19 November 2011

By Raymond Billy | ResonateNews.com

The Rev. Jeremy Nickel was among more than a dozen ministers who linked arms and held candles Monday at what they have blessed as sacred ground. It is Frank Ogawa Plaza, home of the Oakland, Calif., iteration of the Occupy Wall Street movement that began earlier this fall. Ministers from a diversity of faith backgrounds have offered moral support and counsel to protesters there, even winning over their skeptics who believed they might have been trying to subvert the cause with religious grandstanding.

Nickel and 31 others — including 16 clergymen — were arrested early Monday as police sought to break up the Occupy encampment near City Hall for refusing to leave on Mayor Jean Quan's orders. The act of civil disobedience embodies Nickel's theological values, he said. He is among thousands of Unitarian Universalist ministers representing all 50 states supporting the Occupy movement — which was birthed as a lament against what Occupiers say is rampant corporate greed and economic inequality.

Nickel said the movement in large measure civically embodies Unitarian Universalist philosophy. The religion has a history of aligning with egalitarian causes, including gender equality; bisexual, gay, lesbian and transgender equality; and advocacy for immigrants facing deportation in addition to fighting what they deem unfairness in the economic system.

“It doesn't matter how wealthy or how poor you are. Everyone has inherent dignity and worth and the economic system doesn't reflect that,” said Nickel, 35, minister at Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Fremont, Calif. “I'm not for destroying capitalism. But I don't think their should be people who can't afford to put food on their family's table.”

People who belong to the “1 percent” — a phrase used by Occupy protesters to connote the wealthiest Americans — should not be vilified by those seeking economic justice, Nickel said. Instead, they, too, should be viewed as victims of a system that is catastrophic for the many, but corrupting and corrosive to the few, he said.

“Economic beneficiaries of this system aren't benefiting morally or spiritually. We're in (the movement) for them as well,” said Nickel, who was released from jail late Monday. “We want to help them come into relationship and harmony with the broader community they inhabit.”

Jennifer Innis, who ministers at First Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, is also hopeful about the Occupy movement. She said the protests were needed as a wake-up call to those who cite poor people's moral failings as the chief cause of their poverty while letting economic injustice go unaddressed.

“The economy has not helped the working class. It seems like the game is rigged against those who are trying to work their way up the economic ladder,” Innis, 39, said.

Innis attended the Occupy Dallas event Oct. 6 to evaluate the movement independent of the mainstream news media's filter, she said. What she found was a diversity that belied what seemed to be the conventional narrative about Occupiers. Old-fashioned “hippies” demonstrated alongside supporters of Ron Paul, a libertarian congressman from Texas who is currently seeking the Republican nomination for president. As a longtime Unitarian Universalist, Innis found that kind of inclusivity endearing.

What unifies Unitarian Universalists is a belief that all creation is interconnected and interdependent, Innis said. Worshippers are inspired by the profundity of the universe they inhabit, human existence and the capacity of human beings for life-affirming humanitarianism, she said. A Unitarian Universalist may be propelled to such inspiration through a major religion, a more deeply personal spirituality or even science. Their believers may be an atheist or agnostic, Innis said. Unitarian Universalism is among the “other faiths” practiced by 1.2 percent of U.S. adults, according to a 2007 survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The religion represents the 1961 merger between Unitarians — who don't believe the traditional Christian teaching that God is embodied by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit — and Universalists — who believe all human beings will eventually "be reconciled with God," according to the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, or UUA, website.

“If we talk about God, we understand God to be a loving God and our relationship with him is based on love and not fear,” Innis said. “Our relationship with God is a celebration and not based on fear of punishment,” she said, noting that moral language Unitarian Universalists employ is not necessarily centered on theology.

Unitarian Universalists seek to satisfy their intuitive sense that every person has intrinsic worth, Innis said.

“Part of what happens is there's a lot of room for individuals to determine how and why humans have value. Some people find that in belief in God, some find it our interconnectivity as people,” Innis said.

John Buehrens, who was president of the UUA from 1993 to 2001, said the Occupy movement's quest for greater social equity is in line with the faith's values — values that he did connect to God.

“We have a goal of developing a kind of human community where each person can fulfill their God-given potential,” said Buehrens, who is minister at First Parish in Needham Unitarian Universalist church in Massachusetts. “But this is increasingly becoming a class-stratified society. Some people are OK with that because it would solidify their race and class prejudices. The protests you're seeing now are a push back.”

Unitarian Universalists who spoke to ResonateNews.com differed on whether to classify Occupy protesters' struggle to be one against sin. Buehrens said he saw an element of sin in the equation. He said sin is a failure to heed the teachings of the Bible to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” and, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

“The question of whether someone has sinned is based on 'Did you treat your neighbor as a mere object — someone who was useful to you — or as a person?' We actually mistreat store clerks all the time when we treat them as our servants rather than people,” Buehrens said.

But Innis and Nickel rejected the language of sin, particularly where the Occupy movement is concerned.

“I wouldn't call this a movement against corporate sin, but against an economic imbalance that needs to be corrected,” Innis said. Nickel's view was along similar lines.

“The system in place doesn't allow people to be their best selves. I consider that to be evil,” Nickel said. “Unitarian Universalists don't believe in an agent of evil like the devil. We believe in evil structures and systems that don't allow people to flourish. Our goal is to tear down those systems.”

Despite those differences, Innis said Unitarian Universalists generally identify with the Occupy movement's plight.

“Based on conversations I've had, I think most are in sympathy if not actively supportive of Occupy protesters,” she said. “I'm still waiting to see how this shapes up over time and whether it sparks sincere conversation about social inequality.”

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