Christmas, flags, identity and leadership

We hear it every Christmas time but hope and history won't rhyme

Peace on earth

Those words were written by U2 in response, as far as I understand, to the Omagh bomb in 1998. They were a recognition that in the midst of a fragile peace process, violence and prejudice were never far away. Fourteen years on, at Christmas time, we seem to be witnessing once again the failure of hope and history to rhyme with each other. 

What is it that we are really witnessing this week, I wonder? I have had discussions about the protests and violence of this week with friends online and in the flesh. I have heard endless radio phone in shows trying to find out what is really going on out there. I have been told that it is a lack of leadership, and yet every politician I have heard claims to be exercising real leadership. I have been told that it is a crisis of identity and yet nobody could possibly miss the fact that the protestors on our streets very strongly identify themselves  as British. I have been told that the church has to take some responsibility for walking away from loyalist areas from the 1970s onwards and leaving them without the hope of the gospel. To a large degree I sympathise with that view.

What do I see as I watch the news from our land and how does what I see make me feel?

I see lost people. Politicians lost for a way to exercise any real influence on society and lost for a way to genuinely seek a shared future. Ordinary people from working class loyalist areas lost for a way to make themselves heard and so taking the opportunity to express themselves in ways that are unacceptable in a democratic society. People who would be lost for an identity if their Britishness was taken away from them. And yes, I see church leaders lost for a way to reach out with the gospel of redeeming grace into our communities at the one time of year when God's amazing and indescribable gift of grace should be inspiring our every thought, deed and word.

And how does it make me feel? Like Naomi Long, I feel heartbroken for my country. But I also feel angry at the ways in which we still try to manipulate human beings and their emotions in order to score points against our political opponents. Let me be clear. There are people in positions of responsibility on all sides who have acted irresponsibly this week and that makes me deeply angry.

But then I feel guilty. I feel guilty because I am part of this society and have been for 40 years. What have I done to make things better for those who are deprived of opportunities, deprived of a voice, deprived of an identity, deprived of the assurance that they are valued and loved? I have been given the enormous opportunity of being a child of God. My voice is heard in the throne room of the King of Kings. My identity in Christ is an identity that can never be threatened by any external act. I am valued at the cost of the cross and loved beyond my wildest imagination. Have I shared that? Have you?

I will pray for my country. I will pray for those Christian leaders genuinely reaching out to these socially isolated and desperate communities. I hope you will too. Let's not just sit back and blame the politicians for a lack of leadership without considering what we can do. Let's approach the King of Kings, who alone deserves our total allegiance and, if we are serious about that allegiance, let's answer his call to be salt and light in our land. Only in that way will the hope of the gospel and the history of our wee country be found to be in harmony with each other.

Going out like Elijah

The following is from my contribution to Ballygrainey's monthly newsletter. I hope you like it:

Rich Mullins is one of my favourite Christian song writers. Since university I have been listening to his music and the wisdom that comes through his songs. One of his most evocative and meaningful songs for me is a song called Elijah. It takes its inspiration from that final journey that Elijah takes with his student, Elisha, in 2 Kings chapter 2.

In the story Elisha refuses to turn back, despite Elijah’s repeated requests. He also refuses to listen to the words of the various prophets they meet on the journey stating that Elijah will be taken from him that day. He knows this will be the case but he doesn’t want to think about it. Isn’t this attitude one that we share when we know we are going to lose a loved one? As the end approaches we don’t want to think about life without them and we don’t want to leave their side.

But in his song, Rich Mullins concentrates on Elijah’s attitude to leaving Elisha and everything else behind. Elijah knows that the end of his earthly life is coming. That expectation is reflected in the very first lines of Mullins’ song; ‘The Jordan is waiting for me to cross through.’ But Elijah does not fear the future. He has learned through the highs and lows of life that he can trust God for every step he takes and he has only one thought in his mind – allowing God to lead him into whatever happens next.

The main theme of the song is that Mullins wants to be like Elijah when he faces the end of his own life – looking forward with expectancy not back with regret. This is how he puts it;

‘When I go I want to go out like Elijah

With a whirlwind to fuel my chariot of fire

And when I look back on the stars

It’ll be like candlelight on Central Park

And it won’t break my heart to say good-bye.’

The New Testament fills out the hope that we have beyond this life. We have the promise of a new, resurrection body. We have the hope of being reunited with others who have gone before us. We have the certainty that all sin and sorrow will be banished as God himself wipes away every tear from every eye. We have the expectation of a true homecoming when God welcomes us into full and free fellowship with him.

