As we enter a new millennium

A review article by David Stevens

Issue 354, vol.89, Summer 2000

The churches provided much of the framework in which social and personal life was lived but it was a framework of separation and segregation - worlds apart. They also gained considerable social power and prestige. A particular and late flowering form of Irish Christendom developed with informal establishment. There were, of course, other themes playing as well, North and South: counter-themes of anxiety, pressure, vulnerability, marginalisation and exclusion.

The coming of partition in 1920 - one of the key political events in the 20^th century - put a very considerable strain on the Protestant churches, marginalising as it did for a long time the position of Protestants in the South. Church experience in both parts of the island has been very different and that has had its impact on the kind of churches that have emerged, North and South. The Troubles of the last 30 years have accentuated the strains.

The experience of the Roman Catholic Church, North and South has also been very different. The Catholic Church in the Republic gained a special position in the Irish polity. The Catholic Church in the North became the key institution in Catholic nationalist society but had a very marginal position in the Northern Ireland State.

The Northern Ireland conflict has meant that socio-political matters have consumed a vast amount of energy in the churches over the last 30 years. The conflict has also consumed a vast amount of necessary pastoral care. Particular parishes and congregations have been profoundly affected by conflict and violence. The Troubles and a general insecurity have contributed to a general conservatism of church life in the province, for churches have provided safe spaces. A new situation for the churches is opening up; one which will bring far reaching challenges.

The churches were one significant factor in preventing the society from going over the brink into chaos. The church opposed those who espoused violence and the gods of nationalism. However, churches themselves have benefited in some ways from conflict and violence. The connection between religion and ethnic identity in Northern Ireland may have inhibited secularisation. The effect of an end to violence and of a political settlement on religious participation is worthy of thought. Many people have had a link with the church as a mark of tribal allegiance, to show clearly what they are not. Peace and stability will accelerate rapid cultural change.

Concepts of Britishness and Irishness and their links with religion have been transformed over the course of the 20^th century. An idea of Britishness compounded of empire, Protestantism, monarchy and industrial revolution is ending. The vision of a separate, self-sufficient, Irish nation-state has been abandoned. The linkage between Irishness and Catholicism is breaking down. Worlds are coming to an end.

The late 20^th century has proved to be a chastening time for the churches in Ireland. The Catholic Church in the Republic has been humiliated by successive sexual scandals. The Church of Ireland has had to face anguish over marches to Drumcree Parish Church. The careful examination of the issue of sectarianism, which has taken place in the 1990s, has shown that the religious capacity to develop and sustain community is not without its shadow side; and that concern for truth can lead to the negative evaluation and treatment of others. There is a humbling and a winnowing going on. The many hurts caused by dominant churches over the years have come to the surface. There is a general decline in numbers and attendance. There is a rapid move going on from a situation of social prestige and influence to one where churches increasingly receive substantial criticism and have their views ignored.

There is a growing alienation from the churches, sometimes taking the form of anger but often of apathy. This is particularly acute among the young and in some urban areas. Weekly mass attendance is as low as 6% in some Dublin working-class parishes. The conclusion of a recent North Belfast survey was that:

…the vast majority of Protestant people in the urban community simply have not come to church on a regular basis for years.

The gap between the emerging dominant culture and the faith community is becoming huge. While there are continuing enormous strengths there is a sense of ‘end-times’ approaching for particular forms of Irish religion.

The crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in the Republic goes far beyond recent scandals. It is fundamentally related to a deep and far-reaching revolution, which has been taking place in Irish society over the last 30 years. It is, in fact, difficult to think of any country in which so many and so great changes have taken place within such a short period.

The well-known religious commentator Seán Mac Réamonn says in his essay:

Clearly, the cultural scaffolding - of habit, assent, consensus, obedience, tradition or whatever - within which Irish Catholicism flourished for a century and a half, has collapsed.

The new culture that is emerging makes it difficult for religious faith to flourish. The sheer rapidity of the revolution leaves all the churches uncertain how to respond. Ireland’s particular form of Christendom is disappearing. It is a much more complex Ireland that is emerging.

All through the 20^th century there has been a decline going on in the number of people attached to the mainstream Protestant churches. This has been due to the effect of secularisation on the one hand and a drift to more conservative churches on the other. Our religious situation is one of increasing pluralism with no serious interest in church union.

