Introduction: Identity
Derek Poole

Comment: What's in a Name?
Janet Morris

From the Director
David Porter

End Game of the End Times
David Porter

We Will Not Have Home Rule
Alywn Thomson

The Lost Field
Tony Davidson

Divine Assumption
Alan Wilson

Walking the Tight Rope
William Storrar

Certificate in Biblical Peacebuilding
Lynda Gould

Liberal Evangelical Post-Unionism and ECONI
Esmond Birnie

O God Our Help in Ages Past
Christopher Catherwood

Transformation
Lynda Gould

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THE END GAME OF THE END TIMES
The part played by national identity in the history of the twentieth century stands only to be surpassed by its role in shaping the affairs of the first decade of the next. Ideas of nationhood and ethnicity have been potent in human affairs since ancient times. Yet never have they coalesced around issues of politics, power, territory, religion and military might to such effect as in the modern world.

Notions of national self-determination and territorial integrity determine how all of us understand the world in which we live and how we relate as peoples to one another. So dominant are these ideas that it is easy to forget it has not always been so. Nor is it necessarily the case that this ordering of the world is fixed for all time.

National Identity

Ideas of national identity are in a constant state of transition, consequently impacting politics, culture and society. Communities sense this and at different points in their history respond either with great energy and confidence or with profound fear for their future. The insecurity and threat this generates results in conflict, commonly called ethnic conflicts, but increasingly referred to as identity conflicts. The vast majority of wars in our world are the violent attempt at resolving such conflicts.

The strong sense of belonging to a people and a place is an inherent part of how God created humanity. We are communal beings who experience wholeness in the context of community. But we are also fallen creatures, who feel threat and in turn threaten, turning the legitimate boundaries of belonging into barriers. Rather than being the interface through which we experience the diversity and creativity of God's human family such boundaries become the fracture lines of difference and division. In place of celebration we have conflict, domination of the other through the misuse of power rather than the powerful discovery of the rich interdependence of God's creation.

So the legacy of these forces in human affairs is deeply ambiguous. Love of people and place inspires greatness. Great music, scientific discovery, visionary leadership, often have their roots in love of nation but are truly great when they have the capacity to transcend such barriers. Yet in the name of people, place and tribal potentates we have the capacity for such violence and horror. Our capacity to cross the barrier to kill what we do not understand, or simply choose to hate, constantly supersedes our worst expectations.

New World Order

Understanding the potency of these issues and the Christian response to them is crucial to the witness of the church around the world. Central to our understanding of all world events is the life and ministry of Jesus. This is the pivotal point of human history. Jesus, what he said, how he lived, was a profound point of transition in the culture and traditions of an ancient people, in a promised land, worshipping a God who had chosen them to be his people.

The core of his message was a call to repentance, to turn to God and be transformed. Key to this transformation was a new world order, the kingdom of God. This was what his people had been longing for. They had been brought to this place to be a witness to the nations of the world, but had experienced failure and exile. Now was a new start, a new era, the 'day of the Lord' in which the world would see the salvation of God, and the hopes of Israel would be fulfilled.

To seek first the kingdom of God becomes the primary duty of the people of God. At the heart of our relationship with God is the prayer 'your will be done on earth as it is in heaven'. This is a prayer for the kingdom, the rule of God, to be evident in the life of the Christian, in the community of the church and in the wider world of human affairs.

But there is a cost. God's people are in every nation, God's land is the new heavens and earth and God is also the God of the Samaritan and the gentile. To worship God is to belong to a new humanity whose homeland is not in this world. To serve God is to be part of his plan for the redemption of the whole world. To follow him is to declare a new allegiance to Jesus as Lord and to engage in a struggle against all that is in conflict with the kingdom.

For Paul, an early follower, this struggle was personal. It was against the forces of the world, the flesh and the devil that seek to destroy the work of God's spirit in our lives. Yet the struggle was at the same time profoundly communal. After all his zeal in persecuting the followers of Jesus had been pure, driven by love of his nation, his land and his God, ancestral voices that spoke only of betrayal in the teachings of Jesus.

The cherished rituals, traditions and national aspirations of his people were seemingly being threatened from within. Yet his encounter with Jesus brought about a transformation in how he understood the proud heritage of his past. Though nurtured as part of the ruling class to which he still belonged, the claim of his people on his energy and loyalty was as nothing compared to the claim of Christ. Now Paul saw no one through human eyes but through the eyes of the love and grace of God.

It is this capacity more than any other which is a test of our grasp of the radical conversion at the heart of Christianity. As people of the end times do we pass the test of the end times? Captured by the love and grace of the living God have we destroyed the dead idol of god, land and nation that continually competes for our allegiance?

