As a Christian, and a writer of book-length manuscripts, I am typically on the trailing edge of current events. I tend to want perspective and a sense of other people’s opinions before I advance my own. I have been trying, recently, to catch up with the news cycle, but the results of my efforts have been mixed. I didn’t blog about Troy Davis until a few hours after he was killed. I didn’t arrive at The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear until five minutes before the rally was over. I was blogging about that experience for a month. By the time this gets posted (where it might, eventually, be read by a hundred people), the #occupywallst folks may have found the focus they have so far been lacking. They may even have issued their one demand. But I hope not.

For one thing, to be leaderless and without demands is to act like anarchists, and, as you may have gathered, I love anarchy. But that is not the only reason I hope they will continue to eschew leaders and demands. Or maybe it is, I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that the last thing this country needs is a liberal Tea Party, and the moment the 99% start making demands is, in all likelihood, the moment they can be dismissed as the 49.5%.

To my way of thinking, the two demands they have been making from the start are sufficient: the right to assemble and the right to make their voices heard. They are demanding to be allowed to do what Egyptians did in Tahrir Square–peaceably protest the powers that be–only with no fear of reprisal because this is America, right? Except that yesterday (okay, the day before—I’m a slow writer), 700 of them were arrested in a brilliantly coordinated effort by the police. This after video surfaced last week showing a white-shirted police officer macing a couple of noisy women and then walking away. So long as the protesters continue to make such demands and so long as their rights are subverted or denied, their movement will continue to grow.

Sure, they’re on Wall Street because they have a beef with the 1%, and they would be more comprehensible to the media and even to their fellow citizenry if they established some clear objectives in regards to how exactly they wish to curtail corporate greed, but I’m unconvinced that the benefits would outweigh the risks. As far as I can tell, their conduct thus far has been exemplary. They have behaved as a large group of individuals rather than like a mob, and I’m afraid they’ll mess that up by attempting to speak with a single voice.

Nevertheless, I understand the desire. In Tahrir they issued one demand over and over again: Mubarek must go. If nothing else, it provided them with an identifiable moment when it was time to say, “Thank you, goodbye!” But I don’t think the choice of demand is quite so clear in this case. An obvious candidate is that corporations be stripped of their personhood, but even that is more complicated than it may seem. On the other hand, it’s fun to wonder what the country would look like if we could somehow accomplish the larger goal of stripping politics of money.

I can hardly say that with a straight face–it seems so unlikely as to be impossible–but just imagine.

A lot of people down there are wearing the same Guy Fawkes mask worn in V for Vendetta. The money quote from that film, in case you haven’t seen it, is “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” I’ve said elsewhere that I’m a pacifist in practice but not in theory, but in this case, I’m a pacificist in theory, as well. Nonviolence is the only effective weapon against disciplined forces with superior firepower. If you can nonviolently goad those forces into taking violent action against you while refraining from responding in kind, you’ve won. You may be dead or severely injured, but you’re also victorious, and your sacrifice may inspire some of the rest of us to get up off our couches and into the street. On a personal note, I’m sorry that it might take such sacrifice on your part to convince me to come join you.

I pray it won’t come to that. I pray that the protest will be a time of good fellowship between differently-minded but equally passionate people, that ideas will be honed and seeds planted for a larger movement that truly represents the 99%, and that it will succeed in stoking the fires of outrage in the American people.