Pluralism within denominations is also increasing. There is a vast difference in outlook, tradition, understanding and experience between one congregation and another within the one denomination. It may also be that the significance of the denomination itself is declining; for some people being Presbyterian, Methodist, Church of Ireland, or whatever is simply not that important. It is belonging to a particular expression of ‘church’ that they feel comfortable with which is important.

Divisions which cut across denominations are of huge importance, the most important of which is the liberal/evangelical one. Irish evangelicalism is a diverse and fragmented phenomenon but it is absolutely central to the Protestant churches. How it interacts with politics continues to be important. It has to be engaged with. There are people and bodies within it who have traditionally been suspicious of, and even hostile to, ecumenical organisations who are increasingly prepared to reach out and co-operate with other Christians and to engage constructively with the realities of a divided society. In the Ireland that is emerging there are new possibilities of engagement.

We should also note the significant growth of Pentecostal churches and of the house church/charismatic movement. There is a yearning for a vibrancy of worship and a demand for a depth of religious experience among some that we ignore at our peril.

People are searching for spirituality but this search is increasingly dissociated from clearly defined belief systems or corporate loyalties. In a consumer and individualistic world people shop around for answers to religious and moral questions; the attitude is one of ‘pick and mix’, of what is good (and true) for me. The spirit of the age is profoundly suspicious of institutions, particularly those that appear to be telling people what to do and how to live their lives. The world of options and preferences that we increasingly inhabit makes long-term commitments to anything odd and counter-cultural. How are we to engage with this emergent world?

Economic success has brought unprecedented prosperity to the Irish Republic. But it has brought new problems. The gap between rich and poor is widening. The evidence of social alienation is made manifest in the poverty of the inner cities and the growing number of homeless people in the streets. The economic boom has also brought an increase in the number of refugees and economic migrants. Thus, as we enter a new millennium the questions arise: What sort of society is emerging? Where are the necessary civic values to come from, particularly in the context of the revelations of how politics have been conducted?

The Irish Catholic Bishops in their Letter Prosperity with a Purpose: Christian Faith and Values in a Time of Rapid Economic Growth - the latest in a line of significant documents going back to The Work of Justice - have raised important questions concerning human flourishing in the new Ireland that is emerging. In particular, does prosperity produce gratitude that leads to generosity, or does it produce selfishness that leads to exclusion? All of these questions are framed within the context of a wider world of want which laps at our shores.

The arrival for the first time in the history of the Irish State of increasingly significant numbers of non-nationals from diverse ethnic, racial, cultural and racial backgrounds is launching the Republic on the path to a plura-form society. In a European context perhaps the only surprising things are how long this has taken to happen and how quickly the changes are taking place. In a globalising world the trend towards ethnic, cultural and religious diversity is unlikely to be reversible. 1999 has seen the appointment of a Refugee Projects Officer by the Irish Catholic Bishops and the formation of a Churches’ Asylum Network. 1999 has also seen the inauguration of the first black-led church in Dublin. The Greek Orthodox Church has seen its church in Dublin grow a hundred fold. It now caters for 18 nationalities, including Russians, Serbs and Romanians.

Ireland will be facing in the new millennium the issues that are being faced on a global scale: how to combine growth with equality and a sustainable environment; and how to face the issue of ethnic, racial and religious diversity. In the Ireland of the future we will have to be much more sensitive to minorities than heretofore. The recognition and negotiation of difference are skills we are going to have to learn.

The possibility of a fuller ecumenism opened up by the Second Vatican Council and the onset of the Troubles in Northern Ireland almost exactly coincided. Thus the developing relationship between the churches has interacted with how the churches have responded to socio-political problems and issues raised by the Troubles. Peace-making, community relations and ecumenism have been tangled together. In a new context in Northern Ireland whither ecumenism?

Relationships between the churches have been transformed over the last 20 years but it is clear that in the Protestant churches there is significant opposition to structured relationships with the Roman Catholic Church, and, indeed, that there is a deep seated anti-Catholicism. This is not just a reality within one church. Ecumenism is a potent source of division within the Protestant churches. New possibilities are accepted by some and rejected by others.

Insecurity, fear and anxiety have permeated the Protestant churches in Ireland. They have been a particular feature, at various times, in this century. They have frozen traditions, produced a culture of suspicion, put an emphasis on sharp distinctions of doctrine and led to the search for theological formulations to bolster up communal identity. They have found an outlet in negative energies and negativity: the Northern Irish novelist, Brian Moore - who died in 1999 and who was utterly obsessed with religion - begins one of his novels by saying, “In the beginning was the word and the word was ‘No’”. They have put a premium on internal peace in some churches and encouraged factionalism and disputation in others.

