It is easy to conclude that the Occupy movement was a flash in the pan, enacted by disgruntled people without a plan or staying power, a passing whim to be forgotten. This book insists otherwise.
I’m proud to be a part of a movement whose great concern is learning to love your neighbor as you love yourself. And as we move into the new year, I hope those voices of justice will grow stronger—and I wish for some other things as well.
This spring, the most interesting question for me about the Occupy movement isn't whether it will find focus or whether it will revive or whether it will make a difference in the election. What I want to pay attention to is the ongoing and generative outpouring of creative politics.
The Occupy movement is rich in unedited signs. In my mind, creative placarding will forever be its legacy.
What are we doing to combat poverty
in our country and make sure that we join the voices of the prophets who speak
out against injustice? Often denominational churches work hard on these issues,
but we do it within our particular silos and we may not effectively
communicate our work.
After glancing at recent headlines and listening to rumors,
I was under the impression that the Chicago City Council had passed repressive
new restrictions on protests leading up to the G8 summit in May. The
newspapers' pictures of Mayor Rahm Emanuel looked dictatorial. I pictured
Emanuel strong-arming the council into passing a crackdown.
If you want to read interesting on-the-ground reporting on the Occupy movement, you could do a lot worse than following Ezra Silk. The young writer--son of academic and religion blogger extraordinaire Mark Silk--has been traveling around to different protests and covering them from within.
Church leaders can appreciate the challenges
that St. Paul's has faced. Yet there is something profoundly right about
a moral protest in a cathedral courtyard.