Perhaps, 900 years before Jesus’ resurrection, Elijah already had an inkling of what to expect. There is a real sense in 2 Kings that he is eager to get to the next stage. Does that reflect our feelings? Are we eagerly anticipating what God will do for us in heaven? Or are we so attached to the things that we have here that we still, even after the resurrection, allow the fear of death to paralyse us?

On 19 September 1997 Rich Mullins was killed in a car crash. Like Elijah, he left this world suddenly. Like Elijah, he was ready to go. While many people understandably mourned the loss to this world of such a great song writing talent. Mullins rejoiced as he came home.

May the same be true of us when our time comes.

Where is hope?

It seems a very long time since Friday night when I came into the house after picking my eldest son up from Boys' Brigade to see the Ulster Rugby team finish off a tight, tense victory over inter- provincial rivals, Munster. Since that night, when the joy of playing and following sport was so evident from the crowds at Ravenhill Rugby ground, a deep sadness has enveloped the sporting community, the farming community and one tragically bereaved family in County Down.

There have already been many tributes paid to Noel, Graham and Nevin Spence. There has also been a genuine outpouring of sympathy from all quarters to a mother, two daughters and a daughter-in-law with two small children who are enduring unimaginable suffering, and doing so with real dignity and faith.

I have rarely seen such a widespread impact from one family tragedy. It brought home to me what I have been learning in my five and a half years as a pastor in a semi-rural congregation - that the ties which bind the farming community in Ulster are deep ones. Perhaps they are so deep because they recognise that these tragedies are not as uncommon as we would like them to be. We, who do not live off the land, sometimes fail to appreciate the risks that some people take simply to provide food for our tables. On Sunday morning as some of the farmers in my congregation left church, it was all I could do to hold myself  back from saying 'would you people PLEASE take care of yourselves'. I suspect that I didn't really need to anyway.

But the other thing that has struck me forcibly in the light of this tragedy is the immense depth and wonder of genuine faith in Jesus Christ. The media will scratch their heads as members of the Spence family and friends from their own congregation and others express their certainty that, for these three men, true life has really just begun. Unable to deal with this powerful hope the media will, instead, ignore it and focus back on the appalling tragedy that has occurred. They will talk about how the family will need support from their neighbours, friends and fellow Christians (and there is no doubt that they will). But they will shy away from talking about how the source of all their comfort will be found in Jesus Christ. They will not  talk about his death and resurrection which, while they do not give an answer as to why this accident happened on Saturday afternoon, do give this family the strength to face the future certain that their loved ones are enjoying that fullness of life in which they will one day join them.

The grief is real. The heartbreak is real. The outpouring of sympathy from across this community and from further afield is undeniably genuine. But none of it is more real, more certain than the love which is ours in Jesus Christ, from which no-one and nothing can separate us.

I realise that I am adding to the sea of words already spoken and written this weekend about the Spence family and their awful grief. I hope that what I have written is seen as someone who has watched the events unfold trying for himself to come to terms with something so dreadful. I know that other tragedies have made the headlines this weekend - a man dying of stab wounds in Craigavon, two British servicemen killed in Afghanistan, apparently innocent civilians killed in a NATO airtstrike as well as the continuing mayhem and murder in Syria. My mind and heart are unable to process so much suffering but on this weekend, I have not been able to stop thinking about this family whom I do not know, for whom everything has changed in the blink of an eye. 

May the God of all comfort and the God of resurrection hope be to them all and more than all that they need.

Jubilee

So we have had our days of Diamond Jubilee celebration. It has been ludicrously expensive, faintly cheesy at times (especially if you were watching some of the BBC coverage) and probably incomprehensible to most people from outside the commonwealth, but it has revealed something about the British and the institution at the centre of British life.

I am not an ardent royalist and I don't go along with the idea that these few days alone make it great to be British. But when I see the levels of genuine devotion displayed this weekend it does make me think that there are a lot worse things that a nation could unite around than a hereditary constitutional monarchy. Did we need a thousand boat Thames River pageant? Probably not. Could we have done without Sir Cliff, Sir Elton and Sir Paul straining their ageing vocal chords (and our ears)? Yes we undoubtedly could. But would this nation be better off as a republic? On balance I think, probably not.