Faithful Choices

This test is laid bare in the prophecy of Revelation. The revelation to John comes in a context where the state has become all-powerful. The power and virtues of the Roman Empire had become embodied in its emperor god. The state, in his person, claimed the total allegiance and worship of the people it ruled. In a series of cosmic dramas God warns of the struggle of his people against such forces. They are antichrist, the opposite of all that Christ is and stands for as the lamb who was slain for the salvation of the world. For his followers the end times present choices, and the consequences of making faithful choices are not always pleasant.

We consider ourselves so removed from these ancient worlds, whether the world of ethnic nationalism in Israel or the totalitarian state of the Roman imperial system, that it is easy for us to assume we are immune from the dynamic of their powerful lure. Yet in modern history, totalitarian state fascism and communism, and the ethnic convulsions that grip many parts of our world demonstrate that these issues remain a test of faith for many. And when presented with the need to act in the name of our people, in defence of our land and ultimately in obedience to our tribal god it remains all too easy for Christians to succumb to the temptation.

As we seek to be faithful witnesses in a world that rips itself apart we need consistently to apply biblical tests as to how our belief shapes our belonging. As in all aspects of Christian behaviour we need to begin by removing the beam of our 'acceptable' patriotism before focusing on the mote of other's 'unacceptable' nationalism. In this task three questions serve to unmask our conspiracy to collude with the ancestral voices of our tribe.

God's Side

Whose side is God on? Whose Promised Land? Who are the people? The quest for legitimacy for our side is inherent in any conflict. To claim the blessing of God for our cause is the ultimate sanction for a crusade to defend our territory and to overcome the enemy. Claims to the exclusive sanction of the divine; investing the land of our birth with mystical status that binds us to its cause; the proud declaration that we are the people. All are founded on and fuelled by a sinful distortion of God's good gifts of faith, place and community.

We therefore need to be careful in facing this temptation. The sovereign God is involved in and concerned with human affairs, including the destiny of states and nations. They rise and fall within the operation of his sovereign power and judgement. Sometimes the enemy is actually the agent of God in the judgement of a nation. We have been given the stewardship of the earth as a trust from God, a stewardship that binds us in relationship to a sense of place. God has set each person in a network of relationships in family and community that reflect the cultural diversity of his creation.

But to presume God's special favour for a particular place or people is a prerogative that is not ours. Unfortunately for fifteen hundred years since the conversion of Constantine the church has on too many occasions conspired in this deception. In different contexts it declared the community within which it was placed to be the people of God and so presumed that to belong to Christ who is for us implies that he is also for our nation and against other nations.

In this way Christianity has consistently aligned itself with the state, with political power, with the territorial ambitions of rulers, and in effect reduced God to a tribal deity who fights on behalf of a particular people. The spiritual consequences of falling to the temptation of god, land and nation is an idolatry that has often blinded God's people to the demands of the way of Christ.

The real question we must answer is, "Who is on God's side?" The answer depends on the extent to which we understand that the redemption of God with its profound consequences for how we now live, is ultimately not of this world. It is demonstrated by love of our people, and best expressed by introducing them to a living relationship with Christ rather than giving them the false gospel of national salvation. For God so loved the world, every people in every place, that he sent his son, good news of great joy to all. To be on the side of this God means we too are committed to every human being whatever their national identity, for God loves them and their people as much as he loves our people and us. That's God's grace in action for you.

For God and ...

In Ireland Christians of all traditions have a long history of flirting with the temptation to listen to ancestral voices. The idols of holy Ireland and holy Ulster have long found their place in our hearts. Is it possible for the Christian to be for God and Ulster, or Ireland, or any homeland? Can it be that the sovereign God, a jealous God, has acted in history to break our idols? The god of Eire (united Catholic nationalist Ireland) is demolished on the back of Ulster Protestant resistance? The god of Ulidia (righteous Protestant unionist Ulster) is brought to ruin on the rock of Republican rebellion.

'Christ for Ulster' begs the question 'Is Ulster for Christ?' The hatred vented in the demonisation, verbal abuse and sectarian violence of the last thirty years suggests not. 'Faith of our Fathers' becomes meaningless ritual without a true conversion expressed in faithfulness to the law of Christ. The bitterness, anger, violence and terror vented by those who seek to evade any moral responsibility for the course of events confirms the emptiness of religious labels.

It has often been said that the real division in Ireland is in the hearts and minds of the Irish people. Hearts and minds that have been seduced by the worship of false gods, whispered by ancestral voices. But Jesus is in the business of transforming hearts and renewing minds, calling people to repent for the kingdom of God is near. Such repentance will not necessarily lead to the healing of the land or the nation, for we must not replace destructive idols simply with a baptised model, the flaw of the Constantinian settlement.

The future of Christianity in the coming century needs a more authentically new testament model, a radical gospel of hope, declaring in word and deed the coming of the kingdom of God in our midst. This is the end game of the end times.

David Porter - ECONI's Director