Why I Support #OWS as a Reformed Theologian

By W. Travis McMaken
 
Occupy Wall Street and the move­ment it spawned (#OWS) pro­claims that our social life together in the United States has been trag­i­cally under­mined by the con­cen­tra­tion of wealth and polit­i­cal influ­ence in the hands of a few, thereby dis­en­fran­chis­ing the many. The author under­takes to expli­cate dis­tinct emphases of the Reformed tradition—such as ethics, covenant, and  the prophetic tra­di­tion in scripture—to show how these dis­tinct prin­ci­ples ought pre­dis­pose a Reformed Chris­t­ian to take #OWS seri­ously as a way in which God is call­ing the church back to faith­ful and active love of God and neighbor.
 
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photo of public general assembly among occupiers of wall street

Gen­eral Assem­bly meet­ing, from Wiki­me­dia Com­mons, by David Shankbone

Recent months have wit­nessed a remark­able explo­sion of protest in the name of social and, specif­i­cally, eco­nomic jus­tice. The Occupy Move­ment has raced to the fore­front of our national con­scious­ness by stak­ing out two fun­da­men­tally demo­c­ra­tic prin­ci­ples: (1) pub­lic space is for the pub­lic, and (2) free speech includes the free­dom to crit­i­cize the pre­vail­ing social order. This move­ment began rather mod­estly in Man­hat­tan with the Occupy Wall Street chap­ter, but quickly spread across the nation, fueled by increased media cov­er­age and by mis­guided and unnec­es­sary police vio­lence. Because the move­ment began there, and because it is sym­bol­i­cally sig­nif­i­cant for the movement’s mes­sage, I will refer to the whole move­ment as “Occupy Wall Street” by means of its Twit­ter hash­tag, #OWS.

What is #OWS’s mes­sage? The chat­ter­ing class[1] has worn out many key­boards in the attempt to under­stand this phe­nom­e­non. Although under­stand­ing has increased, it remains com­mon to find folks com­mit­ted to the notion that #OWS has no mes­sage. That is false. #OWS’s mes­sage is remark­ably sim­ple: “cap­i­tal­ism is bro­ken, and it has bro­ken our pol­i­tics as well.”

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#OWS con­sti­tutes a revolt against what any truly demo­c­ra­tic sys­tem of gov­ern­ment ought to reject, namely, the con­cen­tra­tion of vast eco­nomic resources in the hands of the few and the con­se­quen­tial con­cen­tra­tion of polit­i­cal influ­ence in those same hands.
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The fuel that launched #OWS is the deeply held con­vic­tion, backed up by innu­mer­able stud­ies and sta­tis­ti­cal data points, that wealth dis­tri­b­u­tion within the United States is increas­ingly unjust, and that this con­cen­tra­tion of wealth in the hands of the few (in #OWS nomen­cla­ture, “the 1%”) has pro­duced a break­down in the polit­i­cal process, mar­gin­al­iz­ing the polit­i­cal voice and will of the many (in #OWS nomen­cla­ture, “the 99%”). In all this, #OWS’s moti­va­tion and mes­sage seems to echo that of Abra­ham Lin­coln in his address at Get­tys­burg, when he called the nation to join him in his resolve “that gov­ern­ment of the peo­ple, by the peo­ple, for the peo­ple, shall not per­ish from the earth.”

At the end of the day, #OWS con­sti­tutes a revolt against what any truly demo­c­ra­tic sys­tem of gov­ern­ment ought to reject, namely, the con­cen­tra­tion of vast eco­nomic resources in the hands of the few and the con­se­quen­tial con­cen­tra­tion of polit­i­cal influ­ence in those same hands. #OWS is the con­science of our democ­racy, which has increas­ingly lapsed into an oli­garchy of un-democratic privilege.

Reformed The­ol­ogy and #OWS
Although there is much within the Chris­t­ian tra­di­tion that would incline one toward sup­port of #OWS, there are cer­tain dis­tinc­tives within the Reformed the­o­log­i­cal tra­di­tion that pro­vide an extra push in this direction.