If the small group of royals who appeared on the balcony to wave to the crowds at the end of the celebration represent the future scale of monarchy without all the other hangers on then it demonstrates that this institution is adapting to its future, less extravagant role and doing so at a time when every other institution in national life is suffering from chronic distrust and decline. Somehow an incredibly privileged family have demonstrated an ability to truly connect with ordinary people and win their support without changing their essential character.

Is there a lesson here for the church, I wonder? We may not, indeed we must not change our essential message because it is a message which is and will always be necessary and relevant but we must find ways to live and breathe and share that message in our communities. We must dispense with the hangers on of unnecessary tradition, enlightenment rationalism and postmodern attempts at relevance and reconnect the gospel message with real people. We need to be 'good news' in our communities and share good news with those around us. We have it to share. The irony is that we have had a tendency in church to keep what makes us irrelevant and discard the necessary gospel truth in the dogged pursuit of relevance.

The Queen's sixty years have shown us what kind of impact single minded devotion to the service of a cause can have. Christians are called to single minded devotion to the service of Jesus Christ. He was single minded in his devotion to serve God and achieve our salvation. He deserves no less than our whole lives in glad service to him.

I still have problems with enforced flag waving. The first verse of 'I vow to thee my country' is nothing short of an invitation to idolatry. Just having a royal servant like Elizabeth II does not mean that being British is any better than being French or Chinese or Peruvian. But there are worse things to bring about a national celebration than an avowedly Christian woman who has served her God and her country with loyalty and, at times, courage for sixty years.

I only have three pleas for the next such royal occasion. Try to make it slightly less expensive, leave the boats out of it and please, please, please let Sir Cliff, Sir Elton and Sir Paul fade away into retirement.

PCI General Assembly 2012

Well, that's it over for another year. Resolutions have been written, presented and largely passed. Work has been recognised and people thanked. Worship has been offered and time has been spent in prayer. We have heard about the church in Ireland and the church around the globe...and we have drunk a fair amount of coffee!

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland is always interesting even when, as this year, it's quiet and pretty uncontroversial. Perhaps being quieter allows us to hear more clearly the voices that are not always heard in years with more controversy. The quiet but impressive voices of our brothers and sisters from Malawi, Latvia, Pakistan and Syria and Lebanon were humbling as they demonstrated what it means to offer a prophetic voice in countries where threats range from endemic malaria to very real persecution.

The quiet but persistently prophetic voice of our young people has been heard through the SPUD youth assembly and this year they were given their own slot. Once again they brought their own challenge to us and brought it with eloquence and grace.

Perhaps one of the lessons we need to learn from this assembly is that we ALL need to listen to God and to each other more if we are going to be the prophetic voice this assembly is calling us to be. We need to listen to God to hear what he is saying to our church in a post-Christian world. Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali helped us begin the process of that listening on a great but poorly attended Wednesday celebration.

We need to listen to each other if we are going to present an effective and united voice in congregations, presbyteries and as a denomination. When we don't listen to each other we risk divisions that can only damage the message we need to bring and the world needs to hear.

My lasting memory will probably be the way our church said thank you to someone who has served our young people and children over twenty years. Roz Stirling has had an impact which will last a long long time in the work of our denomination. The church which she has served and sometimes provoked (sorry Roz!)stood together to recognise her contribution as she stood down from her post as Director of Youth and Children's Ministry. Thank you Roz, you will leave great foundations on which we need to build.

So that's it - a quiet year but one where, if you were really listening, you could sometimes hear a still, small voice renewing our ministries and leading us on to discover the plans God has for us today and tomorrow.

The Past really is another country

As we were travelling along the Westlink in Belfast the other day on our way to visit friends in Hillsborough, our younger son pointed out something on top of a building. 'Look, the Ireland flag!' he said. The building, as many of you will be aware was Divis Tower. He did not notice the Union flag and Northern Ireland flag on Clifton Street Orange Hall as we passed it a few seconds later (largely because he was still trying to point out the Irish flag to his less observant older brother)!

However his innocent observation got me thinking. I am quite certain that when I was 7 years old I would have been aware of a deeper significance to all of the flags that I saw. It is a significance which, I am glad to say is completely lost on my 7 and 9 year old boys.

I might not have been able to express it but somehow I would have felt threatened by an Irish flag, just as others would have felt threatened by a Union flag. There are still some people who seek to use national flags as a symbols of threat and intimidation in N.Ireland but it seems to me that their power over many of us is diminishing. Perhaps that is why, as the twelfth of July approaches, the Union flags and N. Ireland flags are increasingly interspersed by paramilitary flags that let people know exactly who is supposed to be in charge in a particular area. The national flags just don't carry the same level of threat any more.

