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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
LETTERS
October 1999
I appreciate it may not be your editorial policy to publish letters. Even if it is not, I feel sufficiently provoked by a number of aspects of the latest Lion & Lamb that I would like to outline and explain my reaction in any case. These remarks should be prefaced by saying that I found this issue very interesting and perhaps amongst the best produced so far. Nevertheless, I perceive (three) areas which could cause disquiet.
Drew Gibson's 'prophetic word of communal self-destruction'
His theoretical construct is certainly rather courageous but this does not guarantee it is right. What Dr Gibson seems to be saying, if I interpret him rightly, is that there could be a strong analogy between, on the one hand, the state of Judah in the seventeenth century BC and its relationship to the purposes of God and, on the other hand, 'unionist/protestant Northern Ireland' in the 1990s and its place within the plan of God. As a Christian (and an evangelical and reformed one who also happens to be a unionist) I accept that I have to be open to the possibility that Dr Gibson could be right. That said, I want to question both the coherence and applicability of his 'Judah = Northern Ireland' model.
OT Israel was in a special, covenantal relationship with God. Church, state, law, land and temple all had religious overlapping significances. I do not believe the 'unionist people/majority of Northern Ireland' stand in the same relationship to God as did the people of Judah. By implication, whilst the Sovereign Lord can obviously dispose of this land in whatever way he wishes, I doubt if he will impose an equivalent to the fall of Jerusalem/exile as a modern day punishment for disloyalty to the covenant. It would be ironic if Dr Gibson were assuming that the unionist people were indeed the covenantal people of God in Northern Ireland (hitherto ECONI-type writers have tended to condemn as arrogant any unionists or protestants who would make such an assumption). This would be a 'British Israelitism' with a rather cunning twist.
Any attempt to apply an OT model to contemporary society needs to be finely nuanced. The problem is how many of the features of Jeremiah's Judah should be read across? Is the Republic of Ireland really analogous to the bloodthirsty and militaristic Assyria? Mr Mitchel's article (L&L23) suggests not. Is it fair to liken Dublin to Babylon? In contemporary politics who is, or has been, cast in the role of Jezebel or Athaliah? Perhaps I am unfairly reducing Dr Gibson's model to the ridiculous but, once again, there is irony that his approach may overlap in method (if not in conclusion) to the wilder fringe of protestantism and unionism where, no doubt, some believed Mrs Thatcher and, more recently, Dr Mowlam were the latter day bad queens...
...Once again I would emphasise that I found all the pieces in Lion & Lamb very useful. My comments are intended to be constructively critical.
(Dr) Esmond Birnie - UUP Assembly Member South Belfast
Drew Gibson's response to Dr Birnie
Firstly, thank you for taking the time to ponder and reply to what I wrote with grace and humour. This is a much underrated aspect of Christian fellowship for which I am grateful.
Perhaps the simplest approach is to address your criticisms in reverse order. Your third paragraph correctly shows the dangers of drawing simplistic parallels between Scripture and any contemporary situation and the potential for descent into allegory, which you rightly identify, would make for entertaining preaching or great comic theatre but dreadful theology. I fully endorse your line of thought.
Your second paragraph is the foundation on which the third builds and it is here that I seem to have failed to communicate clearly. I was not attempting to argue from within a covenantal framework but rather from a consideration of the inter-relationship between the responsibility of the 'People of God' (however they might be defined) to God Himself and their responsibility to the society of which they are a part.
My contention is that God draws people to himself in order to be a community that, in turn, is his agent for drawing others to himself. In other words, we are elect for the purpose of mission. However, all Christian communities live as part of the larger human community and so have social and political responsibilities that they must embrace as part of their mission. It is the responsibility of the Christian community to embrace its social and political responsibilities in such a way that the mission that God has entrusted to them is promoted.
My belief is that the Christian community in Ireland (both the Protestant community in the North and the Roman Catholic Community in the Republic) have put the cart before the horse by making their mission to the larger community subservient to the political and social ends to which they aspire. Both have substituted a desire for security through the exercise of political and social power for the security of being a servant people. It is perfectly legitimate for Christians to exercise social and political power but if these operate in opposition to the missiological purposes of God then we cannot avoid the conclusion that they must be regarded as, at least, disposable.
The partition of Ireland brought about two states in which the Church claimed the right to exercise political power. In the Republic of Ireland this claim was institutionally made and was constitutionally recognised while in Northern Ireland the claim was informally made and informally exercised. Both Christian communities have failed miserably in exercising their political and social power and therefore my contention is that both Christian communities must be brought to positions of social and political weakness. This is not to be done merely as punishment but so that both might regain some measure of spiritual vitality and usefulness as agents of the missio dei. Could it be that the destruction of Northern Ireland as a political entity is the means by which the Protestant community is stripped of its privilege? Could it also be that the rampant secularising of the Republic coupled with the introduction of one million Protestants into the equation is the means by which the Roman Catholic Church is brought to a state of political weakness from which it might regain some spiritual vigour?
