And that is a totally, if unselfconsciously, theological thing to do. I think that the churches can and must do this work time and again within all aspects of contemporary life - ipods, internet access, consumerism, ecology, justice issues - precisely because of the fact that they did offer hope and compassion in the decades of human suffering, intimidation and death.
Most people think that normality is something which is always there. I disagree. Normality is something which needs to be fought for, constantly re-asserted and thought through from first principles. So, my second role for the churches is to be agents of courage and confidence.
(3) A third area where the churches have a role is in revisiting the use of language. Let me give you an example. Stick to your principles, whatever you do! How often have we heard it, or even said it? Yet very few of us, I imagine, are willing to own up to having prejudices.
Prejudices are what other people have. As I see it, a principle is a beginning, a starting-point to which we return again and again to find our bearings, to re-position ourselves, to set out once more on the same sort of journey of life which we all must take.
A prejudice is a mental attitude or decision where a judgement which we made once - in particular circumstances which we are convinced have not changed, or on the basis of something which we took over from others without really thinking it through for ourselves - holds fast and we will not, or cannot, deviate from it.
The irony is that it may well have started out as a principle but developed into something non-negotiable, that is a prejudice. And this brings me into a further area where the churches, through their title deeds and through the personal example of Jesus Christ, can play a role in challenging the many noxious misunderstandings of power and authority. Not only is authority earned, it is also derived.
Power, on the other hand, needs constantly to be tempered and challenged by a critical assessment of any entitlement to use it over against other people. It is not of itself bad but, all too often, is used to dismantle the authority of others - particularly children, women, disadvantaged, disabled, poor people - and to zap their capacity to ask for equivalence of status or make a contribution which they alone, from their perspective and position, can make.
The churches have the role of being the place where this sort of human accommodation is modelled. So, my third role for the churches is to be upholders of honourable first principles.
Conclusion
The churches have no automatic role in the future of Northern Ireland. The churches however, in my opinion, individually and yet at the same time from an agreed common perspective, have a strategic role of both service and leadership because: they are, as we hear endlessly, present throughout the total community; they have principles and practices which too often have become confused with prejudices and exclusivities and yet, once re-thought in the fresh contexts into which they wish to speak and act, can act as yeast.
They, in fact, need the society at large to ask more not less of them, rather than allow them to move increasingly into the lay bys and cul-de-sacs of an emerging society because not enough is being asked of them.
The society, in all its good and bad manifestations, will be experimental for quite some time and will change whether or not the churches decide to take up the role which lies at their feet, if not yet in their hands as a strong force for honesty, healing and cohesion.
Members of a fledgling democracy such as ours in Northern Ireland, living through the birth-pangs of political maturity and mutuality, have little time for theoretical musings.
They, that is we, will be receptive to practicalities and living examples of generosity towards others. They will also, whatever their creed, be sustained by a Christian witness which derives the parables of its teaching from unpretentious, complex contemporary life. And they will undoubtedly respond to an institution and its people who make the first move.
Acknowledging the past: remembering together in church and society conference
The Tara Centre Omagh, County Tyrone
12 November 2007
