There’s a fascinating article at Michigan Live about the faith community’s efforts to connect to the burgeoning Occupy Wall Street movement. I must say (and I’m as secular as they come) I did actually describe my three recent visits to Occupy Wall Street to several people as being like “Going to a new church and EVERYONE you meet is friendly and very WELCOMING.” There’s something special going on at Zuccotti Park and if you think otherwise you are… wrong.

It makes sense that a state as hard hit economically as Michigan has been would have clergy so supportive of the anti-capitalist protests. It’s because they know what post-capitalism looks like in Michigan! The clergy truly cater to the poor there, it’s not a joke to them. The support for Occupy Wall Street is even coming directly from the pulpit as the (appropriate) question is asked:

If Jesus were alive today, would he be at Occupy Wall Street movement?

As senior pastor of the nondenominational Fountain Street Church, [Rev. Fred] Wooden delivered a sermon this month which highlighted the similarities between the Occupy movement’s cry for economic equality and the gospel story of Jesus cleansing the temple by casting out the money changers.

But Wooden didn’t stop at words when it came to expressing solidarity with the Occupy movement. The church has allowed the Occupy Grand Rapids protesters to camp in its parking lot at night and is providing other support measures.

It appears the movement has found an ally in the faith community due to their cry for social and economic justice. On Monday, the Vatican’s call for the establishment of a “global public authority” and a “central world bank” to rule over financial institutions was seen immediately as a measure of support for Occupy Wall Street.

“The economic and financial crisis which the world is going through calls everyone, individuals and peoples, to examine in depth the principles and the cultural and moral values at the basis of social coexistence,” the Vatican’s Justice and Peace document said.

—Snip—

Although some have criticized the movement’s message as muddled and diluted by fringe elements taking rhetorical refuge under the Occupy umbrella, Belief Watch columnist Lisa Miller points out that the Jesus of history would have loved them all.

Jesus gave preferential treatment to society’s outcasts, wrote Miller recently in the Washington Post. “Lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes — all would attain heaven before the ordained elites.” And, she argues, Jesus says in the Gospels that the meek will inherit the Earth.
“There would be no Wall Street if Jesus and Mohammad had their way,” said Ghazala Munir, one of the founders of the Interfaith Dialogue Association in West Michigan, during the Oct. 19 panel discussion at Fountain Street Church.

Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners and current chair of the Global Agenda Council on Faith for the World Economic Forum, recently wrote a new book called “Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street — A Moral Compass for the New Economy.”
“Don’t expect the Occupy protesters to produce a list of policy demands, Wallis said. That’s not their purpose. Rather, they are creating space for the fundamental questions about social justice that weren’t being asked before this fall.”

Wallis said Washington, D.C., is not a place where change originates, but where change arrives. If nothing else, the movement has been successful in refocusing the media and politicians on the problem of inequality, he said.

“The Bible says you see the truth of a society more clearly from the bottom and the edges than from the top.”

It’s interesting to read this brain-damaged comments thread at NewsBusters for the opposite side of this issue, including who Jesus would hate, using nukes on OWS, etc, etc.

For more of the flipside of things, rightwing radio fuckwit Michael Savage pukes up some bile on the “Would Jesus Occupy Wall Street?” question: “Jesus was not a communist, that I can tell you!” sez Savage. What kind of bitter, mean old white guys would listen to a radio show like this every day? A few minutes of Michael Savage is enough to be mildly upsetting. He’s a humorless, witless creep who makes Rush Limbaugh seem like a master showman by comparison. Enjoy!