Categories: uncategorized
Date: 01 March 2012 16:52:13
Is there space between the territories occupied by institutional organisations on one hand and social movements on the other? What I mean is if we drew venn diagrams could we find an overlap area and if so what does this space look like? Is it useful ground or a desolate wasteland; barely habituated and difficult to negotiate? Or is it something else?
I ask this on one level in regards to political theory, (including social movement theory) and then I pose it in another form using practical theology.
Finally, I want to transpose the two together and as specifically if the UK Occupy movement, particularly the camp at St. Paul's, has helped English Christians locate this space and if so what happens now? Where do/ can/ should we go from here?
Starting then with the political theory...in recent days I have gone back to DiY Culture: Party and Protest in Nineties Britain by George McKay et al. In its discussion of the DiY culture the historical roots/ routes of this mindset/ movement are traced and discussed.
Reading through McKay's book I understood a little more about how Occupy had worked. DiY culture has been incorporated over the last quarter of century by corporate culture (see Dick Hebdige's The Meaning of Style for a full explanation of the neo-Marxist concept of incorporation). The biggest aspect of incorporation has been in relation to festival and rave culture which have now merged to a large extent. Thus, when the original Adbusters advert was put out and then the meme spread everybody not only understood but had a tent in the cupboard (or could pick one up real cheap).
As for the space between institutional organisations and social movements reading through McKay's introduction I have concluded it exists, but only as a debating chamber where ideas are discussed, strategies argued about and blame apportioned. This space is also a barely lit place where networking occurs and understandings can be reached regarding how implicit support can be given without association being attached (this is a two way process).
In theological terms the institution is the church, (in its structural, corporate form) and the social movements are, or over the last two decades have been, the pioneer projects which have emerged through the emerging church and post-evangelical conversations. Whilst Fresh Expressions have sometimes been portrayed as the middle ground they have tended to be firmly grounded on one side or other of the divide.
Thus, in terms of practical theology, I would argue the middle ground has been just another debating chamber - although this one has had an additional function; the apportioning of funding and sometimes personnel.
In both these situations those with access to the middle ground have in practice been practitioners and activists who have held power within either the organisation or the movement OR have been academics who have been seen to have a privileged contribution to make to the debate through their analysis. This is a space where those who do not hold some kind of power, (sanctioned or otherwise) have been marginalised and / or politely ignored.
So what happens if these two come together? Well, looking at the above the result it is likely to be yet another debating chamber. And I want to suggest that on one level we have already created it....it is called Greenbelt/ Solas / Wild Goose according to your cultural and geographical situation. I want to suggest that it is no co-incidence that Giles Fraser who became so prominent during the Occupy LSX saga is a regular speaker at Greenbelt, (as a quick click on the GB talks shows). I want to argue now though that because these festivals existed prior to Occupy, what Occupy actually gave was a specific space for those whose spirituality and understandings of faith in action to be acted out. Occupy, and particularly St. Paul's gave a space for those who had been incorporated into the institution and were on that side of the divide to challenge the very aspects that attract them at least intellectually and often practically into supporting social movements and forms of pioneer mission/ spirituality which are based on the ethos of social movements rather than institutional religion.
So now Occupy LSX is no more and the movement has, as was inevitable, faded where does that leave us? Are we still to be those who spout our ideas on blogs or in books (according to our status, ability and contacts) and just come together for our mutual intellectual masturbation session at a festival each summer? Or is there something to be built on here?
My own answer is I don't know, and personally I only have a fortnight to figure out the answers or preferably have them revealed by God. I know that I am somebody who lives in this grey area; a shadow in the debating chamber who has access but no voice, beyond this little blog which few people read and even less care about.
One of the reasons I have felt called to the MDO is because they too occupy a grey area between the institution and the world - at least in theory. They are an order who have sought to engage by positioning themselves as a bridge between the institution and the world. Yet, the funding mechanisms which put deacons in place seem to mean in reality that the deacon is to some extent caught on one side or the other, (most commonly the institutional side) and that in the real world any wish to occupy the grey area is at best aspirational and idealistic and at worst naive.
Yet, and this is the thing....through stuff like MAZE (the Christian LGBT small group I am involved with in Durham) I have come to see that there is another grey area which is outside of the debating chamber and which is relevant to this discussion. It is inhabited by people who for various reasons are marginalised or feel excluded by the institution and so have to take to using social movement methods of organisation, to some extent, but who actually wish to maintain contact with the institution or atleast some of its traditions and practices. It also, I would guess, includes people who are part of the institution but struggle within it and so need spaces beyond, yet connected, where they can take time out to breathe and develop. I am yet to discover how this relates to the unchurched, (who I would love to connect with and help develop the spirituality of), but I do know how it relates to the dechurched and nearly dechurched. These are the people I feel specifically called to relate to and support - aswell as those who are politically involved in both institutional and non-institutional social movements.
Therefore, I have established my call is to a grey area - but not the debating hall which I have identified. It is yet another grey area, one which I think both the institution and the social movements would rather keep invisible because its very presence is problematic - it is a space which is inhabited by people who are ready to challenge institutional organisations but who do not wish to seperate themselves from them - but have sometimes felt that seperation has been the only healthy choice they could make. At times though these same people will be those challenging others who seek to attack the institutions and label them as irrelevant or evil. It is, finally, a space for people who wish to mix and match their politics and/ or their religion between the institutional and pioneering or social movement forms. I guess it is a space for reformers rather than revolutionaries. Is this grey area one where the MDO operates; can station people in? If yes then I truly believe it is where my call lies and I hope the church, in testing this call, comes to the same conclusion....if not then I know that my future lies as a member of the Methodist Church but not within the MDO and even if the candidating process says yes, I must be ready to say no and look - somehow - to find ways and opportunities to operate within the space I am called - probably involving secular employment and volutary work alongside.
(Sorry this has turned into a ramble, but at the moment it is really important for me to be processing these thoughts and the personal challenges they are presenting me with and this space is where I feel I can do so).