Occupy Church?

The “Occupy Wall Street” protests have captured my imagination, and probably not for the reasons you might suspect.  There is a lot to be said for the collective indignance being articulated by the Occupiers in relation to earnings and wealth disparity.  On a side note, for all the voices that speak of their expectations to the contrary, they are revealing that “Gen Y” does possess a moral center.  It may not be your moral center, but they are making moral arguments against the current economic construct.  Now, there is also something to be said for the oddness of much of the protest, and many of the protestors.  Another strike against the Occupiers is their difficulty in succinctly articulating either all that they’re for, or even all they’re against.  They seem to represent a pretty diverse group of interests who seem to share in common a frustration with a financial system they see as constructed by the rich and powerful for the benefit of the rich and powerful.  Well, they seem to share that frustration, and a collective interest in horizontal as opposed to hierarchical organization.  This is actually what interests me most, particularly in relation to the church.

I’m intrigued because the occupiers are embodying a means of organizing I’ve been fascinated by for years, particularly in regards to how it relates to the church.  I was introduced to this idea of a horizontal organization of church by Tom Sine’s Mustard Seed Versus McWorld, and Neil Cole’s Organic Church: Growing FaithWhere Life Happens.  Both suggest a radical rethinking of how we organize church, creating smaller community structures, less dependent on brick and mortar facilities, and allowing for greater spontaneity and liquidity in movement.  In different ways they argue that hierarchical structures have the strong potential to slow the church’s work as those involved commit considerable amounts of time to both the organization and the facilities associated with the organization.  I have to say their ideas held and continue to hold my imagination.  As much as I love church as I’ve known it, and as much as I love being a part of the organization and the family atmosphere of the organization, it has always seemed rather unwieldy to me.  The trouble is I’ve had a hard time imagining what an alternative would look like.  I even tried to find ways to take these ideas from the page to the real world; from the construction of an intentional community to alternative liturgies and ecclesial structures, without much success.  Enter the “Occupy Wall Street” folks and their experiment in “horizontal democracy.”

This is what seems to me to be at the heart of their protests, and the one thing shared in common, a commitment to shy away from hierarchy.  You can see this in their decision making process, attempting to decide by group consensus as opposed to majority vote.  Granted it takes longer and less gets “done”, but by doing so they embody the alternative to that which is the root of their indignance, the power of the few over the many.  I appreciate this commitment to live this philosophy given my interest in the idea of Incarnation.  Given the importance of Incarnation to Christianity, this should get our attention.  Their message in reality is their action.  Because of this the value of this protest thus far, at least as I see it, isn’t in their propositions, but in their actions.  I pray that some day the same can be said of me.