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Editorial:
Minority Report
Anna Rankin
Comment:
Racism in Ulster: Up-front and Ugly
Ken Newell
From
the Director: Naming Our Sin
David W Porter
Faith
in Ulster: Facing Up to Diversity
Stephen Skuce
Faith
and Practice
Walter Lewis
Interview
with Rose Ozo: Where the Heart Is
Anna Rankin
Craigavon:
Religious Liberty in the Shadow of Drumcree
Small Steps
Tim Foley
Embracing the Stranger
Richard Kerr
Review:
On Eagle's Wing
Ethel White
Review:
Conflict, Controversy and Co-operation
John W Morrow
Review:
The Subversive Manifesto
John Kyle
Review:
L is for Lifestyle
Claire Martin
Review:
It Will Not Be Taken Away From Her
Cary Gibson
Review:
Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance
Paul Rankin
Review:
Two Little Boys
John Gillespie
Review:
Son
David Smith
From the Director:
Naming our sin
OCCASIONALLY we experience a moment of insight, triggered by an action or comment, that stays with us for a long time. Before going to theological college, I had spent a year in Lahore, Pakistan, living as a visible minority – a white westerner – in this post-coup and increasingly militant Islamic country. On returning to the UK, my time as a student in London was bracketed by two of the defining events of the period, the Southall and Brixton riots. The confrontations between Asian protestors and National Front marchers, and between disaffected Black youths and the police brought into sharp focus the underlying race conflict in our multicultural cities.
It was during a visit home between finals and graduation that the moment occurred. Commenting on my sojourn in the capital, a former Sunday School teacher stated, “Well I suppose it’s better living in Belfast with the Catholics than in London with the Blacks and Pakis!” I regret not responding at the time, but that remark has never left me.
We deceive only ourselves if we do not recognise the profound link between our local besetting sin of sectarianism and the global injustice of racism. Anyone who knows the Northern Irish character, of whatever tradition, knows we have an immense capacity to hate those who are different and a perceived threat. And, lest we collude with the media impression that it is only Loyalists in Belfast who have this link hot-wired, the violence against ethnic minorities in the greater Dublin area shows that when our space is contested we Irish, whatever our football code, can hate like everyone else.
The church, in seeking to address society on these issues, can too easily focus merely on what takes place ‘out there’. Indeed, the perpetrators we most readily have in mind when thinking of the recent racist attacks are not usually members or regular attendees of our congregations. They probably don’t care what the church has to say.
But in raising our concerns within the church it is not enough simply to draw analytically legitimate connections between the vicious act of the attacker and the more subtle prejudices harboured in private by all in society, including Christians. This can, and does, blunt the message we all need to hear.
Creating false guilt by overstating the case, in ways that are clearly removed from the actual experience of the average Christian, soon leads to a disassociation from the problem. It certainly works this way with sectarianism. Not many people I meet in the church think they are sectarian. After all, when were they last arrested for verbal or physical abuse at an interface? Maybe we need to learn from this and find the courage to face what is true in the pew when it comes to racism. Indeed, this is exactly what the Church of Ireland is doing in broadening the work of their sectarianism committee to focus on the Hard Gospel process of dealing with difference.
None of us can be complacent – not even the Anglicans! Naming our sin with the honesty that comes from the searching insight of the Holy Spirit and scripture doesn’t come easy in any area of life. And sin is most corrosive where we don’t even see it. The patronising, if warm, welcome for the national church leader on world mission night, where polite remarks of “Didn’t they do well?” cover our surprise that a ‘coloured’ or non-western person could be so effective a speaker. And what about a theology of ministry that, in practice, says it is all right for a woman to teach foreign men in the mission field but not men at home? Well, how else do you account for the ovewhelming majority of women in overseas mission?
Never forget that the biggest barrier to your hearing the gospel of Jesus was the racial and cultural prejudice of others. Some early disciples found it hard to believe that gentiles, people from ‘ta ethne’, the nations, could find a place in the kingdom. At a later stage the peoples of these islands were all considered beyond the pale of civilised early Christianity.
Migration is a fact of life and a fulcrum of church growth. Three things must inform our response. Firstly, we are minority members of the global community. Many who come to work here are fleeing poverty that our trade rules help to sustain, or political oppressors that our governments supported. Secondly, as Christians in this new world order our faith is not threatened by someone else’s right to worship in our society as their conscience dictates. And finally, in the world church we whites and westerners are the minority. Many who now join us from Africa and Asia are part of the most dynamic parts of that church and they have much to teach us.
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