What Would Jesus do?

What, I ask you, would Jesus do? In part, I ask this question because I really need to get a WWJD bracelet for a friend, and I’ll forget if I don’t bring it up every so often. More importantly, I ask this because, once again, the Christian Church has managed to put her beautiful foot in the middle of a growing controversy, and is now struggling to get free.

I say growing controversy. What I mean, of course, is the Occupy LSX (that’s London Stock eXchange) protests currently camping outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London. This may not be quite up to major controversy yet, but in some circles it’s causing a stir, and I quite like discussing the Occupy movement, so I’ll count it as one, and you can disagree later.

For those who have been living in some sort of hole (America, Australia, or anywhere that isn’t Britain, really) the Occupy LSX protestors were driven back from the stock exchange itself on the first day of their protests, but managed to find a nice bit of grass to put their tents up on in the grounds of St Paul’s Cathedral. St Paul’s tolerated their presence temporarily, with the Reverend Dr. Giles Fraser (who’s a bit liberal and weird, even for the Anglican church) even preaching a sermon that some might describe as supporting the Occupy protests. However, the higher authorities in the church decided to close the church due to health and safety, and the trouble began. Suddenly, the church was discussing throwing the protestors out (as were the City authorities), and old Giles decided to resign due to untenability. A few days down the line, and at least one other person has also resigned, if I understand the situation correctly, and the protestors have been asked to leave.

So what would Jesus do? It’s a question that has been raised many times, mainly by supporters of Occupy LSX, and the usual answers tend to hint towards ideas of siding with the protestors. And this is an extremely plausible answer. Going right back to Reverend Dr. Giles Fraser’s sermon on the story of giving to Caeser what is Caeser’s, we can see immediately that Jesus was not interested in money. Indeed, Jesus thought that money, while not bad, was certainly very unhelpful. “You cannot serve two masters”, he helpfully tells us, and the most common interpretation is that he is talking about money, although, depending on the sermon, the answer could also be cars, work, drugs, and of course sex. This is the Christian church we’re talking about.

Equally, there’s no doubt that Jesus was a revolutionary. He threw the moneylenders out of the temple in a very dramatic manner, and was certainly considered dangerous enough by the authorities to be killed. However, more interestingly, he was also a man of peace, who rode into Jerusalem as King of Kings on, of all things, a colt or young donkey. He certainly did not lead the revolution that the Jews of the time expected, and it’s suprising that his influence fizzle out as soon as he died, considering his sum contribution to the world was a bit of theological wrangling about what happened after people died. But he came as a messenger of peace, and of course, parallels can be drawn between the peaceful protests (supposedly) that Occupy is producing.

But is this the full story? Would Jesus approve of the protests? I don’t know. While he clearly demanded that the world’s priorities change to suit God’s priorities, would he really have wanted so much of a lynch mob? We can all accept that Jesus came to save the poor and the needy, but surely his main aim was to minister to all of the persecuted? It was, although don’t call me Shirley. Admittedly, calling the bankers, stockbrokers and other assorted members of the new world order that is the financial industry ‘persecuted’ might be pushing things, but I think we can settle for vilified. Certainly, one cannot entirely fault them for merely following the gifts that God gave them such as their ability with mathematics and numbers. Indeed, we could argue all day if they were ‘only following orders’, a phrase which has echoed through history, with many terrible ideas attached to it.

More importantly, are they to blame for the main thing the protestors are so angry about, which is the consumerist society? I would certainly say not. That is a culture that we must all blame ourselves for, and I am fairly sure that Jesus would give short shrift to those who would blame the whole issue on others. The parable about the brothers with specks and logs in each other’s eyes comes to mind. You might struggle to blame the bankers for the commercialisation of, say, Christmas. We’ve all lusted after that cool RC car, or the amazing doll that really wets its nappy.

So I don’t know. Jesus is Jesus, and, while I strive to be more like him every day, I’m still but a fallen sinner. I suspect he would disagree with the handling of the whole situation, and I’m sure he would be shocked that the church are actually about to serve an eviction notice. However, I doubt he’d be one of the protestors, either, or if he was, the movement would have a lot more focus on helping others, rather than blaming the rich. More likely, I imagine him acting with the church, and washing people’s feet, helping them, providing them with facilities that they might struggle to find elsewhere. Indeed, much like the Reverend Dr. Giles Fraser, I can imagine Jesus being the one to invite the protestors onto neutral ground, and offering them a spot of fish sandwich.

The Anglican church today believes strongly in the power of the spirit, and this means that we are all going to have views based on our intepretations of the scriptures and the world around us. However, it seems to me that the church is failing to respond to a brilliant mission opportunity, and I can honestly say, I am disapoint.