Without having the vocabulary to say so my seven year old self might even have been aware that there were people who were ready to kill in the service of the political aspiration represented by these flags. As adults we know that there are still a handful of (very dangerous) people who think this way but they are nowhere near as relevant to our daily lives as they were 30 years ago. The result of their irrelevance is that fear of 'the other side' has lessened and the possibility of a genuinely 'shared future' is a real one.

Northern Ireland is a different country from the one in which I was a seven year old who knew that I was a Protestant and that there were other people called Catholics who were suspicious of me and of whom I was to be suspicious. It is a place which, even in the midst of the worst recession in thirty years, feels like a good place to live and raise children.

The past from which we have emerged seems alien and unreal and it is a past of which my children are completely unaware. At some point soon they will learn that, not long before they were born, there were people here who were willing to kill for the meanings they had invested in those flags. Maybe it is wrong of me, but I would prefer their innocence regarding the past to remain for as long as possible. Maybe that is just because I will find it difficult to explain how we allowed ourselves to get into that mess. I know that one day I will have to explain it and I pray that I will explain it to them in such a way that they become men who are determined to play their part in ensuring that we never return to being that other country again.

Confident Christianity: a book review

Every so often a book comes along that makes you sit up and take notice because it breathes a fresh new air into the world of Christian literature. There will be many Christians out there who feel that the world of apologetics is not one in which they are comfortable but Chris Sinkinson's new book demonstrates very helpfully not only why all Christians should care about the defence of their faith in the early years of the 21st century but shows how all Christians can be truly confident in making that defence.

Sinkinson recognises that there are two opposite views of apologetics which both make crucial mistakes. One view suggests that human reason is so affected by sin that using reasoned arguments in evangelism is pointless. This view says that we should concentrate on preaching the gospel and forget about dealing with people's objections to faith. The other view seems to suggest that we can help people reason their way towards faith in Christ. The first view is deficient because it refuses to engage with the world into which we are sent as ambassadors for Christ. The second is deficient because it fails to see the need for a supernatural and supra- rational experience of new birth which can never be brought about by the exercise of pure reason. Both have their place but must not be given too much authority over our style of evangelism.

Because Sinkinson believes apologetics to be an important tool in evangelism, he gives a robust defence of its use and a clear and helpful critique of its misuse. He helps the reader to understand how the use of logical, reasoned argument can be a helpful resource in evangelism and goes on to show how these tools have been used in the history of Christian philosophy. He also helpfully deals with the roots of logic in pre-Christian Greek thought, while avoiding the mistake of completely Christianising Plato and Aristotle. At the same time he gives the reader an excellent overview of the essential logical mistakes we should try to avoid in making the case for Christianity and should be able to point out when we spot them in the arguments of our opponents.

He also points out that (unlike some)two of the best Christian apologists of the last century, Francis Schaeffer and CS Lewis, happily used different types of apologetic argument according to the situation they were facing and were not wedded to any one particular method. Using the example of the apostle Paul, he suggests that this flexible approach to apologetics is the best one to use in a context in which those with whom we find ourselves debating often shift the grounds of the argument even in the course of one debate.

In the first of two brilliantly illuminating chapters in the middle of the book give a superb overview of the history of apologetics from the influence of Greek thought on the early Church fathers (which produced both positive and negative results) through Thomas Aquinas, the Reformers to the age of Enlightenment and the increasing scepticism represented by Descartes,Kant and Hume. The second of these chapters shows us how the massive changes in worldview brought about by Darwin helped Enlightenment materialism to develop and have an impact on the liberal theology of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A comment on the impact of Friedrich Nietzsche's thought leads to a very helpful discussion of post-modernism.

A further chapter on Sinkinson's specialist subject of archaeology gives a balanced and helpful view of the role archaeology can play in supporting the historical claims of Scripture before he deals coherently, helpfully and clearly with some of the classic apologetic questions of science, pluralism and suffering.

Books on apologetics are often helpful reference works but are not so often highly readable. Confident Christianity proves to be both. It is an extremely helpful, clear and well thought out work which will engage your mind and fire your heart. It deserves it's place on every thinking Christian's bookshelf alongside Lewis's Mere Christianity and Keller's The Reason for God.