In his new book, Peter B. Price, former Bishop of Bath and Wells, now Chair
of the Trustees of Conciliation Resources, writes that the work of peace is
justice …
Shortly after Christmas
in 2013, I parked my car in one of the back streets of Protestant Sandy Row in
Belfast. The area had changed in the nearly fifty years since I first walked
there in the early days of the Troubles. Then, back-to-back houses had occupied
row upon row. Now, traffic on a four-lane motorway speeds around the city.
Yet there was a
familiarity. For a few moments I wondered why. Then it dawned. This was the
street, now rebuilt with modern houses, where I had visited the boarded-up
buildings during the riot torn 1970s. Here, unbeknownst to me nearly half a
century ago, was both the ‘beginning’, continuing and ‘end’ of a striving to
understand and engage in the ‘things that make for peace’.
Throughout those years
I have witnessed in many strife-ridden places and communities, a search for
peace and reconciliation. Those processes like the Peace Bridge that spans the
river Foyle in Derry/Londonderry were complex. Tensions were frequent, often
critical, and the tiniest miscalculation capable of bringing down the whole
edifice, and destroying years of work.
I recalled too the
numerous small groups I have participated in, each struggling to meet Pope Paul
VI’s challenge, ‘If you want peace, work for justice.’ I thought about how we
sought to move from pasts where suspicion, fear and violence had divided,
towards new relationships that made possible a shared future.
I remembered how we
learned to engage ‘in practices overtly labelled as reconciliation activities:
meetings, dialogues and joint projects to focus on our differences and
divisions, our hurts, our misdeeds, our history, our needs, our identities, our
cultures’, as David Bloomfield reminds us. ‘These activities help us to get to
know and begin to understand our former enemies who are now new partners, as
they begin to understand us.’(1)
I remembered just how
slow and demanding such activities are: what patience and ongoing commitment
they require. I was encouraged too. During Advent 2016, we were privileged to
help fund (2) a Youth Initiatives
project in Belfast. This was inspired by a sixteen-year-old woman, with the aim
of bringing together young people across sectarian and ethnic divides. It is
the dream of a ‘shared future’ born out of historic division, with a commitment
to dialogue and the creation of joint projects that begin the process of
reconciling those formerly divided.
My epiphany moment in
Belfast’s Sandy Row in 2013 was both an end and a beginning. I had been here
before and I would be here again. Uncertainty still threatens the very peace
processes begun so long ago. Here is the potential for further beginnings for
all who ‘seek the things that make for peace.’ For many who read my new book, Things That Make for Peace there will be a sense of: ‘That’s fine for him, but I don’t have his breaks, or
influence.’ Possibly, but it was not always so. I have lived longer in the
anonymity of working with small groups of people than in the corridors of power
and influence. The words of the anthropologist Margaret Mead remain a much more reliable dictum: ‘Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only
thing that ever has.’
Today I live in a small
English country town on a busy road with neighbours who have become friends.
Together we share each other’s joys and sorrows. I have been struck by how much
innate goodness there is hidden among us: the couple who have fostered seventy
or so children through nearly forty years; those who take into their care children
with special needs. Others quietly raise money for rescue services, or
unobtrusively look after elderly but very independent neighbours. Others carry
the burdens of loved ones suffering from disability and memory loss, serve in
the Food Bank, or visit those in prison. Of course there are prejudices,
sometimes tensions, but somehow there is an unspoken feeling of belonging, of
community.
My
contemporary experience of neighbourliness reminds me of working on a south
London housing estate with Catholics and Methodists in the 1980s, with people
whose lives were blighted by poverty and violence. We had been inspired by work
that some of us had engaged with in Latin America, in ‘base’ Christian communities.
Together we sought to enculturate what we had learned into our own
circumstances.
For some thirty years,
groups of lay people and clergy have explored what had become known as A New
Way of Being Church (3) in
the life of the wider Christian community. On his appointment, Pope Francis was
to speak of the need for such a way of being Church: ‘Structural change to the
government of the church is vital but it must follow from a new way of being
church, in which we get out of the sacristy, engage with people, know their
suffering and their puzzlement from within.’