Ethics
Per­haps most per­ti­nent is the tradition’s eth­i­cal empha­sis. As John Leith once noted, the Reformed tra­di­tion insists “that the Chris­t­ian is not only a for­given per­son but an eth­i­cal per­son. This empha­sis is reflected in the the­ol­ogy, wor­ship, and polity” of Reformed churches.[2] Reformed Christianity’s eth­i­cal focus finds its clear­est the­o­log­i­cal expres­sion in what John Calvin called “the third and prin­ci­ple use” of the Law (specif­i­cally, the Ten Com­mand­ments or Deca­logue).[3] Rather than serv­ing sim­ply to restrain evil or to drive non-Christians to despair and thus con­ver­sion, Reformed Chris­tian­ity teaches that the Law also pro­vides believ­ers with instruc­tions describ­ing the sort of life that God wants God’s chil­dren to live.

This Reformed prin­ci­ple points to the close rela­tion­ship between what the­olo­gians call the “two tables” of the Law, that is, the Decalogue’s early com­mand­ments con­cern­ing life with God and its lat­ter com­mand­ments con­cern­ing life in com­mu­nity. Jesus built on this twofold aspect when he iden­ti­fied the two great­est com­mand­ments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength … You shall love your neigh­bor as your­self” (Mk 12.30–1).[4] This pas­sage high­lights the inex­tri­ca­ble link between the two tables of the Law, between love of God and neigh­bor. Any activ­i­ties (wor­ship, prayer, etc.) or dis­po­si­tions that express or pro­fess love of God are mere resound­ing gongs when they are divorced from active love of neigh­bor. In this same vein, Matthew 25.34–40 teaches that active love for one’s poor and oppressed[5] neigh­bors is para­dox­i­cally iden­ti­cal with love of God. For my own part, I am con­vinced that the Reformed tradition’s eth­i­cal empha­sis implies that a Reformed Chris­t­ian ought to sup­port a move­ment that aims to under­mine the wealth and polit­i­cal priv­i­lege enjoyed by the few that keeps many in our nation poor and oppressed.

Covenant
Built into the tradition’s very fab­ric, this eth­i­cal empha­sis finds its the­o­log­i­cal foun­da­tion in the deeply Reformed idea of covenant. Indeed, this idea is so sig­nif­i­cant in the Reformed tradition’s the­o­log­i­cal his­tory that there are branches of that his­tory described as “Covenant the­ol­ogy.” At the most basic level, “covenant” describes how God and human­ity relate. God stands on the one side, a supe­rior party, and enters into rela­tion­ship with human­ity on the other side, an infe­rior party. This rela­tion­ship involves mutual respon­si­bil­ity, and is best encap­su­lated in God’s state­ment to the Israelites: “I will … walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My peo­ple” (Lv 26.12). The covenant depends and is built on God’s sav­ing activ­ity, which gives God the right to demand obedience—and eth­i­cal action—from those whom God has saved.

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These are not rec­om­men­da­tions for an individual’s pious atti­tudes and char­i­ta­ble activ­i­ties. Jus­tice must be estab­lished at the gate, where the elders sat in ancient towns and cities to hear dis­putes and ren­der judg­ments.
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This covenan­tal rela­tion­ship extends to all human­ity. Although much of the Reformed tra­di­tion has either explic­itly or implic­itly lim­ited covenant mem­ber­ship to those who actively share in the Chris­t­ian faith, there is also a ten­dency within the tra­di­tion (e.g. Hein­rich Bullinger) to under­stand the covenant as a rela­tion­ship that God has with all of human­ity, not just with believ­ers. John Riggs help­fully explains Bullinger’s posi­tion as fol­lows: “God is dis­posed kindly toward all humankind, want­ing their sal­va­tion and thus want­ing them to take up respon­si­bly their side of the divine-human rela­tion­ship.”[6] Reformed the­ol­ogy, there­fore, pushes us to rec­og­nize that those who actively pro­mote the love of neigh­bor have begun to assume covenan­tal respon­si­bil­ity before God, even if they have not yet awak­ened to faith and explicit love of God. Move­ments such as #OWS thus point Reformed Chris­tians back to their own covenan­tal respon­si­bil­ity not only to prac­tice love of God, but also and inescapably to prac­tice love of neighbor.

