By ELIZABETH DRESCHER
Religion Dispatches<\/p>\n
On Friday, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and Mark Sisk, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, issued separate letters in response to the ongoing conflict between members of the Occupy Wall Street movement and Trinity Episcopal Church, Wall Street, on whose property OWS has hoped to continue its occupation after having been evicted from Zuccotti Park in November.<\/p>\n
Trinity Wall Street and the Episcopal Church are, it seems, trying to maintain a delicate balance in their approach to Occupy Wall Street, and their consistent ministry to participants in the movement is laudable. Their active chaplaincy, preaching, and material support has been a powerful reminder of the moral role that churches and other religious groups continue to play even as institutional religion becomes more and more irrelevant in everyday life. Indeed, Trinity Wall Street and many other Episcopal Church communities, have made clear that \u201cbeing church\u201d is much more than maintaining a building where fewer and fewer people gather to worship for an hour or so on Sundays. They have illustrated the Christian understanding of the call of the faithful to be Christ\u2019s body in the world throughout the Occupy protests, and this has made me proud to be an Episcopalian.<\/p>\n