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Comment
Dorothy and David McMillan
From
the Director
David Porter
Good
Living in Bad Circumstances
Glenn Jordan
Readers
Survey Report
Ruth Hutchinson
The
Local Church and The Local Community
Norman Hamilton
Hospitality
for Ministers
Graham Cheesman
Too
Many Partnerships...not enough partners?
Maurice Kinkead
Community
and Conflict...a Restorative Approach
Debbie Watters
FROM THE DIRECTOR
I can vividly remember where I was in November 1989 as the Berlin wall collapsed. Tucked away in Pitlochry Scotland for a Christian leaders management course I lay awake listening to the live reports on radio. Since then we have become accustomed to the political miracle. The last decade of this century has seen remarkable steps taken around the world as seemingly frozen political landscapes have melted in the thaw of a cold war brought to an end by a combination of popular revolt and the internal decay of totalitarian regimes.
We live in interesting times, which in some cultures is regarded as somewhat of a mixed blessing. Harold McMillan famously commented that what politicians dread is events. Somehow we all feel more secure in the certainties of our routine and ideological divisions. There is something deeply threatening to us all when the unthinkable happens and neatly compartmentalised opponents step out of their box and into our shoes!
As Evangelical Protestants we have had something of a hard time over the last ten years. Gone are the certainties of the enemies that defined us. Enter the complexity of a fallen world groaning for the redemption from on high. Liberal democratic capitalism to which we turned in our fight against godless communism may yet turn out to be the real enemy of the faith, corrupting with its materialism from within and growing in opposition to our certainties of faith from without. The monolith of Catholicism cracks and we fear that somewhere in its midst the Spirit may be at work among people God loves and for whom Christ died.
Yet we say we believe in a sovereign God who is active in history. We celebrate that in Jesus, in a seemingly insignificant life lived out in a remote corner of a totalitarian empire, God has dwelt among us and reconciled all things to himself by making peace on the cross (Colossians 1:15-20). We anticipate every week in our worship, in prayer and in sharing bread and wine, that God's kingdom will come, that God's will should be done on earth as in heaven.
It was such a radical faith that sustained the early church in the face of interesting times, from the first day that the persecutor Saul turned up at a prayer meeting to the long days and nights of beatings and martyrdom at the hands of despotic emperors. Life in this world was redeemed by the only reality that mattered - Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). This was the perspective that made it possible to fulfil their Christian responsibilities to government, to the community and to the believers.
This is the context to which we must bring our response to recent developments in Northern Ireland. We may rightly debate the use of the word historic, but we certainly live in interesting times. And the reality is that Evangelicals are not all agreed on the significance of the events which have seen Irish Republicanism embark and continue on a journey from militarism to politics.
As I see it we must not only face this fact but openly and honestly address it. The danger of not doing so is to allow politics to inform our faith relationships instead of faith informing our political responsibilities.
We must not baptise this opportunity to make peace with a kingdom significance that is not biblically warranted. Healing the hurt of our conflict is spiritual work but it takes place in the context where violence and veto, threat and terror has created the culture of hate which continues to mark many lives. Our yearning for the political miracle must confront the reality that the real challenge for peace is not the moment of change but the journey on which this is but one flawed yet significant signpost.
Equally neither should we demonise a process in which many of the choices at this time are primarily a matter of political judgement and not moral appeasement. The early church knew nothing of democracy and was called on to submit to the most immoral of regimes. Faced with being carried into exile by empires that had dealt violently with them, the people of Israel were required by God to work for the welfare of the community they now found themselves among. A desire for vengeance and bitterness born out of pain can too easily take root in our lives, hardening our hearts not only to our neighbour but also to God. The only spiritual remedy is to be found in the forgiveness and love of God, where God's justice is embraced by God's mercy.
The problem with interesting times is that they test the commitment we have, not only to do justice and to love mercy, but also to walk humbly with God and each other.
David Porter - Director, ECONI
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