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Introduction:
Political Compassion?
Derek Poole
Silly
Games with Flags
Alwyn Thomson
From
the Director
David Porter
Church
and Society
Lesley Carroll
Education
Mike Wardlow
Social
Development
Doug Garrett
Environment
Tom Clarke
Wilson
on Suffering
Alan Wilson
Finance
and Personnel
Stephen Roper
Enterprise,
Trade and Investment
Lawson McDonald
Faith
and Practice - Esmond Birnie
Megan Halteman
Higher
and Further Education
John Gillespie
Health
and Social Services
Brian Coulter
Agriculture
Jack Patterson
Culture,
Arts and Leisure
David Boyd
The
Essential IVP Reference Collection
Embodying
Forgiveness
ECONI Conference
Not
of This World?
New Book
CHURCH AND SOCIETY IN A CHANGING NORTHERN IRELAND
Disorientation and PersuasionAll around us there is change, change that is difficult to come to terms with because of the up and down nature of the peace process. The good news of the gospel remains unchanged but falling church attendance and a rising dismissal of church opinion in the public domain disorientate the church as it seeks to communicate the message of the gospel. Reflection on the relationship between church and society is, therefore, the search for effective, biblically based models for communicating the gospel. Within the churches we are persuaded that nothing can separate us from the love of God. We are also persuaded that principalities and powers, if not encountered by the gospel, can subvert and dull society’s ability to hear the good news. In a changing political context the challenge to the churches is to find effective ways of bearing witness to the unchanging gospel. In the context of Northern Ireland the new political arrangements and their impact on churches cannot be seen apart from the broader context of increasing secularisation. Secularism is descending upon us like Niagara and our instinct is to retreat, regroup, protect and consolidate. It is my contention that to retreat or self-protect is to set the church on a road to certain failure. By failure I am not thinking about fewer baptisms, marriages, worshippers on a Sunday morning etc. I am thinking, rather, of a failure to make the mystery of the gospel known in a world that prefers to pick and choose from a plethora of ‘spiritualities’. For the gospel to be effectively lived and proclaimed in a way that calls others to make the choice to steep themselves in the good news of Jesus Christ, the option is undoubtedly to go into a world of strangeness where church people will sometimes feel very uncomfortable indeed. In an increasingly secular world, the discourse of the church becomes alien to the world and inaccessible. Searching for a method of discourse that is both accessible and effective in today’s world is a search based on the conviction that we are persuaded and wish to persuade others of the truth of the gospel. The concern of the churches to persuade others is in no way an attempt to usurp the work of the Holy Spirit but rather a longing to share in the Spirit’s work in the world. Models For Church and Society
The Calvinist understanding of the relationship between church and society develops an understanding of the church’s influence, through the scattering of its people throughout society, to season and shape. The Lutheran model depends on the belief in two kingdoms. Followers of Jesus are people of the kingdom of heaven living, by grace, in the kingdom of the world. Lutheran models have developed a variety of strands, including the witness of the community of the church. The model adopted by the Historic Peace Churches is dependent on understanding gospel principles to permeate all of life. So, for example, members of the Historic Peace Churches take a pacifist stance in times of war while becoming involved to meet the human needs of those caught up in situations of war and conflict. The differences between these models are subtly different, but common to all models is the commitment of the whole church to making a difference in the world. It is out of this common commitment to making a difference that churches seek effective models for relating to society. The world has changed from the one that shaped us and gave us vision. What functioned well for our parents will not, necessarily, function well for us. The challenge, in this changed and ever-changing world, is to find ways to live out our commitment to the gospel in such a way that no one can mistake its input as anything other than one that is essential to the good functioning of society. It hardly needs repeating that the years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland have stalled the process of imaginative reflection among the churches. We are still caught in the tail end of a thirty-year time warp. The time warp affects us, as churches, when we pursue questions that seem to matter to no one else. The world looks on and sees a tedious group of people intent on in-fighting, caring little for the injustices, burdens, needs and dreams of the world in which we find ourselves. This is not to say that we should give up all discussion regarding our internal disagreements. To give up on the discussion would be to live as if truth did not matter. But there is a challenge to live truth in a way that so effectively engages with the society in which we live that the gospel is seen to be vital, meaningful and relevant to the lives that people are leading. The Gospel Among Many Spiritualities
