It has become clichéd to say that we live in divided times. No matter where in the world you live, this is a moment in history when ordinary life seems scarred by decision making shaped by binary opposites. Imagine for a moment how that might mold what is possible for your future. If you live in a space far from the front lines of these culture wars, the echo chambers of your days ensure the opinions, tastes, and aspirations that have likely been with you from birth align neatly with those of the people around you. If you live closer to the raw edge of conflict, you have probably experienced the trauma of navigating relationships in spaces marked out by binary “us versus them” tensions. Markers of segregation may have popped up in seemingly innocuous ways, such as clothing choices, the bus routes you used to get to school, or even the instruments you have used to make music.
The casualties of these cultural conflicts may be identified simply by their silence, a fear of being revealed as “other.” My own story of growing up in the forced silences of a divided society was in Northern Ireland during a period now referred to as “the Troubles.” These silences were often accompanied by daily body counts as cultural and political factions underscored their zeal with bombs planted to destroy and maim, with bullets deployed in both targeted and random settings, and with public rhetoric meant to justify the actions of those doing the dirty work in the shadows. When I was in elementary school, there were regular bomb scares in my hometown. On the evening of one such explosion, I remember hearing the loud bang of a one-ton explosive in our town center that could be heard up to twenty-five miles away. We lived a mile away, but the explosion was powerful enough to send a shudder through my body. The next morning we went to school as usual, but entire blocks of shops had been razed. My best friend’s family business was destroyed by the blast. I remember going to school that day and not being able to comfort my friend because the scale of loss was so great.
The Northern Irish context bears unique political tensions that do not map neatly onto the North American (or any other) landscape. But I hope that some of what my country has learned by living through the Troubles and working toward the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement will help church leaders understand the importance of their role in polarized times. The following insights are meant to encourage leaders to consider helpful ways of leading worship, particularly through preaching and prayers, in times of division.
1. Understand the Role of Religion
Religion can contribute to conflict, but it can also help societies emerge out of it. Relative to other European countries in the late twentieth century, Northern Ireland was (and is) a highly religious and tightly knit community. Even those who did not go to church were familiar with religious codes. As a result, certain symbols and religious ideas “stuck” to communities to help people make sense of people’s social and political relationships. For example, Protestants used the doctrine of election to identify themselves as God’s chosen people in Northern Ireland. If you walked along the streets of Belfast, you would see murals of men holding guns and wearing black balaclavas under the words “For God and Ulster.” (“Ulster” is a name often used interchangeably with “Ireland.”) In the face of violence, religious ideas were used to read back into society mythical interpretations of the Bible that allowed entire communities to see themselves as either victims or victors. These interpretations offered immediate comfort and the hope of triumph. They attached God to one community at the expense of the other. Just as the ancient Israelites in 1 Samuel 4 tried to use the ark of the covenant as a guarantee of God’s protection, the Protestant people in Northern Ireland thought that proudly wearing religious symbols would inoculate them against suffering. The role of the religious peacemaker, then, is to honestly interrogate how religious symbols such as flags, colors, and slogans are being used triumphantly at the expense of another God-fearing community. During the Troubles, a group of Christians courageously worked to change the slogan “For God and Ulster” to “For God and God’s glory alone.” Preaching through 1 Samuel helps uncover which qualities of leadership foster deep communion with God and which attributes are simply paying homage to shibboleths.
2. Put Christ at the Center
A tremendous irony in our sectarian community is that the people we tend to “other” are not communities that are extremely different from our own, but rather people who exhibit a high degree of religious similarity but threaten to take power. Sailors use the Beaufort scale to rate wind speed according to how much damage it might cause, beginning with 0 for calm and ending with 12 for hurricane-strength winds. Joseph Liechty and Cecelia Clegg created a similar scale to describe levels of sectarian violence. It begins with simply noticing how different groups talk about each other: “We are different. We behave differently.” But this swiftly morphs into “We are right, and you are wrong” and then “You are a less adequate version of what we are.” As people’s attitudes progress along this scale, they gradually dehumanize “others” and justify evil actions against them.