Such activity has met
with varying degrees of success. I believe that if we are to become ‘truly
human’ and have a ‘shared future’ in which ‘peaceful kindness will be the law’,
then we cannot do it alone. ‘If you want peace, work for justice,’ said Pope
Paul VI, I want to modify that by saying, ‘The work of peace is justice.’
To achieve and sustain
a society in which people are to live together in shalom – peace,
harmony – we must bring together insights and experience from both religious
and secular sources, on what it means to love, forgive, and be reconciled. We
need, as the poet Rumi invites us, to discover:
Out beyond ideas of wrong
doing and right there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
One of the images of salvation in the Hebrew
Scriptures is that of entering into a wide open space. In such a ‘space’ there
is room ‘to think about compassion for loss, anger at injustice, and the
limiting of disgust in favour of inclusive sympathy,’ as the philosopher Martha
Nussbaum (4) has put it. But such ‘space’ is not only to reflect on
‘ain’t it awful’ – but to generate ‘Love (which) is what gives respect for
humanity its life and aspires to justice and equal opportunity for all and
inspires individuals to sacrifice for the common good’.
All the great faiths teach
us that we are each other’s keepers. Behind every face, there are hopes and
aspirations but above all, potential for humanness. For the Christian, Jesus is
that person who is hungry; that woman who is confused and naked; the child that
is the victim of war. It is such with whom Jesus identifies, because they are
truly his fellow human brothers and sisters.
Salvation is the
entering of a wide open space; a space where the seeking of ‘absolute good’,
the work of the kingdom can flourish, and where justice which is the work of
peace (shalom) (5) can
be found. Jesus’ invitation to his followers, to ‘Set your hearts on his
(God’s) kingdom first, and on God’s saving justice’ (6) is an invitation to find in God the origin of ‘absolute good’. In
the Hebrew the term for this is sedekah – a concept often translated as
‘righteousness’.
God’s justice is to be
found in the kindness God shows towards humans. By seeking humanity’s ‘absolute
good’ God exemplifies how we, made in God’s image, should act kindly and fairly
towards each other. Because God is good to us, we have an obligation to be good
to others. But it is more than that. Just as God is our keeper, so are we each
other’s keepers. When we seek well-being and fairness, we have to be sure that
in pursuing our rights, we do not deny those of our neighbour. As one writer,
Pinchas Lapide,(7) has
put it: ‘God is the Righteous – who practices sedekah and sets it as an
existential task for us as bearers of the divine image.’
When we practise
‘saving justice’ whether by almsgiving, visiting the sick, sacrificing self for
others, building peace, we are doing so because we have an obligation under
God. It is not something we do on our own, and in Jewish thought, it is not
something that is ever complete. We practise ‘saving justice’ as a ‘germ cell
of holy discontent, an active leaven in human society’,(8) and indicator of the longed for reign of God on earth.
Biblical justice is
about right relationships: being right with God, self, neighbour and the
environment. What prevents us from being ‘germ cells of holy discontent’ or
‘active leaven’ is fear. Fear is a dominating reality in our world. In the
affluent West we fear poverty. In a world of changing values, we fear losing
our moral compass. In a multicultural community we fear losing our identity; in
a multifaith society, our certainties. We are anxious that if we get too close
to others whose faith or values differ from our own we will be compromised. We
fear loss of control of our affairs, the respect of others, and being dependent
on those we perceive as different from us.
In
the political arena we look for leadership that is ever more uncertain and
fragmentary. We sense a loss of control, insecurity and economic uncertainty.
Instead of striving to build a society with others, we crave protection from
those not like us. We fear the future.
Such fear counters the
Gospel command, ‘Fear not.’ Certainly there are things to be afraid of, and
truth can be frightening. But ultimately, as St. John tells us, only ‘the truth
will make you free’.(9) The
desire to be ‘safe’ is both natural and essential for human flourishing. But,
says Erik Borgman,(10) ‘One
cannot reach safety by excluding everything that is potentially threatening. We
can only reach others by approaching others as people who need protection just
as we do and will want to give protection to those who protect them.’
Our vocation as humans,
and in particular people of faith, is the creation of a genuinely caring
society that demonstrates compassion as one humanity under God. Shortly before
I wrote these lines, I heard an account of members of a Jewish synagogue in
south London who were converting part of their building into a flat to house
Muslim Syrian refugees. They were working on this, as Jews, with Christians and
Muslims. By caring for others, and taking responsibility for them, they were
also taking care of themselves.
