Occupy London - Tim Rees' thoughts
The “Occupy” movement has already
gone global. It began as a protest against Wall street greed
and is now becoming the standard bearer for a myriad of political
protests, human rights groups, eco warriors and new age extremists, both
young and old calling for a change in society’s moral
compass.
The Christian church now finds itself embroiled
in the protest with St. Paul’s cathedral now a ‘Occupy’
protest camp that has become central to the media campaign
in the UK. Church officials are now split. The Dean has resigned
after one very thoughtful and clever protester put up a sign
asking the wonderfully appropriate question: what would Jesus
do? The question is beautiful in its simplicity. Suddenly
the church is confronted with its own hypocrisy. I’ll
readily admit I am anti religion and have consistently condemned
Christian religion as hypocrisy for many years. Now, at long
last, others are asking the very same question I have asked
many times in association with a very broad spectrum of scenarios
and they are asking the question on the steps of St. Paul’s
cathedral with the question making the point in a number of
contexts: pressure was building with church officials whether
or not to forcibly evict the protesters from the grounds of
St. Paul’s and the question is equally apt for the reason
the protesters are there in the first place, namely the greed
and avarice of the society within which we live today and
most especially the ethical morality of the financial institutions
that are the cause of the global economic crisis and appear
behave with complete indifference to the suffering they have
caused and, worse, continue with business-as-usual contempt.
Okay, so what would Jesus do? As I said, I am
openly anti religion, but I have never been anti Jesus, whom,
I think, was, probably, a seriously great guy. Anyway I’ll
give him the benefit of the doubt on how likeable he was and
leave that to people who care. Also, whether or not his life
has been recorded with any historical fact is unimportant
to me, but stories written two hundred years after a guy’s
death should be considered with healthy scepticism in my opinion.
What is important is that Christianity is built upon the ‘absolute’
truth of the stories about this great guy called Jesus. When
the question is voiced, “What would Jesus do?”
the Christian church is morally obliged to provide an answer.
To anyone who has read the Bible through less
than rose-coloured spectacles, it is plainly obvious Jesus
was a radical. He sought change and it is important to remember
he was crucified for blasphemy when the church elders decided
they were not going to tolerate his disruptive influence any
longer. In short, Jesus was beginning to affect their authority
and thus power in the community. Systems in society need leaders,
but too often those leaders are short sighted individual’s
who become too attached to the authority and power leadership
offers and will go to extraordinary lengths to retain power.
A key threat to these individual’s is change. Change
threatens their position and undermines their power. They
want to keep things exactly as they are because they like
their life exactly as it is, thank you very much. That’s
fine. That’s normal. It is also completely unreasonable
and unrealistic. One key policy in resisting change is to
root one's authority and power in tradition. The very nature
of tradition is to remain the same and resist change. But
change is vital to life. It is culture that drives a society
not tradition. Culture has to breathe and breathing creates
movement and movement creates change. Tradition simply creates
a stagnant pool that suffocates all life. If we allow leadership
rooted in tradition to lay the foundation for society, we,
that is both, society and humanity, will literally choke on
our own vomit. It is my view radicals such as Jesus are critical
to the survival of the human race, not because he is a Messiah
or any religious nonsense, but because he is a radical. Radicals
shake-up the status quo, they challenge authority and “conventional”
leadership. Radicals are very important because they create
movement and that movement creates change and it is the change
that takes us forward. And I repeat, Jesus was crucified at
the behest of his society’s religious leaders simply
because he identified a need for change. The blasphemy charge
was just the excuse they needed.
So back to the question: what would Jesus do?
But before we answer that question, let me ask another: would
Jesus endorse the Christian church to answer the question
on his behalf? Would Jesus feel shame for the church that
grew up in his name? I would argue, his life became the basis
for a far worse religion than the one he died condemning.
The Christian church is fully rooted in a tradition that continues
to resist change at all cost and is dying a slow death suffocating
under its own retarded doctrine. Remember, it was the Bishops,
Deans, Canons and priests of Jesus’ day who handed him
to Pontius Pilate insisting he should be punished for blasphemy.
Are these the people we should look to when seeking the answer
to the question: what would Jesus do? Shouldn’t we suspect
they are more concerned with their own egos and the churches
reputation and keeping their grand offices and fine robes
rather than asking seriously what Jesus would do? The question
itself is an embarrassment to them and they know it. All ready
we are seeing splits in the church officials ranks as they
wrestle with how best to deal with the question. I don’t
doubt there are some sincere individual’s genuinely
seeking their hearts for the answer, but there are also too
many who claim to speak in Jesus name who are desperate to
sweep that particular question under the carpet. Out of sight
is out of mind. No, let us not trust these men with providing
an honest answer.