Ultimately, my theological foundation for applying Jeremiah's situation to Northern Ireland is not found in either Jeremiah or in the Old Testament. It is found in the cross. At Calvary the Son embraced all that he abhorred in order to gain that which he most desired. Paul's comments on this in 1Corinthians 1f specifically maintain that this was the embracing of foolishness and weakness in order to express spiritual power, thus setting down the principle of dying to live which pervades the whole of Scripture and is seen in the life of the nation of Israel at its sharpest in the Exile. It is this embracing of death rather than a simple parallel between Jeremiah and contemporary Northern Ireland which I find most challenging.
Drew Gibson - Bangor
Econi MAIL
In response to suggestions received from several quarters, the editorial team has decided to experiment with a new feature. The following are a sample of letters sent over the last year. We welcome communication from readers, and intend to reprint a selection in coming issues. Please write to us at ECONI 1 Brunswick Street, Belfast BT2 7GE.
January 1999
I must admit that I generally skim through my copy of Lion & Lamb quite speedily, though I always appreciate what I read therein at least to some degree. I was able to spend more time with your most recent edition (No 19) and was delighted with it. It would be unfair to single out any one of the contributors, because each of them had something to say, and said it well. What delighted me particularly about the edition as a whole was that the thrust of it was to stress inclusiveness, and its tone of humbly seeking for God's way in Holy Scripture. As Alwyn Thomson said, 'Perhaps both Protestants and Catholics have more to learn about Scripture, tradition and authority than they think.'
As a Catholic, I can only admire the work you are doing, which is God's work of healing the wound's in Christ's body in Northern Ireland. We have no equivalent on the Catholic side, which is deplorable. The work of creating a climate in which genuine reconciliation can take place is a vital work, which requires to be undertaken with the sort of dedication ECONI has shown....
Terence Donaghy - Belfast
January 1999
Thank you for the winter edition of Lion & Lamb (No 19). It keeps getting better. Graham Cheesman's 'Patience' especially speaks to me. How I need to be not only a reader of the Word but a doer also! The article speaks of our 'journey' emphasising that we are not there yet and some of us are farther behind - even farther than others. Roman Catholic friends often use this metaphor of 'journey'. This emphasis I think I am learning from Catholic Christians.
Is the time approaching when ECONI could broaden its constituency to include Roman Catholics? I have come to realise that speaking and listening to Catholics themselves is a very different thing from listening to what Protestants say about Catholics. An emphasis on what we have in common (surprisingly much!) is a vital counterbalance to our concentration on those things that separate us - things regarding which we Protestants rightly have big problems.
Michael Hutchison - Crawfordsburn
June 1999
I have just received and have been reading the summer edition (No 21) and want to thank you for the Biblical stand that you make. It displays such courage. Thank you! My several visits to Ireland have left me with an aching and a longing to see reconciliation. I just want you to know we are standing with you at this critical time in much prayer.
John James - Penarth Wales
October 1999
I have just pulled the last issue (No 22) of Lion & Lamb out of its plastic sleeve, and sat down and read the whole magazine from cover to cover. Thank you for every word of it... I reckon this is one of the finest publications I have read for a long time. The pieces on citizenship raise - and answer - the question of what it is to be 'church' at this point in our history. Lynda Gould's 'Comment' on our values and Graham Cheesman's piece in 'Beauty' are excellent. If this is the face of evangelicalism, I have no fears for the future of the Church in this island.
(Canon) Hilary Wakeman - Goleen Co Cork
October 1999
I read with much interest the articles referring to the anabaptist movement by Alwyn Thomson and J A Sider. Although we want to give recognition to Menno Simons and his influence which led to pacifism being accepted by many within the anabaptist movement, the truth is that early anabaptists held different views on the issues of coercion and Church-State relations, and it must be acknowledged that the anabaptist movement had its own dark side...
...You are right to point out that many of them did have something worthwhile (and relevant to us) to say; you are unfair in not disclosing that militant anabaptists such as Matthys and Van Leyden gave the movement a 'Waco' image. Even Hubmaier (burned 1528) had to argue against militant anabaptists in his day. The 'peace image' of the anabaptist and Mennonite movements is rightly dated from Menno Simons onwards.
(Rev) Stewart Jones - Bangor
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