Occupy Faith

WHY A SHIFT?
Faith Based Com­mu­nity orga­niz­ing has a fine history—from Gamaliel through the Jere­miah Project, through Brook­lyn United, on to PICO and more than I couldn’t pos­si­bly name or remem­ber. Appre­ci­a­tion is the most appro­pri­ate atti­tude and stance. Appre­ci­a­tion can also deepen and lead to a shift in strat­egy, and that is what is hap­pen­ing now in many parts of the country.

The time famine has inten­si­fied for many clergy and for their dwin­dling con­gre­ga­tions, mak­ing it imper­a­tive to switch direc­tion. The old orga­niz­ing model had churches bring­ing their inter­nal parish strength to exter­nal com­mu­nity action. This model wrongly equated the strength of con­gre­ga­tions with the “num­ber” of peo­ple in the pews who could be con­vinced to hold a protest sign. Now, it is time for a model that embod­ies mutu­al­ity. We clergy and con­gre­ga­tions need the community’s help. We need the community’s energy to assist parishes so that parishes may assist com­mu­ni­ties. We need the outer to touch the inner. That shift in direc­tion is hap­pen­ing of neces­sity, due to the extra­or­di­nary pres­sures on parish clergy. It could also hap­pen by design and improve us all. One Cana­dian min­is­ter said, “The churches saved the arts dur­ing the Mid­dle Ages, today the arts need to save the churches.” This com­ment resem­bles the direc­tion we might desire instead of rue.

I came to this real­iza­tion slowly, with some resis­tance. I often felt “used” by the rent-a-collar approach of many com­mu­nity and labor orga­ni­za­tions. I often felt I had some­thing dif­fer­ent to give than what they wanted. They wanted “my” peo­ple in their picket lines. They wanted num­bers. I increas­ingly had decreas­ing num­bers, espe­cially of ded­i­cated peo­ple, most of whom knew their own time famine, while work­ing three jobs, rais­ing chil­dren, and try­ing to keep their mort­gage pay­ments above water. I real­ized that to be of use I had to get the num­bers of peo­ple up in “my” pews before I got them “up” in their picket lines.

Plus, what I really had to give was not num­bers but spir­i­tual sup­port. Orga­niz­ers seemed to feel so burnt out, so despair­ing, so use­lessly util­i­tar­ian. They wanted some­thing from me and my peo­ple that we couldn’t give—when all the while, what we had in resources to com­bat despair, they ignored. They wanted a con­trac­tual arrange­ment, and what I had was covenan­tal. Now when orga­niz­ers knock on my door to have yet another “one on one”, I tell them to come to church. I invite them to wor­ship. I ask about the state of their soul. I don’t promise to pro­duce numbers.

To explain this shift in direc­tion, let me illus­trate with a project that is com­ing out of Occupy Faith. We are devel­op­ing a tran­si­tional project, one that goes inter­nal and exter­nal dynam­i­cally, rather than going from one false polar­ity (inner to outer) to another (outer to inner). We want to change how con­gre­ga­tions and com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tions get real power—a change which will help with the time famine and the hous­ing famine and the hope famine. We are call­ing it a “Rolling Jubilee.”

WHAT IS A ROLLING JUBILEE?

A jubilee is a bib­li­cal prac­tice of can­cel­la­tion of debt on behalf of just pros­per­ity for all, includ­ing the soil. It is rest from mak­ing money and gain­ing power—on behalf of human com­mu­nity. It is a new kind of faith based com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tion, in which we Roll the Bib­li­cal Jubilee, that auto­matic and nor­mal for­give­ness of debt, and in which faith based orga­niz­ing returns to its base in faith. It doesn’t stop orga­niz­ing so much as it deep­ens the rea­sons that we must orga­nize. We turn toward the urgency of the suf­fer­ing of our peo­ple, in order to release our great hope in each other and in bib­li­cal power. We start with questions.

Did you know that debt can­cel­la­tion is the bib­li­cal norm, not excep­tion? Does your faith feel fraud­u­lent as you live in a polit­i­cal econ­omy that enjoys debt and its abuse? Check out Deuteron­omy 13, or 5; and Exo­dus 20, 21, or 23. Find out what Mus­lims and other inter­faith part­ners think about debt. Or, lis­ten to Jesus in Luke 7, 11, or 16; or Matthew 6 or 18. You will dis­cover why you feel so much like a stranger in a strange land. From that alien­ation you will con­nect to oth­ers, many of whom feel sim­i­larly alien­ated. In your con­nec­tion, power will emerge.

The rolling jubilee is a cam­paign that buys debt for pen­nies on the dol­lar and does away with it. It is a release from the shame of being in debt. Many are ashamed of their stu­dent debt. Even more are ashamed that their mort­gages are under water or that they have credit card debt they can’t pos­si­bly pay. What peo­ple don’t real­ize is that many national banks (as opposed to some local banks and credit unions) make out well by this shame. They make it look like it is our “fault” that we aren’t rich or famous, all the while gain­ing inter­est on the government’s debt and our per­sonal debt, while wag­ging their fin­gers in absurd lev­els of shame and blame.