So socialism or capitalism? Would Jesus favour
either political philosophy? In my opinion, he would see in
socialism men standing side by side against oppression and
he would identify that as caring for each other, supporting
each other, loving thy neighbour etc… Then he would
look at Russia and China and see how socialism easily gets
confused with communism and how love your neighbour too easily
becomes suppress your neighbour’s opinion and strip
the people of aspiration and freedom of thought. He would
realise how the socialist and communist thought police would
have serious issues with radicals such as himself… He
would look at capitalism and see individuals aspiring to their
potential but getting caught in the money trap. He would realise
how a competitive society quickly fractures as the competition
becomes more zealous. He would be dismayed at how the rich
get richer and the poor poorer, not because the poor haven’t
the intelligence to compete, but simply that not everyone
wants to play and if you are not a player you are considered
an alternative, a misfit and sidelined. He would see in capitalism
the focus is on the wallet and not the heart and men are judged
by the cost of their car and designer suit rather than their
personal sincerity, honesty and simple goodness. He would
look at bankers and be sad traditional institutions could
find pride in these dens of corruption, where men literally
do gnash teeth in pursuit of shifting electronic ‘futures’
around the world with the aim of drip feeding millions into
private accounts and call it ‘honest earnings’
and then proceed to shovel many millions more and call that
bonuses, bonuses that represent many times the amount of the
majority of peoples lifetime earnings… He would be sad
we have learned so much yet changed so little from the ‘moneychangers’
he supposedly cast out of the temple all those years ago.
He would be saddened the church in his name had allowed these
‘moneychangers’ to invest and own the bricks and
mortar of St. Paul’s, a building erected in his name.
He would probably be angry these ‘moneychangers’
held sway over individual’s who preached in his name
and he would probably label the whole debacle a hypocrisy.
What would Jesus do? In my opinion he would embrace the protesters
as brothers and sisters and stand before them and talk to
them and he would command food and water be brought to them
and he would bless them for taking a stand against greed,
corruption and hypocrisy.
And what would Jesus say when he spoke? Well,
in my opinion, Jesus would look at our problems; the bankers
greed, the politicians short-sightedness, the protesters anger
and concerns and not give the troubles much thought. The people
in Europe are okay. They are educated and can stand up for
themselves and should be able to work things out for themselves.
The same for the folks in North America he might say. He may
offer the advice we should, perhaps, care for each other more,
but he would then shrug and say, ‘You’ve got it
pretty good.’ No, Jesus would be looking at places where
the people are really suffering. China, North Vietnam, Zimbabwe
and many more African countries. He would look at Israel and
Palestine, Syria and Iran, Somalia and Congo… He would
be thinking of the 2 year old Chinese girl run down in the
street with people walking by her broken body as if she were
an empty crisp packet. He would cry and he would be in despair
and then he would set about seeking the message of hope for
people caught up in lives of hopelessness… If the bankers
bring western civilisation and the world economy to its knees
and the systems of commerce have to be scrapped and re-thought,
would Jesus think that a good thing? Wouldn’t Jesus
see this as an opportunity for humankind to start again? In
my opinion, the core of his message would tell us our lives
have been controlled by money for far too long. He might say
this is an opportunity for us to throw off the shackles of
possession, of spending valuable lives in pursuit of money
when more is never enough. He would tell us that security
and safety cannot be found in an inflated bank account, only
in knowledge of self. He would tell us that a shiny new car
is not the measure of a man or woman, but the light in his
or her eyes. He might ask us to pity the banker who has rendered
his own millions worthless, not pity him because he has rendered
his own millions worthless, that is his fault and his karma,
but pity the banker because he never realised the millions
had no true worth in the first place. He might ask us to pity
the politician consumed by a need to have power over the powerless,
you and me. Of course, Jesus would forgive. Jesus was big
on forgiveness. But he wouldn’t ask you to forgive for
the bankers and politicians sake, he would ask you to forgive
for your own sakes, so your hearts and souls don’t fester
in anger and hatred. He would ask you to leave the corrupt
to their corruption and let the bankers worry about their
money for they will be swallowed whole by its weight. He may
even ask the protesters to return to care for their families
and leave the rich to stare piously from their mansions for
too soon that mansion will be their grave. He would say leave
the religious leaders to their alters of gold and hypocrisy
and the fine fabrics they have clothed themselves in will
be soaked with the tears of their shame. He would ask each
individual to look to their own soul and ensure each can relax
in conscience as the world will soon be shaken awake and it
will be a new dawn of a new day filled with new hope and new
opportunity when the meek will genuinely inherit the Earth.
The meek are you and me. We are not weak and those who mistake
meek for weak are soon to learn the difference. No, we are
not weak, we are strong and growing stronger. What makes us
meek is we are powerless. We gave away our power too easily
to leaders who have created a society that has betrayed us.
Now we gather together and are taking our power back. The
traditional structures that have controlled us for too long
can no longer contain us. We now take back power and send
the old leaders away to make way for guidance from individual’s
who can show us a new way, a way that respects our freedom, respects our rights, respects our lives and the lives of all
life forms with which we share this planet. But most importantly
we look for guidance from people who respect our power.
Now, before I finish, it is my turn to ask one more
question: would Jesus be a Christian?
Tim Rees
Follow Tim Rees (stillsoul)
on Twitter
Email Tim: tim@lifeisart.co.uk
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