The modern age of confidence in humanity and dismissal of religion, together with the certainty that humanity can stretch itself to achieve anything, is gone. Wars across the world, hunger, poverty, exploitation, domestic violence - the list is endless - challenge any lingering confidence in human ability to make all things work together for humanity’s own good. The age of confidence in human ability was an age in which Christianity was shelved as a comforter that women and men no longer needed. The good news for the churches is that, with a receding confidence in human ability, the search is on for something else to bring meaning and purpose to life. A choice opens for the churches - to engage with this new, multi-experiential, pick-and-mix culture, or to berate it from the sidelines. While we may be persuaded that we know the truth of the gospel there is always more understanding available to us. Through engagement and dialogue churches can learn to reshape how the good news is expressed, to make effective witness in the world, a world that God loved so much that He sent His Son to live in it. The challenge, then, comes to the churches from two angles. Firstly, from the welcome faith traditions now have in the great search for meaning and purpose; secondly, from the loss of our firm and effective traditions of witness. Facing the Challenges
In the political sphere, new relationships are already discernible. Committees function despite claims of not doing business together. Politicians of all shades listen to one another in the Assembly chamber and while there may be long and loud complaining there is, nonetheless, listening. Despite fears and retreats the Peace Process lumbers on and three years beyond the Belfast Agreement relationships are different. Stormont is alive with flawed but nevertheless real inter-political relationships. The churches are no longer tasked, unofficially or otherwise, with representing the people. We are thrown into the new situation of no longer representing our broad, denominational constituencies but of representing ourselves. The sense of disorientation is experienced all across the spectrum of church life. Church leaders have lost the old certainties about what leadership means in a divided community and church members are uncertain what church leaders are in place for. The trap of party-political alignment awaits the churches. We dare not fall in. In our Northern Irish context the past influences how the churches respond to the challenges of today. The tendency is to continue to fight battles for the respect of our difference and acceptance of our diversity. It is, of course, the human place to begin - to seek place and space for ourselves, to be more significantly aware of our own needs, hopes and dreams than those of others. In a context where we feel the need to hang on to our own and guard ourselves against what we think will be destruction, it is hard to hear the gospel call to be like our Saviour who gave up place and space for the sake of lost human beings. Ducking beneath the torrents, we are afraid to raise our heads and risk the new relationships that this society invites us to. In the political domain relationships have changed and developed, while the churches retain the old modes of relationship. No new structures for relating to one another have been put in place by the churches - although it should be acknowledged that what happens at local level can challenge what happens at an institutional level. Churches remain unable to admit what they share in common. As the local political scene continues to develop, indicators are that interest groups will band together to make opinions known. The old divisions will pass away and new alliances will be formed. Churches will probably never form one single interest group, yet there is clear challenge to church members to get involved in existing interest groups both to critique and support. But the more far-reaching challenge comes in the call to be publicly honest about agreement as well as disagreement between the denominations. It is hard to imagine an effective witness without such honesty. Reorientation
In this time of disorientation the Christian Church seeks scriptural guidance on how to relate church and society. In his commentary on the Psalms, Walter Brueggemann groups different types of Psalms together – Psalms of Orientation, Psalms of Disorientation and Psalms of New Orientation. During the Troubles church people oriented themselves around the gospel. Now, disorientated by our new context, churches are seeking a new orientation. Brueggemann challenges the community of faith to rethink itself in context and not simply continue to sing the old songs of orientation. Such a singing may be, he acknowledges, a great ‘nevertheless’ but he writes: It is my judgement that this action of the church is less an evangelical defiance guided by faith, and much more a frightened, numb denial and deception that does not want to acknowledge or experience the disorientation of life. Brueggemann challenges church people to acknowledge the realities of confusion and uncertainty and to provide a place where these feelings can be expressed. The tradition of personal and communal lament provides a means by which God’s people can recognise that the old things are passing away and reorientate themselves around a concern for the communication of the good news of the gospel. The time for lament and acknowledgement of disorientation has not yet passed. If the churches are to be reorientated then time must be taken to lament and seek out the new way, reinvesting in society, the churches' investment always being centred in the good news and kingdom ways of Jesus Christ . In disorientation, the church is called back to her tradition in Scripture to seek sustaining and shaping themes in order to effect a dynamic witness in the world. In Northern Ireland perhaps one of the most effective witnesses the churches could offer to a gospel that transforms every relationship is to demonstrate respect and generosity, even in disagreement. Dismissal of others, putting others down, crude and disparaging words are marks of the world. The ability to listen and engage for the sake of the gospel should be a mark of the church, evidence that we ‘are persuaded’ and wish to persuade. Nigel Wright expresses the value, from a Christian perspective, of approaching society in terms of persuasion rather than judgement, in his applause for respect of others within the political and social sphere: All social and political systems that treat people as less than persons or whose essence is coercion come under judgement. Engagement With Suspicion
