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Editorial
Alwyn Thomson
Comment:
Politics: serving God and doing good!
Ethel White
From
the Director: Cultivating the common ground
David W Porter
ECONI
Statement: Confidence in God
October 2002
Postbag: Letters to the Editor
Why
vote?
Alison Laird
Communities
of hope
Lord Alderdice
Transformation 2003: Killing for God?
View
from the south
Patrick Mitchel
Church
& state
Esmond
Birnie MLA
Taking
the plunge
John Kyle
Faith
in politics
Interview: Rt Hon Paul Murphy MP
Your
kingdom come
Heather Morrow
ECONI
Statement: Forum for Peace & Reconciliation
January 2003
Bible
study series: Faith in the future
David
W Porter
Through
a glass, darkly
Changing Women, Changing Worlds Conference
Review:
A night in November by Marie Jones
Noel
McCune
Book
Reviews
Alwyn Thomson
For
God and His Glory Alone:
Study 3: Reconciliation
For
God and His Glory Alone:
Study 4: Peace
POSTBAG:
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Dear Sir
One article stood out more than others in the autumn edition of your really excellent magazine. It was ‘Loyalism and Me’ by Phillip Rankin. First and foremost, its outstanding quality was honesty, linked with courage. Phillip was quite prepared to bare his soul, and admit to attitudes and feelings that would be regarded as ‘shameful’ by polite society.
Secondly, he articulates
what most of us know, but do not
often admit openly, namely that the Church of Christ in its
various branches in Northern Ireland appears to make no impact whatever
in combating and changing the lack of love which underlies and feeds these
attitudes. Why, oh why should this be? That is the question above all
others that Christians, both as churches and individuals, must keep on
asking – keep on, until we get an answer.
Lastly, Phillip shows
enormous insight in reminding us that
Jesus walked among people like present day Loyalists and their Republican
counterparts, counted them among His friends and even made at least one
of them an apostle. What He reserved His strongest condemnation for was
not sinfulness, especially if it was openly confessed; but rather self-satisfaction,
complacency and hypocrisy. Let each of us who is without sin in this area
cast the first stone at Phillip.
Terence Donaghy
Belfast
Dear Sir
Thank you for the
latest edition of Lion & Lamb. Just one
comment on the article by Norman Hamilton – one of the
reasons why the community is not being challenged by the
people of God is that so few of us, congregations and
individuals, are involved in the community – we prefer to play at
church.
This has the effect
of robbing us of any legitimate right to
speak and any chance of being informed about what is actually going on.
For churches on the other side of the border there is the additional tendency
to refuse to know and a judgmental attitude – we want things to be
better but the task is someone else’s. I continue to read with interest.
Jack Drennan
Monaghan
By email
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