Stitching together the torn fabric of church and society

Are we doomed to always live with deep-rooted sectarianism and a 'them and us' mindset? Or is there a better way - one that can bridge our differences and bind us together? Dr John Dunlop believes there is

EACH year since 1908 Churches across the globe have observed eight days of prayer, that we may be one in our common discipleship of Jesus Christ and our witness to him in the world.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began within the Churches of the Protestant Reformation with their experience that divisions made no sense in a missionary situation.

After the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church became involved.

It is a special experience for us who are Christians from different traditions to be respectful of the diversity within and between Churches; but we can also celebrate what we hold in common and affirm that our vocation is to proclaim the mighty acts of God - the Incarnation, Good Friday, Easter and Pentecost.

It has taken careful dialogue and cooperation, at national and local levels, to mitigate the fear and mistrust which has existed for a long time between the Churches of the Reformation and the Catholic Church - described by the late Bishop Donal Lamont from Ballycastle as "frozen misery".

The letter of 1st Peter was written to Christians who had been scattered to the four winds in the Roman Empire; people are frequently scattered through persecution or famine.

Some years ago I listened to a lecture in the United States by Dr Marc Gopin from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC.

Dr Gopin is a Jewish academic and he was bewailing the fact that Jewish scholars had not adequately mined rich Jewish traditions in the service of reconciliation.

Instead, because of the wounding experience of anti-semitism, they had become trapped in what he called "oppositional identity"; "who is in and who is out of the group, who can be trusted and who cannot be trusted"; defining themselves over against those to whom they are opposed.

In a similar analysis of our situation here, Canon David Porter, the present Archbishop of Canterbury's director of reconciliation and a one-time director of Contemporary Christianity in Belfast, described our deep-rooted sectarianism "as the shared legacy of all who have been formed in our island story".

"It is the result of a profound insecurity which arises from the corrosive definition of 'me as not you'."

The content of that oppositional identity "me as not you" takes different forms in the different parts of our community.

We are "not Irish"; "not British"; "not Catholic"; "not Protestant"; "not like themmuns". Who we are not unduly dominates the definition of ourselves.

Much of the conflict in Ireland has resulted in understandable fear and mistrust. Individuals and different parts of our community can feel frightened and alone.

We have a responsibility to stitch together the torn fabric of this society, to reinstate or create those subtle ties that bind human beings to one another.

Inter-church services, as with every act of kindness between neighbours, are another stitch in the process of mending the torn fabric of the patchwork quilt of this society.

It is not and will not be a fabric of one colour; it will be multi-coloured and will have to accommodate diversity. Imposed uniformity will not work.

We have been making our way through the decade of centenaries and thanks to professional historians we have learned much.

We have been understanding of one another's stories, rather than saying that there is only one story - mine, not yours.

This year takes us to 1916, specifically Easter 1916 and the Somme of July 1916.

We will remember and seek to understand both. The danger is that we reproduce the attitudes and conflicts and transmit the trauma of Easter 1916 and July 1916 - that was then, this is now.

With its themes of identity and vocation - "you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation..." - the letter of 1st Peter was written to small groups of Christians who were dispersed and exiled to the four winds.

It has resonances with today. The Christian Church is probably the most universally persecuted community today; in Somalia, in Eritrea, in parts of Nigeria, in Sudan, in Syria and Iraq; one could go on and on.

Canon Andrew Whyte from Baghdad was speaking recently in Bangor. It's too dangerous for him to remain in Iraq and the Archbishop of Canterbury has told him to leave - he is more use out of the country than in it at present.

While many Christians have left, some have remained. He told a story of Islamic extremists coming into a Christian home and threatening the parents in front of their children, demanding that they deny the significance of Christ and honour the primacy of the Prophet.

They said they couldn't and wouldn't do it. So they turned to the children and asked them to do the same. They wouldn't, for they said they loved Jesus; so the militants shot the children.

