What would Jesus Occupy?
by Canon Dr Angus Ritchie
Until this month, the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” was largely associated with campaigns against pre-marital sex. We have the Occupy LSX Camp to thank for putting this same question at the heart of our national economic debate. From a Christian point of view this is a welcome move, as Jesus had considerably more to say about possessions than about sex.
It has become commonplace to disparage “liberal” Christians for adopting a “secular” agenda of concern about politics and economics – and to contrast them with more “orthodox” believers, whose concern is doctrinal and sexual purity. This contrast may make a good news story, but it involves a fundamental distortion of the Christian message.
The Bible condemns promiscuity because it detaches physical intimacy from commitment and mutual care; from the building of a common life in which adults can be cherished and children can be nurtured. As Maurice Glasman has observed, there is a sense in which our economic life has also become promiscuous. For our globalised financial system has become increasingly unaccountable to any notion of the common good.
Do we treat the material world as a divine gift, entrusted to us that we might grow in love for God and neighbour? Or do we make it into an idol, pursuing pleasure and profit regardless of the effects on those around us? A truly orthodox answer to that question has implications for boardroom and bedroom alike.
“What would Jesus do?” One thing he did was to found a Church. For all its failings, the institution of the church is inseparable from the teachings of its founder. It is fashionable to decry institutions, but an institution – be it a church or a family, a scout group or a union – is simply a set of people who pledge to be faithful to one another, to nurture and sustain relationships, in pursuit of a common good. The alternative to institutions is isolation. And as the Occupy Camp is discovering, any attempt to share a common life requires some kind of organisation and structure.
Institutions are central to any serious, long-term transformation of an unjust financial order. Institutions rather than isolated individuals have forced London’s banks to pay their cleaners a Living Wage. London Citizens’ Living Wage Campaign is an outstanding example of the market being held to some kind of moral account. Churches and mosques, unions and tenants’ groups have forced these companies to do something they had claimed was impossible. The campaign has now secured over £70 million for low-paid workers across the capital. In consequence, thousands of parents no longer have to choose between having the time and having the money to look after their children.
Pretty much everyone agrees inequality is too great, but the gap between rich and poor continues to grow. As I have argued elsewhere, the challenge is to turn aspiration into action – and the greatest will to change lies in the communities at the sharpest end of injustice. The energy to tame the market and win a Living Wage has come from their religious and civic institutions. Those same institutions are also campaigning for an end to exploitative lending, in a modern-day application of Biblical teaching on usury.
There is no room for triumphalism here. God often seems to use those outside the Church to recall us to our central mission. The seriousness with which Muslims take Qu’ranic teaching on usury has challenged us to re-engage with texts we had ignored or neutered. And it is the Occupy Camp, not preachers or theologians, who have placed Jesus’ teachings and his Church centre-stage at this time of economic turmoil.
Canon Dr Angus Ritchie is Director of the Contextual Theology Centre in East London and a minister at St Peter’s Bethnal Green and Keble College, Oxford
The Centre is launching a range of resources for congregations to engage with the camp, and the issues it raises – they will be online at http://theology-centre.org
These posts are by guest authors for Fulcrum