In a country full of religious people, faith communities need to be present and welcomed for Occupy Wall Street to be a movement that embraces all sectors of society, writes JAY LINDSAY.
Downtown Dewey Square is crammed with tents and tarps of Occupy Boston protesters, but organisers made sure from the start of this weeks-old encampment that there was room for the holy. No shoes are allowed in the “Sacred Space” tent here, but you can bring just about any faith or spiritual tradition.
A day’s schedule finds people balancing their chakras, a “compassion meditation” and a discussion of a biblical passage in Luke. Inside, a Buddha statue sits near a picture of Jesus, while a hand-lettered sign in the corner points toward Mecca.
The tent is one way protesters here and in other cities have taken pains to include a spiritual component in their occupations. Still, Occupy Wall Street is not a religious movement, and signs of spirituality aren’t evident at all protest sites.
Clergy emphasises they are participants in the aggressively leaderless movement, not people trying to co-opt it. Plus, in a movement that purports to represent the “99 per cent” in society, the prominent religious groups are overwhelmingly liberal.
Religion might not fit into the movement seamlessly, but activist Dan Sieradski, who’s helped organise Jewish services and events at Occupy Wall Street, said it must fit somewhere.
“We’re a country full of religious people,” he said. “Faith communities do need to be present and need to be welcomed in order for this to be an all-encompassing movement that embraces all sectors of society.”
Religious imagery and events have been common since the protests began. In New York, clergy carried an Old Testament-style golden calf in the shape of the Wall Street bull to decry the false idol of greed. Sieradski organised a Yom Kippur service. About 70 Muslims kneeled to pray toward Mecca at a prayer service on a Friday.
A Chicago group, Interfaith Worker Justice, has published an interfaith prayer service guide for occupation protests nationwide.
Clergy who support the protests say they are a natural fit with many faiths, because they share traditional concerns about economic injustice. They also point to history, including the civil rights movement and abolition.
“Every movement for social change that has really made a difference has included the power of God, the power of the spirit and the power of people of conscience,” said the Rev Stephanie Sellers, one of the Episcopalian “protest chaplains” praying with protesters at different sites.
Sieradski said his Jewish faith’s commitment to helping the powerless was one reason he was attracted to the movement, but he didn’t intend to establish regular Jewish services. He announced his first event, a Sabbath potluck dinner, on online social networks, not knowing what to expect.
The strong turnout led him to help organise the Yom Kippur service, activities during Sukkot, and what Sieradski hopes will be regular religious events. In Boston, Marty Dagoberto said the Sacred Space was also created in an unforced way, after he suggested the idea at Occupy Boston’s first general gathering. He said the space helps promote a spirit of calm and unity crucial to bringing change.
“I feel like it’s really important for us to stay rooted in love, simply put,” Dagoberto said. Religious elements haven’t sprouted up as visibly in other Occupy Wall Street movements nationwide, said Elizabeth Drescher, a lecturer on Christian spirituality at Santa Clara University, who has visited the occupations in Santa Cruz and St Louis.
She said some protesters are wary because they don’t recognise the authority of institutions, including religious ones, and are generally looking for clergy to be “ministering but not proselytising.” She recalled a conversation with an Occupy Santa Cruz protester while a man in a clerical collar picked up trash.
“(The protester) said, ‘That dude’s here with us. He’s not handing out pamphlets and trying to save me. He’s picking up trash,’” Drescher said.
No comments:
Post a Comment