Disrupting Australia: arrested for climate change

Like an Old Testament prophet speaking judgment against Babylon, Margie Pestorius who was arrested taking part in the “Blockade Australia” protests that snarled Sydney traffic last week, speaks against Sydney as an “evil city”

One young woman chained herself inside a car and blocked the harbour tunnel while other groups marched slowly through the CBD. Pestorius was one of those arrested. Two protestors are still in prison.

Margaret Pestorius is a long-time peace protestor – one of a group arrested for trespass at Pine Gap in 2017.

The protesters targeted Sydney because it contains people and institutions with the power they see as blacking action on climate change.

“That blocking of climate justice emanates from Sydney,” Pestorius tells Theothercheek. “The city of Sydney, like Jerusalem before it, is now implicated in such evil that it needs to be addressed. And so I was with a group of people who went there to point out that nothing small , no small actions or no individual action are going to stop the climate crisis at this point, but we need to draw attention to all the institutions and how they’re all working together to obstruct [action on] climate.”

Pestorius and the others protesting under the “Blockade Australia” banner are concerned that

• The Earth is facing catastrophic effects of climate change
• Australia is (still) a significant blocker of progress on climate change.    
• Australia as a settler society was “set up in order to extract and deforest and take from the land and at the expense of First Nations people.”

As one of the Christians taking part in the protest, Pestorius says “we think that we should move away from this precipice and create a world for all, uh, creatures, all creatures of our God and King.”

Taking this stance simply flows from her Christianity. “We perhaps we are something special or perhaps we have a special vision, but I would say that this is not an unusual vision. This is the vision of God. This is the vision that Jesus put forward. It is not a strange vision to want a planet of love and hope that provides for all species without domination. That is not a strange idea that is at the heart of scripture, both in the Hebrew Testament and in the New Testament.

“You know, the people that I work with are not necessarily Christian, but that the vision that they hold out of a planet where people actually love and care for each other and which care for the environment and the creation that we are born into that is not an unusual or strange idea.”

The churches – and the political system is too compliant. Pressed she exempts the Greens and the Uniting Church from her criticism. And gives the Catholics a pass – but describes them as lacking a prophetic imagination.

“Look, I am Christian. So I believe in resurrection and I believe in the spirit, but I think we live in evil times.  

And I think this period, you know, I, I, you know, I stand with the Pope in, in this perspective, you know, that late capitalism is incredibly destructive and harmful to many, many humans and other species.”

Pestorius is connecting with a history of Christians speaking out against evils they see in society. Even when that evil is seen only by a minority. One obvious example is William Wilberforce challenging the institution – slavery – that built wealth for the England of his day.

Another example is Jonathan Edwards, the preacher who headed the revival known as the “First Great Awakening” in America. His sermon “Sinners in the hands of an angry God” denounces the desolation of the earth in language much stronger than Prestorius’.

“Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you one moment, for you are a burden to it; the creation groans with you; the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly; the sun does not willingly shine upon you, to give you light to serve sin and Satan; the earth does not willingly yield her increase, to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon; the air does not willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God’s enemies.”

Edwards criticised the early capitalists of colonial America – to wake from their sins, including environmental ones. It might seem odd at first the bracket Prestorius and Edwards. But the role of a prophet has always been to make us uncomfortable.