Con­tinue read­ing on the next page…

4 Responses to Why I Support #OWS as a Reformed Theologian

  1. Avatar of Todd Ciofi Todd Ciofi says:
    March 2, 2012 at 12:00 pm

    A Response to Travis McMaken’s “Why I Sup­port #OWS as a Reformed The­olo­gian”
    Todd V. Cioffi
    Calvin Col­lege
    Grand Rapids, MI

    Pro­fes­sor McMaken pro­vides a help­ful assess­ment of the recent “Occupy Move­ment” (here­after cited as OWS). No doubt many of us are con­fused as to what exactly this move­ment is all about, and clar­ity is hard to find. And as is often the case, main­stream Chris­t­ian voices are either unhelp­fully pre­dictable (affir­ma­tion of any­thing that seems like “social jus­tice”) or unchar­i­ta­bly nar­row (rejec­tion of any­thing “lib­eral” or “pro­gres­sive”). Con­se­quently, McMaken’s analy­sis of OWS is most welcome.

    I appre­ci­ate McMaken’s attempt to pro­vide a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of OWS. Wealth (mis)distribution in the U.S. is obscene and the inor­di­nate influ­ence wealth plays in our polit­i­cal processes is uncon­scionable. At its best, then, OWS is a move­ment with laud­able moti­va­tion and cause. And McMaken is just right, in my mind, to claim that the Reformed tra­di­tion can sup­port and develop the best of OWS.

    As noted, shot through the Reformed tra­di­tion is moral con­cern for cre­ation, soci­ety, and jus­tice. And McMaken rightly high­lights key aspects of this con­cern: a pos­i­tive use of the Law, covenant, scrip­ture, and a con­cen­trated com­mit­ment to the oppressed. Any Reformed Chris­t­ian who does not see and embrace this has shirked her voca­tion. McMaken, then, calls Reformed Chris­tians to their bet­ter selves. Indeed, every (Reformed) Chris­t­ian (and per­son of good will, no less) needs to pay atten­tion to OWS and join in sol­i­dar­ity by address­ing dis­par­i­ties of wealth and polit­i­cal stand­ing in this country.

    At the same time, how­ever, if OWS is mostly, if not solely, tar­get­ing the assumed evils of cap­i­tal­ism, then there is more to be desired. And as to whether Pro­fes­sor McMaken is sug­gest­ing this is not clear. Near the end of his essay, McMaken quotes Hel­mut Goll­witzer, noted as one of Karl Barth’s “most sig­nif­i­cant stu­dents.” Goll­witzer asks about the rela­tion­ship between “Chris­t­ian exis­tence and cap­i­tal­ism,” appar­ently con­tend­ing that Chris­tians can­not defend a social sys­tem that rests on cap­i­tal­ism. Such inter­pre­ta­tion seems to fol­low given that Barth thought cap­i­tal­ism is an acid of soci­ety. For Barth, demo­c­ra­tic social­ism, which is as much a state­ment about eco­nomic order as it is about polit­i­cal life, should be more appeal­ing from a Chris­t­ian van­tage point than other “sys­tems.” Along this line, McMaken claims that Gollwitzer’s ques­tion is the ques­tion that OWS puts before the church. If indeed it is truly just a ques­tion, then the church, and espe­cially Reformed Chris­tians, would do well to con­sider care­fully the ques­tion before us. Yet, not far below the sur­face of Gollwitzer’s con­tention, I sus­pect, is Barth’s denounce­ment of cap­i­tal­ism as, in Gollwitzer’s words, “intol­er­a­ble.” Even if I’m right about this inter­pre­ta­tion, why does this matter?

    If the prob­lem is cap­i­tal­ism, espe­cially as rep­re­sented by Wall Street, and the solu­tion is the dis­man­tling of Wall Street and cap­i­tal­ism, then I’m not sure we are sig­nif­i­cantly bet­ter off in the long run than where we are now. An “either-or” is rarely a good way to tackle a com­plex prob­lem. Yet, such an “either-or” does seem to be in play at the national level when it comes to OSW and Wall Street. (Even if that isn’t a com­pletely accu­rate descrip­tion, it does seem to be the per­cep­tion.) Going back and forth between either the virtue or the injus­tice of cap­i­tal­ism isn’t get­ting us any­where, nor will it. Frankly, the ques­tion shouldn’t first and fore­most be about cap­i­tal­ism, but, instead, what does a good soci­ety look like?