It’s helpful for preachers to notice who maximizes or minimizes differences and when, as well as to understand the reasons why this may be so. During my research in multicultural worshiping communities, I discovered that those at the center of power tended to maximize differences with the other as a means of holding their position, whereas those on the margins minimized differences in a hopeful attempt at fitting in and belonging. Neither of these positions is healthy, and both need to be recognized in relationship to each other. The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3–11) would be an excellent passage to craft a sermon series around in divided times. These verses call us to be like Jesus in every facet of life.
Preachers can also point to the Trinity as an alternative model for community relationships. In his book The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, Jurgen Moltmann suggested that “the Trinity corresponds to a community in which people are defined in their relations with one another and in their significance for one another, not in opposition to one another. . . . The doctrine of the Trinity constitutes the church as ‘a community free of dominion.’ The trinitarian principle replaces the principle of power by the principle of concord. . . . I am free and feel myself to be truly free when I am respected and recognized by others and when I for my part respect and recognize them. . . . Then the other person is no longer the limitation of my freedom; he is an expansion of it” (Jurgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God, transl. M. Kohl, 1981, pp. 198, 202, 216).
3. Celebrate Differences
Being Christ-centered gives us freedom to celebrate our differences. From the beginning, God ordained a creation teeming with diversity. Thus the task of the preacher, Walter Brueggemann suggests, is to identify in the biblical narrative alternative proposals of reality that are kingdom shaped rather than culturally shaped. This happens best when there is cultural contact with others from diverse backgrounds, by which we can understand how church might be shaped by our own culture without our fully realizing it.
What helped me enter into a deeper process of self-interrogation was engaging in a study of Galatians while living in the European jurisdiction in the south of Ireland. Understanding what it means to be free in Christ outside of my own culture helped me interrogate the unhelpful systems I had been living in, such as strict legalism and an identity too closely tied to colonialism. If our primary purpose is to witness to Christ, we should read Galatians in a way that asks: How might there be justice and well-being not just for me, but for people everywhere? Too often we consider only our own freedom, but a series on Galatians might be an opportunity to consider those who have lost many degrees of freedom but realize a deeper sense of freedom in Christ.
4. Study Biblical Leaders
During polarized times, look toward the “hybrid” leaders in the bible. Whenever there was severe oppression, God raised up leaders who were able to disrupt systems of power as well as understand suffering, in part because they held hybrid identities. Think of Moses, Joseph, Esther, and ultimately Jesus. Part of the beauty and challenge of coming from Northern Ireland is that I have a hybrid identity. The beauty is that, as a result of the most recent diplomatic initiatives for peace on our island, I have the privilege of carrying two passports: one British and one Irish. Yet the challenge of being Northern Irish is that we are seen as not Irish enough to be Irish nor British enough to be British. We have a hybrid identity. I see this as an invitation to lean deeper into a Christlike identity with citizenship in Christ’s kingdom. The ultimate expression of this is Jesus, who left the comfort of being with his Father to walk in our shoes and bring us into his family. How might hybrid leaders help you understand the beauty of Jesus and walking in someone else’s shoes?
5. Humanize Others
During the Irish Churches Peace Project (2012–15), clergy from significantly different backgrounds were brought together for discussion. To help break down boundaries, the opening question was: “How did you come to be a clergyperson?” Then, “If you were not a clergyperson, what might you want to be?” Hearing real stories humanizes the other; it dismantles stereotypes. We didn’t ask “Are you in Christ?”—which is judgmental—but rather, “Because I am in Christ, how should I treat the other?” How might you be able to form—across different racial and political divides—intentional clergy groups committed to deepening relationships and informing each other’s preaching so that boundaries do not become hardened?
6. Share Positive Stories
When preaching, talk about people you encounter in your own home or how you have experienced hospitality in the home of someone with very different values. During the Troubles, one of our peacemaking clergy, Rev. Dr. Ken Newell, intentionally befriended a Roman Catholic priest who was then present at all of Newell’s significant family milestone celebrations. Newell said he did not want his own family to grow up with prejudice in the same way that he did. He modeled what he preached.
