My latest book, Considering Grace: Presbyterians and the Troubles, co-authored with Jamie Yohanis, was launched in the City Hotel in Londonderry/Derry on 6 November.
The launch featured a response by the Catholic Bishop of Derry, Donal McKeown. His remarks are reproduced below, with his kind permission.
Considering Grace: Response by Bishop Donal McKeown
This is a book that, on the one hand, is easy to read- because it is written with a lucid style throughout and the contributions about individuals are short and very varied. And on the other hand, it is hard to read – because it is full of personal stories, many of them painful and painfully honest. What struck me particularly in the accounts of the victims was how many were from border counties – and how many families from these areas had to bury their children and their future. It is a book full of personal pain and of wounds that have left deep scars. And it full of stories of great faith and generosity, rich in stories of quiet dignity and local heroes, laced with gratitude and regret.
It may be about the stories of Presbyterians – but there are books to be written about how people from other church traditions experienced the madness and the mayhem. It reflects so much of the chaotic nature of what many of us lived through. Bombs and bullets, pain and the knock at the door came unannounced. Loss is one thing – but when it was inflicted deliberately, it gave rise to all sorts of other emotions as well. Responses had to be made on the hoof and under conflicting pressures. Clergy and other care givers felt very exposed to a range of agendas – and often unsupported in the short and longer term. Families of victims often felt lost in the mists of lists and far from the worthy words of leaders. Pain is personal and personal pastoral outreach is what speaks to the hurting heart.
The first thing that strikes me is the deep faith of many – and how that helped them process the pain.
Prayer, the scriptures, regular church attendance and local Church contact were significant for lots of contributors as they lived their painful Good Fridays and empty Holy Saturdays. Some religious figures are criticised for their roles and words. But there is an impressive series of testimonies as to the role of faith and local leadership in helping those who suffered. This is useful to remember when we hear about how faith is dying and churches are becoming irrelevant. We are now losing too many young people for want of a reason for living. It takes more than glossy hair or younger looking skin to help all of us face the deep questions of living and dying. Faith in Christ can be a precious resource as people seek to make sense of the senseless. This book gave me confidence.
Secondly, this book in many ways echoes the conclusions of John Brewer, Gareth Higgins and Francie Teeney – church personnel on the ground did many great things, individual bridgebuilders were inspired by their faith, but the churches as institutions struggled to make any difference at the micro or macro level.
The highly congregational and devolved structures of the PCI had limitations in that local pressures could be easily exerted. The short term of office of the Moderator means that no medium-term leadership figure could appear. On the Catholic side, there was less susceptibility to political agendas. Indeed, Bishop Cathal Daly, when he was in Down and Connor, said something to the effect that the work of the Catholic Church was a struggle for the minds and hearts of the people of West Belfast. But a merely top-down approach can make for a clumsy, clunking institution, being pulled in various directions, speaking from on high but seeing little happen at local level. Different ecclesiastical structures have advantages and disadvantages. Many Catholics would echo the sentiments of some contributors that statements and condemnations from leaders were often distant and meaningless. If all politics is local, so the experience of church is local and personal. We could all well reflect on the fact that structures are not frozen in stone but at the service of the mission. And then to learn from the mistakes of the past.
Thirdly, this all leads into the big question about how we remember the past and find peace with it.
There were many comments in the book about reconciliation and forgiveness, individually and communally. Two local clergy in this city – Archdeacon Robert Millar and Fr Paul Farren – recently brought out a little book called Forgiving and Remembering. Johnston McMaster and John Dunlop are quoted in the concluding reflections. They wonder how we can find a way to allow for acknowledging rage and grieving without falling into collective apathy, social paralysis or violence? How does Christian enable ‘good remembering’ of pain and loss?
The phrase ‘remembering the future’ perhaps ties into this. And that links me with this city. Many years ago, I was invited to a few days of reflection on bridge-building here in the City Hotel. And the key idea that stuck with me was the assertion that the story we tell about the past determines the parameters for how we envision the future.
The scriptures are full of times when God’s people had to tell a new story about the past. The Israelites found ways to speak of the Exodus, not as an experience of useless wanderings but as a time when God was teaching his people. On the road to Emmaus Jesus taught Cleopas and his friend to see that the Christ had to suffer and so enter into his glory. Stephen in Acts 6-7 retold the story as did Paul in Romans and Galatians. Perhaps the Exodus paradigm is a useful Scriptural theme that does not appear in this book – but that is a core one for Christians as we seek to tell a liberating rather than an enslaving story about the past. People of faith were always able to remember the past as a time of grace and not of abandonment. It was a time when God was chiselling away at his people to make them stronger in faith. The desert became not the experience of hopeless abandonment but the place where new life and beauty would bloom. If pain can be seen through the lens of the Cross and of a teaching about God Emmanuel in solidarity with us, then it becomes easier to forgive the past as we speak about it, not merely as a time of loss but as a graced time as well. Gracious remembering becomes possible. For we are invited by faith to remember, not the evil inflicted by others but the faithfulness of the God who hung on Calvary – and could not be defeated by it. The Israelites – and the people of the new Israel – are faced with the conviction that the Promised Land is always in front of us, never behind us. Learning again and again to retell our story is part of ongoing metanoia. Remembering the future is based on the belief that, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. So, the challenge for us as a community is not to mine the past for nuggets that will prove our rightness and our righteousness or the wisdom of our political stance. The past was not the land flowing with milk and honey.
There are valuable lessons to be drawn from this book.
I don’t mean philosophical or academic insights. If the Churches individually and together are to architects of the future, we have to be able to speak about the past in a way that liberates and does not enslave. We have to learn where we went wrong and what our common Lord was teaching us. We have to preach a Jesus-based Gospel that is strong in its commitment both to the Lord who calls us down Zacchaeus-like from our tree and invites us to stand with him on the tree of the Cross – but that never forgets the evangelical call to build grace-filled structures. Those who are concerned with the hereafter are also concerned with the here and now. The vertical inspires us to engage with the horizontal arms of the Cross. In a hurting world, faith cannot afford to neglect the Beatitudes and be so heavenly that we are no earthy good.
I thank the generous contributors and the diligent authors.
Engagement with this book can be a grace-filled opportunity for all of us – and an important step on our journey to make space for grace.
Image: Gary Middleton (DUP), Jamie Yohanis, Gladys Ganiel, Rev William Henry (Moderator of the Presbyterian Church), Bishop Donal McKeown, and Rev Tony Davidson.