The temptation has been to long for everything to remain the same or to seek to return to imagined yesterdays. We want to extend our yesterdays and todays into tomorrow in order to defend what we have - our identity, our attitudes, our ethos. The danger is we retreat from a future which looks as if it will be uncomfortably unfamiliar from the present and from the past.

There is a danger that we will get religious communities of withdrawal. In Northern Ireland there are many battered, bruised and hurt people who are deeply unhappy about the way the province is going and fearful about the future. There could also be a hardening of confessional identity into defensive attitudes and self-justification. A duality could open up within the Protestant churches, into those willing to engage with a new political and social dispensation and those wishing to withdraw from it, or to oppose it.

If a new kind of politics for Northern Ireland is to become firmly established, it will need to be accompanied by movements toward a new kind of society. Without an effort to build relationships and repair the social fabric there is no basis for a healthy society or a better future as a community. Implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, political developments challenge the churches as to what kind of role they are going to play.

For the sake of church and society alike, the churches could offer no greater contribution than to redouble their efforts to address the legacy of sectarianism, a contributing factor in the conflict we have suffered and a potential stumbling block and pitfall on the road to a new society. For the churches themselves, such efforts enhance - in fact they may well be essential to - the credibility and vibrancy of our witness to the gospel in new political circumstances. For the churches’ contribution to society as a whole, the stakes are equivalently high: if new social relations are to take root and flourish, we must ensure that they are not undercut by a continuing sectarianism. Issues of separation and segregation are part of the reality that must be dealt with. Tackling sectarianism and seeking to find “a possible land” - a place of abundance - beyond it are suitable millennium projects for the churches in Ireland.

Drumcree has forced the issue of sectarianism on to the agenda of the Church of Ireland and 1999 saw a serious discussion at the General Synod. In the cautious words of Bishop Richard Clarke:

Perhaps the Church of Ireland General Synod of 1999 showed glimmerings of reluctant willingness to face the tyranny of our past with some honesty.

Resolutions were passed, but what is needed is not the passing of resolutions but the transformation of cultures.

Part of the price of creating and maintaining a political settlement in Northern Ireland may be the development of a civic amnesia about the past - for the past is a dangerous country - combined with a search for suitable scapegoats to blame for the last 30 years. The churches may be expected to fulfil this latter role. We should recognise that there will be a necessary judgement for what has happened, and the churches will fall under that judgement. We should also recognise that there will be scapegoating as well.

At issue is also how we promote an appropriate remembered sorrow, lament and repentance for what has happened and for lost lives. Truthful living requires this. We can too easily seek to draw a line and move on with timid expressions of official regret, while disregarding hurt, pain, anger, grief and continuing grievance.

When we view the Ireland of the end of the 20^th century it is with a sense of surprise. All that is solid is melting into air, the old maps do not do any longer. There is a possibility of a new situation in Northern Ireland. Southern Irish society is being transformed.

What does it mean to be church in a new millennium? One thing is sure: we are moving into a post-Christendom millennium. What will it mean to be a post-Christendom church? Bishop Richard Clarke says that

Our problem in Ireland is that we do not know what a non-Christendom church would be like from inside. We are not sure how to express membership of such an institution, and even less sure if we would actually like this sort of community which will inevitably have an acute vulnerability about it.

The temptation is to turn inwards and away from risk. Whatever happens we are likely to be smaller, more marginal.

How can we be in full engagement with the realities of the 21^st century and yet be distinctive faith communities that have Christ at their heart? How can we be signs of transcendence and points of contradiction to the worship of consumerism and globalisation? How do we reflect biblically and theologically in a rapidly changing context? There is a clear need for a recovery of imagination, out of which the Christian story might be attractively shown, and told in words of significant speech. We need, as we enter a new millennium, to be in a listening and learning mode so that we can find our way round this new Ireland.

David Stevens is General Secretary of the Irish Council of Churches

Notes

[1]     Three volumes of essays: Religion in Ireland: Past, Present and Future, ed. Denis Carroll, Columba Press, A Time to Build: Essays for Tomorrow’s Church, ed. Stephen White, APCK and New Century, New Society: Christian Perspectives, ed. Dermot Lane, Columba Press provide much material for reflection.