The time famine comes from inter­nal­ized cap­i­tal­ism. We’ve sim­ply been doing what “every­body does,” valu­ing what “every­body val­ues.” Instead of blame, for­give­ness is a good place to start. Way too much of faith based com­mu­nity orga­niz­ing has an ought to attached to it. Rolling the jubilee is amay. You may for­give your­self for inter­nal­iz­ing cap­i­tal­ism. This spir­i­tual repen­tance becomes a per­mis­sion (out of which grows an inter­nal­ized ought or com­mit­ment) to enter our dif­fi­culty with hope and con­vic­tion, not with shame or blame.

New direc­tions for faith based orga­niz­ing fun­da­men­tally dis­avow the pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of com­ing to a meet­ing, of “show­ing up”, of “being counted.” We hope most that our peo­ple will be relieved of shame on behalf of some­thing like free­dom. From that free­dom we believe they will uproot inter­nal­ized cap­i­tal­ism, first in their own souls, then in their con­gre­ga­tional life, then in their com­mu­ni­ties. Few can afford to go to any more meet­ings or read any more emails or make any more phone calls. Inter­nally “tilted” com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tion does not require a lot of meet­ings that no one can man­age to get to. They are richly demo­c­ra­tic and open sourced. They involve the viral and the pos­si­ble by ask­ing us to engage our friends and fam­i­lies, not peo­ple we don’t know or can’t know.

Story telling is the essen­tial and impor­tant first step. Tell your story of money, power, and debt. Tell your story of repen­tance too. Were you so ashamed that you lost your job that you didn’t tell any­body? Who are your peo­ple and what is the story of your people’s jour­ney through the lands of money, debt, and power? Do you have stu­dent debt? Do you have despair about what it bought you or can buy you? Are you under­wa­ter in your mort­gage? Have you found a way out of shame about not being rich, in a land where that is the 11^th commandment?

Tell your story, when­ever, wher­ever, how­ever you can. Engage the peo­ple around you. Lis­ten to their story. Think of the pop­u­lar NPR ‘Story Corps” and you will see where this is going. A national web site—a People’s Inves­ti­ga­tion of Money, Debt and Power—is now up.

While telling sto­ries, don’t ask your faith leader to attend another meet­ing. Ask him or her to lead sto­ry­telling in your con­gre­ga­tion and to link your sto­ries to oth­ers. We imag­ine a great con­scious­ness rais­ing expe­ri­ence, where aha moments go viral. “I thought I was the only one in this con­gre­ga­tion with crush­ing debt.” Aha, I am not. “I thought I was the only per­son who thought I was bad for not being suc­cess­ful.” Aha, I am not. “I thought I was the only per­son who knew that the sys­tem was rigged and that money in pol­i­tics had destroyed the Amer­i­can dream and the dreamers.”

Of course, sto­ry­telling alone is not going to cre­ate the kind of change we seek, but it’s a good place to start—and it will reframe how we gather. Sure, we will still have to meet, put feet to the ground, and do the hard work of orga­niz­ing. But because of this focus on spir­i­tual need and sto­ry­telling… because of a reframed the­o­log­i­cal and per­sonal under­stand­ing of the “why”… and because of new strate­gies to attend to people’s busy, crowded, and exhausted lives… this kind of orga­niz­ing, we hope, will be life and energy-giving.

As a next step, begin an inter­nal con­ver­sa­tion about how your parish invests its monies. Divest from the big banks and put your congregation’s money into credit unions. Join up with oth­ers who will do the same—but don’t do so until the sto­ries have seeped into the spir­its of your peo­ple. Don’t just bring your pas­tors to meet­ings. Bring people’s sto­ries to them and release the power of recog­ni­tion. Raise the con­scious­ness and com­bat the great lone­li­ness of sham­ing sto­ries and their mul­ti­ply­ing impo­tence. Or cre­ate a micro-lending fund with some of your congregation’s monies. Exper­i­ment with local solu­tions to a stag­nant, death rely­ing econ­omy. Or buy out some debt. Banks do it all the time—only they sell it and make more money on it. Why not take $5000, or raise $5000, and buy out some debt and can­cel it?

What the national banks need to do is make money on our debt. What we need to do, then, is to make power on our resources: the (spir­i­tual, sto­ry­telling, col­lec­tive) power to change the very bank­ing sys­tem and the eco­nomic struc­tures that per­pet­u­ate unac­cept­able profit mar­gins and the exploita­tion of the most vul­ner­a­ble. It’s called Jubilee and it’s the way our Abra­hamic for­bears man­aged their fields. Faith based com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tions today have to tackle the enor­mous spir­i­tual prob­lems we face. Then we will be strong enough to take a crack at the mate­r­ial ones as well.