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Introduction:
Blessed are the Peacemakers
Derek Poole
Comment
Mark Houston
From
the Director
David Porter
Peacemaking
Arthur Chapman
Gentleness:
An attribute of Peace
Graham Cheesman
A
Long Road to Healing
David Porter
All
Taigs are Targets
Neil Smart
God's
Holy Warrior
Alwyn Thomson
Book
Reviews
Alwyn Thomson David Porter
FROM
THE DIRECTOR
Events, both recent and those still to confront us, can leave no one in
any doubt that peacemaking is difficult. The 'Good Friday' Agreement came
about on a day on which Christians recall the true cost of making peace
in a sinful and rebellious world.
In the act of making peace with us God paid the price. While we were still his enemies, at war with him and without any declaration on our part to end hostilities, God loved us and sent his Son to die for us. Jesus came to this world not to condemn but to save.
This he did by becoming one of us, sharing in our humanity and, while without sin, identifying with our sinfulness, taking our place in satisfying the justice of a holy God.
When Jesus says love your enemies, he knows precisely what he is asking of us. When Jesus declares blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God, he is mindful of the journey outside the camp he is inviting us to share with him. When we choose to follow this Jesus his way of love and peace is a costly commitment to a new spiritual order.
For Christians our defining identity in the search for peace is our citizenship in the Kingdom of God. The good news of Jesus is the good news of the rule of God in our lives. The values of this world are turned upside down. We remain resident aliens in this world and our Christian engagement with society is not to make western liberal democracy or any other system work better, but to demonstrate a new way of being.
At this moment in our community it is important that we respond with this spiritual perspective to a process and document which bear both human inspiration and human frailty.
This is the only way that we can be open to the best the agreement offers and address the legitimate concerns it presents.
From God's perspective we are a community marred by violence and murder, death and destruction, hatred and bigotry. Our only call to God is for mercy. Many have been wounded and scarred by injury and loss. Great evil has been done.
There is legitimate hurt, pain and anger as a result. Yet there also lurks bitterness, vengeance and the desire for victory.
These are difficult issues to face. It is a fact of our fallen world that many of the great injustices must be left to the final day of reckoning. Paul exhorts us to leave vengeance to God.
And on this great day who can stand? For Jesus tells us that it is not only the murderer and adulterer who are guilty but also the one who is angry and lustful in heart. Few of us have resorted to violence, but we have allowed ourselves to harbour a sectarian spirit and enmity towards our neighbour.
Biblical faith responds to the ambiguity of sinful human existence with grace and compassion. God's unmerited favour is the only basis any of us have for a new start. God's unlimited love, the only hope for a future life in which the scars can begin to heal.
Is this not our problem? We want those who have done wrong to earn what can only be freely received — forgiveness. We are afraid of the demand to change placed on us when we learn to love our neighbour and enemy as God loves us.
Only hearts softened by such grace and love have the real capacity to weep with all those who weep and mourn with all those who mourn for their great loss in our tragic conflict.
David Porter - ECONI's Director
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