A letter from Doug and Elaine Baker in Northern Ireland
June 2010
New moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland calls for strong engagement with demon of sectarianism
The newly installed moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI), the Right Rev. Norman Hamilton.
The newly installed moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI), the Right Rev. Norman Hamilton, is trained as an economist and served as a civil servant for a number of years before studying for the ministry. For the past 22 years he has been minister of the Ballysillan congregation in a part of North Belfast that has experienced sharp sectarian division. Norman has been an active member of the PCI Church and Society Committee for a number of years, where I was privileged to overlap with him for several years. He is also a strong advocate of the church engaging with the wider community outside its walls and contributing out of our Biblical faith to the debate in the public square on matters that affect the well-being of all citizens. Below is a portion of his opening address to the PCI General Assembly on June 7. 2010, which I share with all of you who have a special interest in the ministry of reconciliation in Ireland.
“A Message Worth Sharing”
I am sure that all of us here this evening are well aware of the battering that the churches in Ireland have taken in recent times. We are in quite new territory in this generation, where church status in the wider society is evaporating, where accepted beliefs are under the most intense challenge, and where there are many others groups and institutions offering their own pathways to a shared and better future.
It is in this new context that there is great opportunity for the light of the Bible, the love of God, and the work of the Spirit to bring hope, encouragement and much needed grace to individual lives, local communities and indeed the whole land.
The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah was quite explicit when he made it clear to God’s people that one of their key roles was to seek the welfare of the whole community where God had placed them, and that included even the welfare of those who had oppressed them. Jesus followed this through with his astounding command in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:44) to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” The apostle Peter repeated the message when he wrote to a church under serious pressure that Christian people were to be a blessing to others as a prerequisite to being blessed by God themselves (1 Peter 3:9).
The Scriptures are absolutely clear on our need for salvation in Christ. They are equally clear on the need to seek, pray for and work for the welfare of all our neighbors and everyone in our wider community. We are not only called and privileged to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, but we are called and privileged to love our neighbor as ourselves — and in the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus makes it abundantly clear that our neighbors include those who are very different from us in background, culture and even religious practice. Their welfare is to be hugely important to us.
Pressures on Christian people have led many into a dark spiritual cul de sac where our faith is “privatized” — so that we have little confidence to proclaim and show the liberating power of the gospel and of Christ in any public arena, even in our own families and to our neighbors, never mind in the public square as the prophets, apostles and Jesus himself did.
We really do need to resist the temptation — and it is a strong one — [to believe] that man lives by politics alone. We do not. Politics is certainly important. But the privilege of choosing political leaders and representatives can — and often does — degenerate into passing the buck to them for every perceived problem and evil, and then criticizing them when they appear powerless to fix them for us. How often do so many of us who are Christian people complain about our leaders — long before we even think it proper to pray for them and ask for the Spirit of God to guide them in their work. Giving in to the temptation to always expect (politicians or others) to fix things for us is to deny the power of prayer, the work of the Spirit, and the Biblical imperative of active warmhearted Christian citizenship that was regarded as normal right throughout the Scriptures.
Active Christian citizenship in the here and now throws up some big new tests as well as opportunities. Let me give one example. As a society we have not yet learned that challenge is different from opposition. It is quite proper for the church to be challenged about what we believe and why we believe it — and be able and willing to respond coherently, graciously and in a compelling way.
But the political world too needs to embrace and welcome constructive and rigorous challenge for its own good as well as the good of everyone in our whole society. No political party has a monopoly on wisdom, any more than a church has.
If the moral, spiritual and intellectual capital of wider society is neither sought by nor offered to those who govern, we should not be surprised if there is poor government. Wider civic society has a direct responsibility to provide a good seedbed for the growth of good government. Apathy is a disgrace to all who practice it, for it undermines the healthy relationships that are needed for a healthy society.