    My con­cern is that as a soci­ety we are so often at a loss for how to have the con­ver­sa­tion about what counts as a good soci­ety. In other words, I’m not con­vinced the prob­lem is that of cap­i­tal­ism per se, but is one of moral cap­i­tal. What moral resources do we have avail­able in order to have the con­ver­sa­tion, indeed debate, about what a good soci­ety looks like? What social prac­tices can we point to as ones that will form and guide us in seek­ing the good life? How has the church been, or can be, a source for the good life in America?

    I think OSW is a good thing for us as a soci­ety. But not nec­es­sar­ily because they’ve pointed out the evils of cap­i­tal­ism (surely we’ve known about the evils of Amer­i­can cap­i­tal­ism for some time). Rather, I think the oppor­tu­nity that has been cre­ated is that of ask­ing the hard ques­tions about the moral con­tent and direc­tion of our soci­ety. I sus­pect that a Wall Street banker is not inter­ested in hear­ing about the ram­pant evils of cap­i­tal­ism. But I won­der if we can get that banker to sit down and talk about the good life and a good soci­ety. It may even be the case that we could envi­sion a good form of cap­i­tal­ism, Wall Street bank­ing, and so forth. And here is where I think the church, and no doubt Reformed Chris­tians, have an edge.

    Our churches are often under­stood as moral com­mu­ni­ties, albeit imper­fect ones, by many peo­ple in our soci­ety. Let’s cash in on that per­cep­tion. Instead of tak­ing pre­dictable sides, what if Chris­tians refused ide­o­log­i­cal agen­das and sought to fos­ter an atmos­phere where we as a nation could enter­tain pro­found moral ques­tions about our soci­ety? I’m reminded of an exam­ple, given the past month of Feb­ru­ary and Black His­tory Month. Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. was adept in the lan­guage of jus­tice and the like. But, he was most chal­leng­ing and most inspir­ing when he sought to see our soci­ety not sim­ply as more just but more in line with the Beloved Com­mu­nity as given in John’s gospel. Bet­ter than jus­tice is love, bet­ter than equity is mercy and care. The church is skilled in such lan­guage and ways of life. While not leav­ing jus­tice and equity behind, let the church seek a more per­fect way. OSW may just have given us our chance.

  2. Jeremy John says:
    March 2, 2012 at 3:27 pm

    Hey Travis,

    Great post. I’ve linked to it from The Occupy Church.

    I affirm your posi­tion that Chris­tians are to be in the move­ment but not of it, as it were. The Scrip­tures pro­vide us with amaz­ing resources for under­stand­ing wealth and I pray with you that we begin again to take them seriously.

    Peace,
    Jeremy (@glassdimlyfaith)

  3. Dale says:
    March 10, 2012 at 10:51 am

    Todd,
    YOu wrote: “No doubt many of us are con­fused as to what exactly this move­ment is all about, and clar­ity is hard to find”. What Travis has done here is to make plain what is indeed EASY to find if we just ask. There’s a bit of the “hands over ears say­ing LaLaLa” thing hap­pen­ing with this meme of OWS not hav­ing a clear mes­sage. It’s EASY to find. Just ask an Occu­pier. Also, Travis has done a great job here of tying together the the­o­log­i­cal issues at hand.

    • Avatar of Todd Cioffi Todd Cioffi says:
      March 20, 2012 at 1:57 pm

      Dale, my open­ing para­graph is an attempt to sup­port Travis’s help in pro­vid­ing clar­ity on the OW move­ment. Also, while acknowl­edg­ing that Travis has helped in mak­ing things clearer and pro­vid­ing a help­ful the­o­log­i­cal frame­work for us, I want to ask a few ques­tions hav­ing to do with cap­i­tal­ism and what exactly churches should be doing. As to just how “easy” it is to be clear what the OW move­ment is all about, I have my doubts. Such move­ments are never “easy” to under­stand fully. It may be a mat­ter of some putting their hands over their ears, but not com­pletely. For instance, one thing does seem clear: folks want the greed of Wall Street to stop. But then what? What kind of soci­ety is actu­ally envi­sioned by the Move­ment? That’s not clear, at least not to me. And here, as I note above, is where churches can play a sub­stan­tial role in help­ing to cre­ate a moral vision for society.

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