"Last week, I asked if modern political movements, especially on the left, could survive without the church. Social media serves as an outrage machine that can fuel big street demonstrations, but, without any real-world infrastructure, it cannot sustain the momentum needed to make actual social change. Can religious leaders help rectify this? Or does the decades-long decline of religious attendance mean that the church can no longer provide either a shared vision of how to treat people or the actual people to show up at a protest?"
"Most famously, they engaged in so-called open rescues, breaking into breeding facilities and factory farms, basically kidnapping distressed animals, and then giving them new homes. Hsiung's mission, outside of saving animals, was to get arrested and charged with various felonies so that he could then represent himself in court and argue that helping an animal in distress is legally justified."
Wayne Hsiung has repeatedly risked arrest and jail to improve animals' lives through Direct Action Everywhere (DxE). DxE carried out open rescues by entering breeding facilities and factory farms, removing distressed animals and relocating them. Hsiung sought felony charges to represent himself in court and argue legal justification for rescuing animals in distress. Social media can fuel demonstrations but lacks sustaining real-world infrastructure for long-term change. Religious institutions could provide communal structures and shared moral vision to support movements, yet decades-long declines in attendance raise questions about the church's capacity to mobilize and sustain activists.
Read at The New Yorker
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