7. Practice Grace and Lament
The Good Friday Agreement, now twenty-five years old, was built on the dream of a shared community. The hard reality was that it demanded a high level of compromise to foster peace. Paramilitary groups were asked to turn in their weapons in exchange for the release of political prisoners. Northern Ireland is a very small community. It demanded inordinate amounts of grace for people in the pew whose loved ones had been murdered to accept this agreement. They knew they might encounter their loved ones’ murderer walking down the street. I have talked with a clergy friend who lost his father to the actions of a terrorist group about what it feels like to see his father’s murderer around town. He reflected that even decades later, the hurt is still very raw. He talked about the questions he would ask his father’s murderer to try to get at a deeper level of truth telling.
The painful reality of peace in this world is that the high values of justice, truth, mercy, and peace rarely come together at the same time. How do we live in the midst of broken pieces? Rehearsing psalms of lament, anger, and desperate cries for help are important vehicles for bringing difficult emotions before God knowing that resolution might not come this side of eternity.
8. Speak of the Positive Qualities of Peace
One of the tragedies of the Good Friday peace agreement was that it focused on the absence of violence—a “negative peace”— and generally neglected the positive qualities that go into a peaceful society like justice, truth, and mercy. Preachers are called to talk about the deeply integrated shalom described in Revelation, the deep cost of forgiveness given in Jesus, and the beauty of the unbroken line of reconciliation in Christ carried on through broken sinners.
9. Practice Spiritual Disciplines
Living in divided times is an invitation to publicly engage disciplines of prayer that are ordinarily privately practiced. It wasn’t until years into our troubled history that we learned how the peacemaker Father Gerry Reynolds would pray daily for the strongest opposition leader, Ian Paisley, who had publicly denounced the Roman Catholic Church. His example challenges me to consider whom I need to pray for as a daily practice. Perhaps it’s someone who holds political views very different from mine.
Another helpful prayer practice to consider is to invite different congregations to go on prayer walks together to bless the soil we walk upon. Interclergy groups in Belfast continue to use prayer walks as a visible sign of peacemaking.
Perhaps the most potent prayer for reconciliation is the Lord’s Prayer, with which we pray forgiveness of each other. Sometimes the weight of forgiveness is weakened by expecting people to forgive quickly, as if the cost were light. Talking about the challenge, cost, and power of forgiveness while also praying for it is an important discipline in polarized times.
10. Celebrate Communion Together
Perhaps one of the most effective religious practices is taking communion seriously. On February 5, 1992, there was a mass shooting in a bookmaker’s shop a couple hundred yards away from Fitzroy Presbyterian Church, where Ken Newell was the minister. Five Catholic civilians were killed, and nine were injured. A Protestant paramilitary group claimed responsibility, saying it was in retaliation for an Irish Republican Army bomb. The following Sunday, Newell celebrated communion. Before he passed out the elements, he placed a stack of papers on the communion table between the bread and wine. Each page listed the names and addresses of the shooting victims, and he invited his congregation to take a page and go and visit the grieving families. He said, “You can’t pretend to be in communion with the Lord Jesus Christ if you are not in communion with those who are suffering in the street next to you.” Over and over again, this congregation would visit bereaved families across the divide, and their actions helped break the cycle of violent retaliation. Ken’s simple and powerful reasoning was that Christ loved us first, and therefore we need to be the first to show love to others.
Practicing communion is probably one of the most challenging, comforting, and disturbing acts of worship. It is a reminder of Christ’s kindness to us in bringing reconciliation while we were still his enemies. It is also a powerful call to lay down our hurts at the foot of the cross. In my previous congregation, we often practiced laying down our hurts by writing them on a piece of paper and throwing them into the trash before we came to the communion table as a simple way of examining our motives. How might our communion practices be shaped in ways that remind us of all the people we struggle to be in communion with, and how might it be a gracious prompt to reach out?
A Final Question
Christians are called to draw not from our old political and cultural reservoirs, but from the living waters of Christ. The apostle Paul reminds us of this: “Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other” (2 Corinthians 5:17–18, The Message).
These verses provide the motivation toward kingdom reconciliation, but the simple reality is that I do not want my children to experience the shudder of a bomb going through their bodies or the fear this creates. As you consider 2 Corinthians 5:17–18 in the light of your own context, what legacy do you want to pass on to your children?