The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

For Occupy Wall Street, Jesus' Third Way *

Seize the moral initiative.
Find a creative alternative to violence.
Assert your own humanity and dignity as a person.
Meet force with ridicule or humor.
Break the cycle of humiliation.
Refuse to submit or to accept the inferior position.
Expose the injustice of the system.
Take control of the power dynamic.
Shame the oppressor into repentance.
Stand your ground.
Make the Powers make decisions for which they are not prepared.
Recognize your own power.
Be willing to suffer rather than retaliate.
Force the oppressor to see you in a new light.
Deprive the oppressor of a situation where a show of force is
effective.
Be willing to undergo the penalty of breaking unjust laws.
Discard fear of the old order and its rules.
Seek the oppressor's transformations.

* This is in Walter Wink, Beyond Just War and Pacifism: Jesus'
Nonviolent Way, in Volume 4, Contemporary Views on Spirituality
and Violence, in The Destructive Power of Religion, Violence in
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, J. Harold Ellens, Editor.
The articles in the four volumes are based on close theological
readings of texts, actions, and hermeneutics, and well worth
reading. I think their relation to OWS is really useful.