On a slight tangent, has Bishop Sentamu said anything about this whole situation? He’s usually fairly quick to react to things like this. I haven’t really heard much since he went and camped in the church for lent. Is he still around?

Occupy, and Worshipping an Ideology

Dr. Liam Fox

Rejoice, people! Soon we will be freed from the bonds of corporate oppression, the healed from the scars of injustice and greed and given back our freedom, our lives, our humanity. Yes, the Occupy movement has taken grip of the world, and they will bring about change, if only in the amount of leeway the police are going to give to demonstrators. And what are they fighting? They are fighting our old arch-nemesis, the cruel and villianous face of Capitalism.

I can’t say I followed the story massively. Apparently it was quite large in America, and, of course, the internet’s various forums are burning with righteous indignation against the fact that ‘hackivist’ (read bored pubescent teenagers) group Anonymous had something to with the whole operation. However, it hasn’t really hit the worldwide scene until Sunday, when, all of a sudden, people from all around the globe attempted to occupy their national stock exchange and perform the various actions of the free love dance that they learned about from their parents who went to Woodstock. And at this point I suddenly perked up.

Now, while I don’t necessarily agree with capitalism as an economic theory, I am of the opinion that I cannot see a better alternative, and it generally works if there are enough checks in place. However, to see so many people campaigning against this age-old ‘enemy of the people’ was more than slightly heartening. I am of course sure that most of those shouting, waving placards, and taking drugs in the wild demonstrations are simply attending for the chance to meet ‘fit birds’ and other such vulgarities that we must accept from the feral underclass. However, one had to understand the power of so many people, while small against the measured, considered, and completely impartial opinions of such political figures as Dr. Liam Fox etc, is important to show that we do not, as a society, and as a group of Western powers, believe that Capitalism is perfect.

Let’s face it, the form of capitalism that we use now isn’t perfect. We saw that in the crashes of the 2000s. When economics breaks down most often is when we have to consider the population at large. However, our current system is a lot better than anarcho-capitalism, the ultimate destination of true free-market capitalism. The problem here is that suddenly we take humanity out of consideration completely. While anarcho-capitalist (AnCap) ideas generally bring about extreme efficiency, much of that efficiency is based on a sacrifice of the rights of the human population. Indeed, it is hard to see in a true AnCap society how lawlessness, poverty and slavery do not develop, at least in the underclasses, while the rich stay rich and in control.

However, the ‘traditional’ solution is communism, and we know from experience that complete equality is something to be worked for, not given, if it is aquired at all. To find perhaps the most obvious example of this, we should travel back to the days of the Berlin Wall, and the Soviet influence over East Berlin. Here there was a direct contrast between the one-size-fits-all ideas of communism, where everyone was equal and government-owned, but choice was extremely limited, and the pick’n'mix attitudes of capitalism, where there could be huge disparity, but competition ensured that there was constant innovation.

So we know now that neither of these ideals work in their extreme limits, and we’ve been able to move on, perhaps still tainted by our memories of the Cold War and war of ideologies, but nonetheless ready to try out what the future offers us. And that has lead us to the various melded forms of socialism and capitalism that we see around us. Many western countries have some sort of healthcare, and almost all have a handouts system, but in the same way, no western country is complete without a stock exchange controlling their finance situation. So we balance these ideas in the way that seems most appropriate.

But what the danger is, and what the Occupy movement is reminding us about, is the way we can fall into the trap of worshipping our chosen ideology. Let’s not forget that the current meld of ideas has produced a major financial collapse. But stock exchanges are treated, in some circles, as centers of worship for all that is good about society. The problem here is that we are worshipping something imperfect.

We have a tendancy to worship many things in our lives. The usual ones are cars, food, drugs, a better lifestyle, public opinion. We pander to the needs of these ideals, and look up to them, with adoring eyes, jumping on every bone offered, and ultimately attempting to become the best, most fanatical worshipper. It is, if you will, human nature. The problem is that, all too often, when we worship the imperfect, it breaks down. And this is something that, when it happens, can cause great damage to the worshippers. An example of this could be Stockholm Syndrome – with nothing else to put their faith in, a victim can end up worshipping their captor. Upon release, they have to deal with the major psychological issues of finding out that the thing that they worship is not perfect.

So what Occupy are doing is reminding us that our current economic beliefs are not perfect. They are probably still acceptable, workeable, useable, but not worshipable. They are not worthy of our unadulterated praise and belief. They are merely our tools. Even if we do eventually find a new idea or system to make everything work slightly better, we should remember this: Economics is not to be worshipped. It is to be used.