Theoblogical

Chris Hedges in TruthDig yesterday:

Trinity had the demonstrators arrested. It chose to act like a real estate company, or the corporation it has become, rather than a church.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/americas_street_priest_20120611/

Fr. D.Berrigan: “It is up to us to take the initiative and hope the churches catch up”

Berrigan believes, as did Martin Luther King, that “the evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and the evils of racism.” And he has dedicated his life to fighting these evils. It is a life worth emulating.

DBerrigan:  “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal” (quoting Emma Goldman)

DBerrigan: The notion that one has to achieve peace of mind before stretching out one’s hand to one’s neighbor is a distortion of our human experience, and ultimately a dodge of our responsibility.

Hedges closes the article with a contrast of Father Berrigan with the rector of Trinity Church Wall Street,  and I encourage you (or pre-warn you)  to read it,  rather than me quoting it  in full.  Needless to say,  it’s not a pretty picture,  and represents the kind of Mammon over Faithfulness contrast to which Father Berrigan stands in stark contrast.

Jesuit priest and war resister Daniel Berrigan, soft-spoken but still eloquent at 91, and journalist Chris Hedges joined members of Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Faith at Zuccotti Park on Thursday morning. They gathered to sing, pray and denounce the continued determination of Trinity Church, an Episcopal parish, to cooperate with the prosecution of OWS protesters.

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/06/ows-presents-a-fracture-of-good-order-for-trinity-church/

To understand why this is no ordinary trespassing case, one must first understand why Trinity is no ordinary church. The legal entity which owns Trinity Church, Trinity Wall Street, is one of the largest landowners in Manhattan, controlling millions of square feet of commercial property, the result of a 1705 land grant by England’s Queen Anne.

The issue of Church and “private property” certainly would suggest that we have a problem with the apparent alliances of Trinity that overshadow those of the idea of being a church “of the people”.  Instead, it seems Trinity follows the money,  the “more realistically promising status of being a tech haven,  and all the props associated with that.  Now,  as a Techie, it’s hard not to be attracted to a “Tech Haven”,  but as a wedge against the social responsibilities of a church’s mission?  The problems rear their heads all over that scene.  Chris Hedges puts it in rather stark terms.  See the link.