St. Mark's Church in the Bowery and Social Churches by Pei Jie Gao

            

            This is a picture taken in front of the St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery on March 21^st. It is a beautiful church located in the East Village of New York City with rich history. However, it was the banner that says “Black Lives Matter” that really caught my eyes. Churches were usually viewed as a religious institution and as a place to worship. Increasingly, churches took on social issues and became an avenue for social justice as well. The St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery had certainly done so through a quiet but powerful banner.

The St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery is an Episcopal Church, a denomination traditionally associated with the Anglican Church in England. Recently, the Episcopal Church in the United States clashes with their Anglican peers on social issues such as gay rights. Thus, it is not surprising to see that as a member of the Episcopal Church, the St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery would actively engage with social issues. According to the church’s blog on the Huffington Post, the banner was put up last year, after the decision not to indict Daniel Pantaleo, who choke Eric Garner to death in Staten Island. The Church participated in the social movement “Black Live Matters”, and intended to use its populous location to speak out against the “racist system”, according to Rev. Winnie Varghese of St. Mark’s Church. She quoted the Bible “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out”, and the St. Mark’s Church intends to be the stones that cry out against the injustice for the oppressed.

Throughout this semester, there are examples of religious institutions or individual steps into the public sphere and address a social issue;  Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, and the Universalist Unitarian Association and LGBT rights. These successful religious movement all have roots from religious teachings. St. Mark’s Church arguably played a similar role in the Black Live Matters movement. Indeed, the church does not play a prominent role like MLK or the UUA at their respective movements; it did not organize a march on Washington or a rally in Charlotte, but merely puts up a banner. Nonetheless, it is unfair to disqualify or reduce the importance of St. Mark’s Church as an agent of social change because of its relative passive approach to social issues. In my opinion, the success of any social movement depends upon making people aware of the issue, and the Church had done it through the banner; it has caught my attention and perhaps many others that walked by East Village every day. Smaller things may seem insignificant, but it could eventually become a force that drives social change. For example, how many people in the 1950s would have thought that Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat would eventually lead to Civil Rights for African Americans? We cannot know with certainty what the influence of this small step taken by St Mark’s Church will have on the future of the movement, but we should be glad that it has done something to promote a right cause.

On the other hand, there will be a relevant discussion on whether it is the role of the St. Mark’s Church to take on a social issue.  Some might argue while the Church had done a good thing, it acted outside of its boundaries. As we learned earlier in the semester from Robert Bellah, there has always been a conflict between the public and private spheres in the United States. Sometimes it is not welcomed for a religious institution to declare its position on a social issues, especially controversial ones.  The St. Mark Church tackled a relatively “safe” issue and there were not any meaningful backlash, as most people would agree that racism is wrong nowadays. However, making a stance on some “challenging” issues such as LGBT right could incite public outrage, and even criticism from religious peers. As previously mentioned, the Episcopal Church of United States was censured by the Anglican Communion due to its progressive view on LGBT right. Another example can be seen from our class, many students seem to dislike the USCCB’s defense of marriage and denial of LGBT rights, because it did not fit with the classes’ general opinion on the issue and the USCCB was playing the villain role in this case. After all, it seems religious institution needs significant courage to take on the role as a social institution. Thus, I would argue the banner is not a small act, but a significant symbol of bravery of the St. Mark’s Church.

I believe religious institutions will continue to exert its influence on social issues, as it has always done so, despite secular pressure. There are many churches like St. Mark’s Church, and I am sure there will be more churches to shift into a social institution. It is not a bad thing for the society, despite sometimes opinions from different churches might conflict with the general public. After all, religious institutions are part of the society just like any other secular institutions, and their voices should be heard as well. We will debate and argue on many issues, but that is the essence of a democratic society, we cannot ignore the voices of religious institutions simply because we do not like what they are saying (however, exceptions should be made for extremist group like the KKK and ISIS). Religious institutions had been powerful social institutions that drive positive changes in the past, and hopefully new generation of social churches like St. Marks’ Church will continues to do so.

Reference: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-winnie-varghese/the-stones-cry-out_b_6271452.html