Pussy Riot

Seeing as everyone else is blogging about this, I thought I had better too. There are some interesting lessons to be learned from this case. For anyone who has missed it, Pussy Riot are a punk group who were arrested after singing a song calling for Mary, Jesus mother, to get rid of Putin, in an Orthodox church. For this they were arrested, and have now been sentenced to 2 years in jail.

Now others have pointed out, quite rightly, that the charges against Pussy Riot and those against Jesus are remarkably similar. They were both accused of blasphemy and causing outrage. And the religious authorities worked with the secular authorities to gain condemnation and punishment.

However there is another important question that have been asking is what would happen if this had occurred in the UK. Or America, or any other western country? Well I think it is fair to say that if someone were to get up almost any church in the west, and say "Mary Mother of God, bring down Cameron/Obama" then there might be some fuss, but no arrests.

However, look at the Occupy protest at the stock exchange. St Pauls Cathedral didn't really know what to do about them - welcome them, or refuse them? And it became very ugly. So what if someone were to stand up in St Paul and swear and call for the government and the city to be overthrown, they would be arrested. Their fate would be equivalent to the Pussy Riot members.

The truth is that the church in the west is as married to the economic and political system that we are all involved in. The church, which should be standing as a challenge to the society, is instead far too engaged with the society, far to much a part of it to be a real challenge, or to support a challenge.

"But my church doesn't! My church does speak out!" I hear some people claiming. It is not about single churches, single voices. It is a problem that Christianity, as a whole, is too institutionalised. Single voices, which are important, are drowned out by the larger and louder voice that people hear that deny these truths.

No, the truth is that the church and the secular powers in the west are not really that different from the east. The triggers are different, but the attitudes are the same. Sad to say.