Occupy Wall Street is not the Civil Rights Movement. I'll go ahead and say it so the conservatives who wander by won't freak out and miss the entire point. Arguing by analogy is always difficult because analogies are difficult. One only need rememeber the ridiculous analogies offered by conservatives during the non-Ground Zero mosque fiasco. Best example was probably Gingrich: "Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington." One of the dumbest things ever to leave the lips of Freddie Mac's Professional Historian...
So, this is an analgous argument. OWS is like the Civil Rights Movement in a couple areas. Two of those are in the reactions to OWS, both by middle of the road evangelicals and fundamentalists, as well as by the police forces nationwide. When the Tea Party movement rose to prominence, protestors showed up with guns strapped to their hips or toting rifles, all in support of a nebulous threat to 2nd Amendment Rights. In spite of the threats of violence—yes, a visible gun at a protest counts as a threat, and if you don't think so, ask why an invisible gun at a bank robbery counts as armed robbery...—the police forces never reacted with violence against the protestors. No one was thrown to the ground and forcibly disarmed. No one was pepper sprayed.
The reaction of the police to OWS, including the possibility of collusion between Homeland Security and mayors nationwide (that should worry you, folks), has been appalling. The coordinated efforts of police forces on separate coasts marks the response as manipulated at a level above local, which is not to say Wall Street Bankers were manipulating, only the politicians who work for them. Some of my Christian friends have been horrified by the images of seated protestors being pepper sprayed, women being dragged by their hair, and unarmed protestors beaten with batons. Many unfortunately have not. It is indefensible for people who worship a messiah who innocently suffered violence to support police efforts to batter and pepper spray peaceful protestors into compliance with a status quo that supports no one but people with more money than they will ever need, more than their grandchildren will ever need.
Dr. King was compelled to write his Letter from Birmingham Jail because white clergy had taken out an ad in The Christian Century calling his protests "untimely." The clergy asked why King and the SCLC did not give the new city administration time to act. King famously wrote:
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
King also reminds his readers—pay attention, theology nerds!—that Reinhold Niebuhr cautions us that groups are always more immoral than individuals. Niebuhr was a Christian realist in terms of his political philosophy, especially with his understanding that the inclination of groups in power toward injustice creates the necessity for a realistic response in terms of government and Church action. It's possible for one among the bankers to have a conscience, and to his credit, Peter Schiff spent time talking to the protestors. I can't say as he did that the anger is better directed at Congress, lobbyists, and the sort of cronyism that infects Washington. I think the anger is deserved for Wall Street and Washington. However, he does make a good point that capitalism does offer more hope and opportunity for those who will pursue their goals. As someone who writes and teaches for a living, I'm pretty happy with the opportunities provided by "the market," but unlike Schiff, I have no messianic hopes in "the market." Also, Schiff is one voice in an otherwise immoral group. This group will not surrender power. Only the unwise ignores Noam Chomsky when he warns us of the media's ability to distract, and the media outlets are owned by the corporations that are targeted in the protests. If that sounds like conspiracy theory, just be patient.
Liberal churches and the occasional evangelical church supported the CRM, but the American church had two far more frequent responses: support of the status quo or, especially in the South, outright hostility to the movement. The Church tends to be behind when it comes to issues of systemic justice, and to be fair, some of the liberal churches would do well not to run so far ahead of the others until proper theological debate has taken place. It's possible to err on both sides of justice issues. My concern here isn't to say that Christians should uncritically support OWS. However, the misinformation spread by media outlets and the repetition of straw man arguments by opponents of the movement make it necessary to ask one thing in particular.
How can you oppose a movement you know so little about? Is it not possible they are right about some things? Is it possible that a system that rewards the super rich and makes life difficult on the poor is not a just system? Is it possible that crony capitalism favors the super rich in government? Is it possible your vote isn't worth as much as the millions of dollars funneled into campaigns by corporations? Is it possible that SCOTUS fucked us all utterly in the Citizens United decision? And if you don't know what that is, shame on you for being opposed to a movement that does understand the implications of that decision.
Being a person of faith at least requires a commitment to economic justice. That's not the easiest term to parse, but a bare effort would be appreciated. Surely you didn't miss every verse in the Tanakh about oppressing the poor and favoring the rich. Surely you've read James. Civil religion creeps quietly into the grammar and vocabulary of a church, and it redefines theological concepts along nationalistic and economic lines. Once the switch in vocabulary is complete, the grammar absorbs the practice and makes support of the status quo normative for the pursuit of faith. This is surely not what Jesus had in mind when he was crucified by the one percent. The Jesus of justice is rendered impotent by a Church that would offer him as a messiah who resists revolutionaries on the principle that people should just get a job and be quiet. No one gets crucified by keeping the rich rich or defending the status quo. That person becomes a bishop or a megachurch pastor.
God is in favor of OWS, not because God gives two shits about us (and I mean the concept God here, clearly), but because if there is a concept called God, she surely favors those who don't accept the status quo when it's skewed against the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed. James Cone rightly said African-Americans are right to kill a god who is on the side of the oppressor. Dr. King preferred to believe in a God of justice, and he was executed. Of course he was. Revolutionaries go to the cross; defenders of the status quo go to work.
And for you white folk, here's a familiar voice:
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
