange St.), and catch up with a few of the more radical community organizers in that group. Having worked in non-profits for many years myself, I don't see them being a platform to push the envelope in a systems-changing way. They are more or less dependent on the system for funding. They should be supported by the movement for their important, often progressive steps toward forming a new community. But in terms of challenging the power brokers...Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, and so on...the non-profits are not in a good position to do that. It seems as though the current manifestation of Occupy New Haven isn't equipped to do that either, by the way. Let's see if the churches can live out the radical message of their founder...as Dorothy Day, Philip Berrigan, Fr. Ray Bourgeois and others have.

The Occupy protestors represent people who are on the outside and want to get into the inside, in regards to prosperity and opportunity. But, Jesus preached the importance of remaining on the outside. He would have been against our greed and the way we exploit people so we can have computers, ipads, dishwashers, sneakers, cars, clothing etc., he would have been against taking out loans to buy land and homes we don't really need. He would've been against the U.S. government in every war it has fought. He would've been against Yale and other universities for limiting access to knowledge and extorting people to gain access to it. He would've been against a lot of what our society is based on and thrives on. He would've been against the Occupy movement just as he would've been against the Tea Party movement. To use his name and message to support and promote the Occupy movement is profane and a bit offensive.

Jesus, contrary to what a lot of people think, was political down to his bones. Most of his parables (after removing the editorial gloss added by the writers, especially Matthew) were what Paulo Freire called First Level Codifications: Explaining how oppression by elites and the landed aristocracy operates. They are simply brilliant in construction and brevity. They open doors for discussion. His way of life can be seen as an enacted parable of the solution. Everyone should have enough but no one should have more at the expense of others.

He championed the village way of life over against the temple state that had come to dominate. The "cleansing of the Temple" can be seen as a parable of Leviticus 14: 33-53 concerning a house with leprosy. The Temple was so corrupt it needed to be "cleansed". It was another brilliant and very dramatic move on his part. And that challenge sealed his fate.

The point is that the clergy need to be involved with the Occupy Movement, as should people of all faiths because it is directed against the temple and landed elite of our day: Wall Street.