This is the first in a three-part series looking at the cause and cure of ongoing conflict in Ireland, north and south.

Tensions re-emerge

The UK parliament’s imposition of abortion on the people of Northern Ireland was an exceedingly arrogant political decision that sums up the patronising and uncaring way we have administered that part of the world down the centuries.

The province had held much more stringent rules on the matter gleaned by the shared Christian faith of many of those who have ruled from Stormont. And they carried the people with them. So this will naturally stir up tension already fomented by disagreements and confusion over Brexit and how the border with the EU (i.e. the Republic of Ireland) is to be monitored.

Disagreements among Unionists are clearly opening up the way for those who have long fought for a united Ireland. Are we back to the bad old days?

Age-old rivalry

Rising tensions have spilled out onto the streets as we mark the centenary of partition, when Northern Ireland’s six counties were legally separated from the south following the emergence of Home Rule and the Irish Civil War. The Protestants of the north got their way, as outlined in the Ulster Covenant of 1912; refusing to accept authority from Dublin following London’s attempt at establishing a devolved government over all of Ireland.

This merely reawakened bitter rivalries going back hundreds of years in which Britain has played a not-altogether blameless role. Oliver Cromwell was responsible for the slaughter of many Irishmen as he sought to impose British rule there, and in the 1840s a million people died from the potato famine when much more could have been done to prevent such needless starvation.

Bitterness against the British runs deep, and it was only a matter of time before old wounds were opened and the more recent Troubles began in 1969. This sparked decades of tit-for-tat atrocities committed by Catholic and Protestant paramilitaries, with British soldiers caught in the middle.

Spiritual roots

Peace of a kind was achieved with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement on a devolved government, which saw the start of power-sharing in a stop-start sort of way. But it was just a papering over the cracks, or what the prophet Jeremiah called ‘healing lightly’ (Jer 8:11), crying ‘peace, peace’ when there is no peace.

The Rev Harry Smith, who has led efforts at reconciliation for decades, believes, as I do, that the root of Ireland’s problem is spiritual, and that the Church has the key to the solution. There’s a sense that politicians can only deal with the ‘fruit’, but it’s the root that has produced this fruit that so badly needs pulling out.

Specifically, Protestant denominations need to repent of their involvement in the Ulster Covenant, which Harry believes is the logjam preventing the flow of peace and reconciliation. First of all, it amounted to rebellion against authority, breaking a fundamental scriptural principle (Rom 13:1); and, secondly, Christians already have a covenant with God, cut in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave his life to bring sinners to the Father – and to each other in reconciliation!

The 1912 covenant was thus a man-made rebellion against authority set up by God. It was demonically inspired and has driven much sectarian violence ever since.

The 1912 covenant was thus a man-made rebellion against authority set up by God. It was demonically inspired and has driven much sectarian violence ever since.

Marches and parades which have caused untold provocation, unrest and disturbances in communities across the land are linked to so-called Orange orders and lodges bearing much resemblance to the dark arts of Freemasonry, which is the antithesis of Christianity with its focus on Christ and the finished work of the cross, where brothers find reconciliation with each other (Eph 2:14).

Idolatry of national identityBattle of the Boyne, by Jan van Huchtenburg

These provocative marches can be traced back to 1795 when the Rev Monsell, a Protestant clergyman from Portadown, invited his flock to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne¹ by attending church, and he preached such a sermon against the Catholics that his congregation fell on every Catholic they met on their way home, beat them cruelly, and finished the day by murdering two farmer’s sons, who were quietly at work in a bog.²

We have made idols of national identity rather than trusting in God and being peacemakers, which is our calling (Matt 5:9). The Ulster Covenant and its repercussions has great similarities to the history of apartheid South Africa, where theologians in the Dutch Reformed Church had constructed a ‘covenant’ theology which saw the Afrikaners as specially chosen, like the Israelites of old, to conquer the land and use black people to fetch and carry for them.

We have made idols of national identity rather than trusting in God and being peacemakers, which is our calling.

A godly people devoted to the Bible was thus led astray by professors of theology who twisted Scripture to fit their idea of being a superior race separated (except when convenient) from their black servants. When the professors repented and acknowledged that their theory of separation was not biblical, political apartheid collapsed almost overnight. But it took great humility and a laying down of pride on the part of the Afrikaner people and their spiritual leaders.

God can

Clearly, then, it can be done. But the spiritual stronghold in Ireland goes back much further. However, with God nothing is impossible. You could perhaps sum up the problem of Ireland as the clash of two major doctrines. And I don’t just mean Catholic and Protestant. Unpacking that a little, we have the ‘spirit of empire’ emanating from the Papacy, exerting its authority over the kings and queens of Europe versus the ‘spirit of sectarianism’ produced by the Reformation.

It's a long story, but we are left with two groups covenanted against each other – one to remain within the (now Protestant) UK and the other for a united (Catholic) Ireland.

“We need a relevant, up-to-date move of the Spirit to change the narrative,” Harry Smith told me. And of course, the Church of God should be taking the lead. God’s people do have the answer, but are we willing to lay down our pride and humbly seek the Lord in prayer and repentance (2 Chron 7:14)?

Peace & forgiveness - through Christ

A nation racked by violence, revenge, bitterness and unforgiveness is hardly in a place to resolve its differences around a table in the political sphere. But what if the spirit and principles of the gospel were applied? After Gordon Wilson lost his daughter Marie when a Provisional IRA bomb exploded at Enniskillen in 1987, killing 11 and injuring 63, loyalist paramilitaries were intent on retaliation. But they may have been stopped by Gordon’s words when he was interviewed about the death of his daughter.

“I have lost my daughter and we shall miss her,” he said, “but I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge. Dirty sort of talk is not going to bring her back to life. She was a great wee lassie…”³

A nation racked by violence, revenge, bitterness and unforgiveness is hardly in a place to resolve its differences around a table in the political sphere. But what if the spirit and principles of the gospel were applied?

When Michael McGoldrick lost his son, also Michael, murdered by terrorists in 1996, he and his wife Bridie were so distraught they decided to take their own lives. “But as I went out to the kitchen, suddenly a picture of the crucified Christ came into my mind. It hit me that God’s Son too had been murdered – for us.”

Before they closed his son’s coffin, he touched his hand and said: “Goodbye, son, I’ll see you in heaven.” Afterwards he recounted: “At that very moment I experienced the power of God coursing through my body. I was filled with a great sense of joy and confidence in God. I felt as if I could have faced Goliath – I never felt as strong in my life.”

Mr McGoldrick made a decision to forgive the perpetrators, and was a changed man, later reaching out with his wife to help orphans in Romania. He explained: “I feel as if Christ has taken hold of my life and I now want to take hold of Christ and give my life to love God and serving people.”⁴

This clearly points to the only way ahead, however uncomfortable. We’ll explore that in more depth next week.

Endnotes

¹The Battle of the Boyne of 1690, supposedly in the defense of Protestantism.
²Harry Smith, Heal Not Lightly, New Wine Ministries, quoting Mooney’s History of Ireland, 1846.
³Heal Not Lightly, p. 157
⁴Ibid, p. 158