So in the public arena, as well as in the personal arena, I want / we want to bring our best insights into Scripture to public policy — with all due humility that we are not infallible in our interpretation of Scripture, nor do we want to impose our beliefs on others. But we do have a message worth sharing with wider society and with our leaders. And it has an enormous challenge built into it.
The book of Proverbs (14:34) is quite clear that righteousness exalts a nation, while sin is a disgrace to any people. It is important that we challenge each other, both privately and publicly, but always graciously, as to what is right and what is not. What is good and what is not. What is worthy and what is not. There is a golden thread woven throughout Scripture that how we deal with other people flows from how we personally experience God dealing with us. We show mercy because God shows mercy to us; we persevere because God has persevered with us; we are patient because God is patient with us; we are understanding because God is understanding with us, so that the righteousness we put on offer comes not from our own “almost empty” barrels of righteousness but from the heart of God Himself.
One of the most pungent areas where we desperately need a recovery of righteousness in public is in the area of community relationships, both inside communities and across communities.
You might expect me to say this, coming as I do from 22 years in North Belfast, but the healing of relationships is a real Christian priority for every single one of us here this evening, whether we live in the city, the town or a rural area — whether we live in Cork or in Coleraine — Dublin or Derry.
The latest figures from the PSNI show that in 10 of the 25 Northern Ireland district council areas outside Belfast, there had been a rise of over 25 percent in sectarian-motivated incidents between 2008/09 and 2009/10. In only 2 of those councils had there been a reduction of more than 25 percent.
There is a problem with sectarianism right across much of Northern Ireland, and it is acute in what might be seen as some very surprising places.
The failure (by the Northern Ireland Executive) to agree to a community relations agenda and community relations strategy is, in my view, a public disgrace, given our history. That disgrace is heightened by the apparent failure of much of wider society to even be concerned about it, never mind outraged by it.
And it is a huge discouragement to the many individuals and groups whose vision and work for a healthy and integrated society over the years continues to be so unappreciated and undervalued. Our apparent contentment with widespread social apartheid is, to quote again those words from the book of Proverbs, a disgrace to the nation. Made no less by the fact that this is not a new issue at all — St. Augustine, 1,600 years ago, wrote: “For it is one thing to see the land of peace from a wooded ridge, and another to tread the road that leads to it.”
I would love to be part of a public discussion, carried out with grace and with rigor, as to how to face this demon in our midst. I might even be bold enough to say that I would like to help kick-start the moribund, even non-existent, public discussion about what a coherent, shared and healthy society looks like. And I would want to do so on the basis of bringing my best understanding of Scripture to that discussion. Every generation, every society, every individual, we all need to bring our failures to the Lord and have them exposed — for as Jesus told us plainly in John’s Gospel (8:32), it is the truth that liberates. Isn’t it strange that such liberating truth from the lips of Jesus seems so unattractive at times? As does the call of Micah (6:8) in these profoundly discomforting words “He has showed you O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
Surely we are denying our Lord when we back away from the compelling calls in Scripture that judge us but also invite us to seek forgiveness and mercy? This is part of the profound message of the Bible that is well worth sharing on this most troubling of problems. We would all benefit, surely, from discerning it properly — and hearing it loud and clear — and for every minister of the gospel, alongside their church leadership teams, to help embed that message of judgment, forgiveness and mercy in the life of our own congregations, and in the life of our own parish area, wherever that may be.
And there are plenty of other issues too on which a Biblical perspective is desperately needed to affirm the great dignity of our being created in the image of God (as set out in the book of Genesis) by an unambiguous commitment to proper human rights and to a faithful commitment to equality as the Bible sets it out. There is plenty of scope to debate, discuss and ultimately discern exactly what that would look like, but the difficulty in doing so should not back us away from the very precious standing of every human being in the eyes of God, and the implications of that. It is that very special standing that moved God’s heart in eternity and brought Christ to the cross for our salvation. We dishonor the Lord if we dishonor any other person by their God-given rights and dignity being violated.”
The 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 190
