Occupy and St Paul’s Cathedral: another day, another resignation

Yesterday’s post reported that the Revd Fraser Dyer, a chaplain at St Paul’s Cathedral, stood down. His resignation came within days of the Canon Chancellor’s letter, that of the Revd Dr Giles Fraser.

On October 31, 2011, the Dean of St Paul’s, the Right Revd Graeme Knowles, tendered his resignation. Unlike Fraser and Dyer, Knowles was supportive of legal action to remove the activists camping around the cathedral.

Dr Knowles said that

“criticism of the cathedral” in the press, media and in public opinion” had forced his hand and that a “fresh approach” from “new leadership” was needed.

“I do this with great sadness, but I now believe that I am no longer the right person to lead the chapter of this great cathedral,” he said.

Tory MP Mark Field expressed concern that this latest resignation may stiffen the protesters’ resolve in staying put.  The Telegraph reports:

He said: “The whole thing is farcical. You couldn’t make it up. It’s gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. This tented community has been there for two weeks and has hardly brought the foundations of capitalism to its knees.

“Ironically, the only capitalist organisation that has lost out is St Paul’s. I suspect that these resignations will only ensure that these protesters become more entrenched.”

The next paragraph has an amusing Freudian slip:

The Dead of St Paul’s had pushed hard for the church hierarchy to back legal action by the Corporation of London to remove the 200 or so tents from St Paul’s churchyard.

It really almost is the ‘Dead of St Paul’s’ — clerical career casualties are beginning to pile up.

And there has been extended sick leave as well since Occupy started:

Martin Fletcher, the clerk of the works, who had given the initial advice for the cathedral to close, had been rushed to hospital in an ambulance after collapsing from stress.  He is still on sick leave.

Until a permanent dean can be found,

the Rt Rev Michael Colclough, Canon Pastor at the cathedral and a former Bishop of Kensington, has been appointed acting Dean but it will take several months for a permanent replacement to be made.

However, it appears as if the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, will play a prominent leadership role, at least for the immediate future.

Many people will find this a source of amusement as well as frustration.  Like many fellow Anglicans, however, I am particularly saddened and disappointed at this turn of events.  Many faithful, as I have said before, could have predicted this unhappy outcome.  The clergy, however, still do not seem to grasp that with certain groups and certain philosophies, the principle of ‘give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile’ holds true.

I personally knew two or three people who would have made perfectly good Occupy sympathisers, if not protesters. One was a former close friend, my age, whom I knew many years ago and took in for a year or so.  He had a low-paying job and was obsessed with money, understandably. Yet, he had very little to pay me in rent.  I met his mother who took little time in telling me, ‘Watch that he doesn’t steal from you.  He can be very charming — conniving, even.’  A few months later, things started going missing or just ended up being destroyed and put in the bin without my knowledge — until later, that is. But, this chap — an unbeliever, by the way — did not respect private property: ‘Everything should be held in common, everywhere’.  Because he couldn’t afford certain things, he did not think that anyone else should have them, either.

The other man, English, was retired by the time I met him and was on psychotropic drugs to treat a mental health disorder.  Although from a good family and with a well-paid career behind him, he never really felt he fit in, even though he had loving, Christian parents. (He was a regular churchgoer and knew the Bible very well, possessing an uncanny ability to explain the more obscure passages.) So his intention was to stir the pot a bit in a permanent way, even when he had no desire to live with the changes.  I remember he said that his neighbourhood was not diverse enough, that there should be more immigrants to make it ‘fairer’ and ‘more just’. Two years later, he left the area, which was by then much more diverse.  Suddenly, he no longer cared.  Upon his departure, I do not recall that he said, ‘It will be a great shame to leave’. No, he just left as planned and that was it.  Although he had great sympathy for the marginalised of society, he had also been rebellious at school — so he said. He seemed to carry his schooldays grudge with him into old age, as if he were perpetually trying to get his own back on a perceived ‘system’ or ‘society’.

I felt sorry that neither of these chaps could see where they were going wrong.  They were both foisting their visions of change on everyone else as a vengeful, envious reaction to the status quo. Yes, there are times when societal injustice needs to be changed.  The civil rights movement in the United States comes to mind.  However, propose and work for a change because you have a genuine, heartfelt desire to make things better — not through envy or getting your own back.

It seems to me that both these men suffered from envy.  One envied a social position of authority which he didn’t have, even though he had been successful in his own right.  The other envied money and possessions, despite the fact that he advocated for common property.

This is what seems to be the root of the Occupy movement’s lesser participants: envy.  But it does not appear to be a fleeting envy, rather one which gnaws at them day after day.  They want everyone brought down to their chaotic subsistence level.  Increased taxation is an excellent vehicle for achieving this objective.

A favourite story of the Occupiers and their sympathisers is Jesus’s cleansing of the temple by removing profit-making money changers.

But a better one for all of us, including Occupy and its supporters, is the Tenth Commandment (Exodus 20:17), emphases mine:

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

Accompanying commentary on the property aspect of this commandment is as follows:

Clarke’s Commentary:

Covet signifies to desire or long after, in order to enjoy as a property the person or thing coveted. He breaks this command who by any means endeavors to deprive a man of his house or farm by taking them over his head, as it is expressed in some countries … and who endeavors to possess himself of the servants, cattle, etc., of another in any clandestine or unjustifiable manner.

Gill’s Exposition:

The apostle [Paul] has reference to it, Romans 7:7. Several particulars are here mentioned not to be coveted, as instances and examples instead of others. Thus, for instance, “a neighbour’s house” is not to be coveted; “nor his field”, as the Septuagint version here adds, agreeably to Deuteronomy 5:21, a man is not secretly to wish and desire that such a man’s house or land were his, since this arises from a discontent of mind with respect to his own habitation and possessions … nor his manservant, nor maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbours’; which, with the first clause, serve to explain the eighth command, showing that we are not only forbid to take away what is another man’s property, any of the goods here mentioned, or any other, but we are not secretly to desire them, and wish they were in our possession; since it discovers uneasiness and dissatisfaction with our own lot and portion, and is coveting another man’s property, which is coveting an evil covetousness.

Geneva Study Bible:

You may not so much as wish his hinderance in anything.

Envy violates God’s Tenth Commandment and is a sin. Outstaying one’s welcome is a power play for possession of property one does not own and has no right to — a form of theft, potentially, which goes against the Eighth Commandment.  Possible court action against one’s hosts when asked to leave — in this case, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Corporation of London — is another example of envy.

May Occupy have the good grace to thank the Cathedral administration for their patience and move on.