NOT QUITE DONE

This morning I thought I'd leave behind posts about OWS and its relations with TWS, following the example of Bishop George Packard.

This ends my comments about Trinity on this blog; OWS has more important things to confront now. As my fellow arrestees said in the holding cell, "This should be over with them; they had their chance." It was that chance I will miss because I'd seen it grabbed for meaning in the past.

And then I read the post by Jim Naughton at The Lead which quotes and links to a fine article in America, the Jesuit magazine, by Tom Beaudoin, a professor at Fordham University.

Some in Occupy use religious language of “sanctuary” for Occupy in their appeal to Trinity, because we were forcibly evicted from Zuccotti and have been hounded out of other public places since then. A religious organization like Trinity, many argue, ought to appreciate a basic point from the theological tradition: ongoing material space that is artistically curated, ritually inhabited, and safely overseen is essential for an ongoing witness to a more deeply flourishing reality.
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On Saturday I was part of a protest that sought to draw further attention to the appeal to Trinity – as part of the larger drawing of attention to injustice in economic policies in the United States and beyond that has been central to Occupy from the beginning. Several dozen among the protesters went over the fence into Trinity’s property, in a nonviolent symbolic occupation, and were promptly arrested. Among those arrested were clergy and at least one religious, including an Episcopal bishop, a Catholic priest, a Catholic sister, and other clergy and religious leaders, as well as other lay protesters with or without any particular connection to religion.
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At the risk of sacrificing nuance, and for the sake of brevity, let me be succinct: I think we have a very important theological matter before us when Occupy, through its religious-leader allies, is saying to Trinity Wall Street: We in Occupy -- as a multifaith, interreligious, spiritually pluralistic movement that is also and equally a nonreligious, secular movement -- can better meet your mission as a Christian church in this particular time, and this particular place, with negligible negative financial impact (Trinity is a very wealthy community), and with a rare and time-sensitive influence, by using this particular private property to host the next stage of Occupy Wall Street, and let’s meet to talk about the liability issues and any other concerns you have, let’s have that dialogue starting immediately, but in principle we have a substantial theological point worthy of your consideration.

The presumption in this theological claim, which I think is correct, is that no Christian church is – on the very terms of its theological existence – permitted to fall back on the mere invocation of “private property” without also a theological conversation about the spiritual significance of what that concept means and how it is being used.

The church as sanctuary, the church as a place of refuge resonates strongly with me. As I said at The Lead, the question is not whether TWS had the right to refuse the use of their property. Of course, they had the right, but was the refusal by TWS the right thing to do in this situation?

I urge you to read the entire article in America.