From Wright’s position in favour of persuasion rather than coercion we gain insight into a scriptural theme relevant for guiding the relationship between church and society. The scriptural affirmation, that all things and all human beings are created by God in the image of God, frees the churches to engage with the world for … ‘the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it’ . Whether through personal relationships, lobby groups or church delegations, without engagement the church forfeits the right to be heard. Without engagement the church is easily dismissed and the salt has lost its savour. The human tendency to affirm those of our own kind, our own ‘party’, is a denial of the belief that everyone is created by God and known by God. Commitment to engagement is further supported by the belief that God sent Jesus into the world to die for sinners, committing the church to belief in the possibility of redemption. Through their belief in and expression of the possibility of redemption, churches critique a world where, time after time, people in public life are tormented by a past served up to them in the press. Engagement with others is not an affirmation that they have changed but an affirmation of the belief that the possibility of change is open to them, as it is to us. Engagement alone, however, should not be entered into naively. Churches and individual Christians know enough about the pull of sin to know that naďve engagement can be dangerous. No church or faith community wants to end up so ‘tamed’ by the world that the prophetic edge of the gospel is lost. The doctrine of creation cannot, therefore, be spoken of apart from the doctrine of the fall. No individual or group of persons is free from the influence of sin. No one of us is free from the tendency to be self-sufficient. No one of us lives kingdom values as we should . Engagement, therefore, is best tempered by suspicion. Suspicion of the other is an attempt to maintain independence for the church, which holds a position shaped by the gospel. But suspicion of others must be balanced by a suspicion of self. Churches, like everyone else, can become seekers after power for its own sake and fall prey to the desire to dominate others in a way that is an affront to the gospel imperative to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. In this new time there is an opportunity for the churches to make their voice heard. To be heard means that churches have to earn the respect of their listeners. The agenda of church interest has, therefore, to expand to include concerns about education, health, the environment, political integrity, human rights and the whole broad spectrum of complex issues on the political agenda. Without church input principalities and powers run unchecked and the world at large remains unconvinced by the church. Engagement with suspicion is one model for the relationship between church and society. It is an incarnational model, which remembers that God created the world and everything in it and that God looked and saw that ‘it was all very good’. But it is also a model that recognises the reality of human shortcomings. Conclusion: Lives Of Witness
If the churches are to live the gospel in a way that will convince others to claim and proclaim their persuasion that nothing in earth or heaven can separate us from the love of God, then there is some urgency. Churches in Northern Ireland still feed into the political process from their denominational, separate perspectives. We remain unable to affirm together fundamental scriptural beliefs as we struggle to hold on to our own by highlighting our differences. In a world that is little interested in our differences we look like self-centred people. This is not to say that our differences are unimportant. More than ever we need to struggle with our differences publicly and with integrity, but without affirming our common ground in the public domain we splinter and muffle our witness. Christian people can make their voices heard in a variety of ways - writing letters, making telephone calls, knocking doors, lobbying MLAs, asking church leaders to address issues, informing themselves on and participating in debates, joining interest groups (or setting them up). The list is endless. But perhaps there is no more effective way for the message to be heard than by the way we Christian people live our lives together, not in constant standoff from and condemnation of one another, but through difference expressed in dialogue with and respect for one another. Engagement with suspicion, it seems to me, is a good model for church and society but also a good model for church and church, Christian and Christian, self and self.
Lesley Carroll is minister of Fortwilliam Presbyterian Church.
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