Do we think the extremists in Isis care whether you are an Anglican, Orthodox, Presbyterian, Catholic or Baptist? If someone is the wrong kind of Muslim they will be killed as well.

Peter wrote to the people of his day to affirm their identity and to remind them of their vocation: "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light."

Pope Francis writes of "the Joy of the Gospel". It's what "fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus," he says.

"The great danger in today's world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures and a blunted conscience," he writes.

"Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor.

"God's voice is no longer heart, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt and the desire to do good fades...

"That is no way to live a dignified and fulfilled life. It is not God's will for us, nor is it the life in the Spirit which has its source in the heart of the risen Christ."

We in Ireland do not face persecution, but we live in a society where increasingly people understand life with no reference to God.

Ours is a society increasingly indifferent to the Joy of the Gospel - and eventually indifference leads to ignorance about the Christian faith.

Karl Rahner said somewhere years ago, from his experience of the church in mainland Europe: "Our present situation is one of transition from a church sustained by a homogeneously Christian society and almost identical with it, from a people's church - the Volkskirche - to a church made up of those who have struggled against the environment in order to reach a personally, clearly and explicitly responsible decision of faith. That will be the church of the future - or there will be no church at all."

Peter took many of the terms used of Israel in the Old Testament - "chosen race", "royal priesthood" - and applied them to these people scattered to the four winds in the vast Roman Empire.

He made it clear that this "holy nation"' status is not something they have achieved by their own efforts, lest they should be puffed up with delusions that they deserved these titles. It is a status conferred by God's generosity.

Pope Francis, too, notes that "the salvation which God offers us is the work of his mercy".

"No human efforts, however good they may be, can enable us to merit so great a gift. God, by his sheer grace, draws us to himself and makes us one with him.

"He sends his Spirit into our hearts to make us his children, transforming and enabling us to respond to his love by our lives."

The implication is clear: should not we who are the recipients of God's mercy, not ourselves be merciful?

In an age of individualism and loneliness, bonding is important. It is found within families and in many kinds of communities and organisations.

Within faith communities we learn about acceptance and belonging. Most of the letters in the New Testament were written to communities and not to individuals.

It was written to 'yous'uns' in Rome, Corinth, Philippi and so on. There are many instructions about love, tolerance and patience.

We might think that our particular community is safe because it is strongly bonded, whether the bonding be within Protestant congregations, Catholic parishes, the GAA or the Orange Order, or within the bonding ideologies of republicanism and loyalism, Irish Catholic nationalism or Ulster Protestant unionism.

The danger is that if we only have bonding within communities and we do not practice bridging between communities, we will easily drift into suspicion, hostility and conflict - that 'oppositional identity' and 'me and not you' mindset. We know plenty about those.

Congratulations to the GAA on their efforts to reach out to people in that part of the community to which I belong.

Let me suggest a reason why Christians ought to be attentive to this issue of both bonding and bridging . It has to do with "the mighty acts of God".

Think of the Trinity as the eternally bonded community of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We have just celebrated Christmas, behind which festival lies the fact of the Incarnation, when the Son of God became a human being which was a costly and generous bridging exercise from God to us, which led on to Good Friday and Easter. Bridging was a risky and costly business.

And then, consider Pentecost, when God did not remain isolated, leaving us abandoned, but the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, came upon the church and lives within and amongst us and drove the church out of its initial Jewish comfort zone and across frontiers to Gentiles and to people like us.

The Incarnation and Easter and Pentecost are dynamic bridging exercises. If we paid attention to bridging as well as bonding, would that not make us more like God?

Would that not be an activity helping to stitch together the torn fabric of Christ's Church and of this society?

:: Abridged from a sermon given by former Presbyterian moderator the Rev Dr John Dunlop in St Patrick's Church in Donaghmore to mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The church - once described as "the first decent Catholic Church in Tyrone" has recently reopened following extensive renovations.