‘Each aspect of
peacemaking moves towards the inclusion of the outsider, the overcoming of
enmity, and the extension of the kingdom of God to all people,’ observes
Willard Swartley.(11) Peacemaking
is the primary goal of the kingdom of God, and if we wish to be called
‘children of God’ and be blessed by God, we must dedicate ourselves to this
task. In all I have witnessed amongst people seeking ‘the things that make for
peace’, it is the dedicated small community of ordinary people doing
extraordinary things that remains the most effective.
Peacemaking is not simply
about ending wars and conflicts on the macro scale. It is recognising those
places in our common life where fear becomes the dominant emotion; moments and
places where we risk excluding, dominating or otherwise violating the ‘other’,
and reducing our common humanity. It is to recognise that peacemaking is a
moral commitment. When we seek the establishment of peace, we do so because as
Kant wrote, ‘it is the ultimate duty of political action, the highest
expression of reason against irrationality.’ We seek peace because the most
fundamental human right is to life and it is our moral duty, as Gandhi insisted
‘to struggle against injustice … through the weapon of non violence’.(12)
Today few can doubt
that today our world is a perilous place. Wars, mass migration, uncertainty in
international affairs, growing protectionism, the building of dividing walls,
whether virtual or real, military threats and political fragmentation, leave us
vulnerable to divisions that threaten the very future of humanity.
Against such a
background to seek the renewal of humanity through the building of small
communities seems almost futile. It reminds me of the story of the little bird
lying on its back with its feet in the air. Asked by a passing stranger why it
was doing that, the bird replied: ‘I heard today that the sky was falling in.’
‘Well,’ scoffed the stranger, ‘how do you think you can change that?’ ‘One does
what one can,’ replied the bird.
I talked recently with
an old friend, Jim O’Halloran who some forty years ago went to Africa, where
together with others he set up the first of what we came to call ‘Small
Christian communities’. In the course of our conversation, he told me that
today there are some fifteen thousand communities. These groups are based
around meeting together, sharing, reading the Bible, dialogue and activities,
and, to use Jim’s words, they do ‘anything constructive to build a better
world’.
Key to such groups were
their relationships. I too experienced this in groups meeting on housing
estates in south London, Dublin and Belfast, as well as being a privileged
guest in other such groups in Brazil, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and
Guyana. Like Jim, I too discovered that such group formations were not limited
to Christians. In our small group on the Gloucester Grove Estate in Peckham,
London back in the 1980s and nineties, word got around of our meeting. All
sorts of folks came, individuals who in their own right tried to make a
difference, but were ground down by isolation and resistance. With us they
found support and encouragement, despite our prayers and biblical reflection.
Together we made changes in the community.
At
different times Jim and I visited India, and here we came across ‘Small Human Communities’
open to people of all religions and no professed faith. Jim reminded me that
these were formed largely of women who sought to do practical peace in their
communities. One such group living on the street in Bangalore touched me
deeply. They had come to identify themselves as a community through partnership
with local Christian students who had helped them fund a water supply, by
provision of a standpipe. This simple gesture, apparently inconsequential, had
opened the door to health care for families, education for children, and
recognition that, in their own words, ‘we are now a people’.
One example of a ‘small
human community’ I experienced in Britain was during the 1980s in the Yorkshire
Dales, where a vibrant group of former military personnel, Quakers, and others
committed to the pursuit of peace met regularly to ‘Think Peace, Pray Peace,
Speak Peace, Act Peace’.
For many years I have
sought, with others, to encourage the formation of ‘Small Christian
communities’ as a starting point for building a better world. Like Jim
O’Halloran, who has taught and written widely on this theme, I believe if one
is to reach out successfully, one must be sure of one’s own identity. ‘Beyond
it’, says Jim, ‘I would encourage groups of all kinds, whether religious or
civic that are doing anything to build a better world, or the kingdom. And I
would have them ALL support one another in any way they can without neglecting
their own work in so doing. This,’ he concludes, ‘is a template for building up
creation, motivated by a small community and group together with the
spirituality that inspires them.’(13)
I believe that the task
of building small groups of thoughtful committed citizens of the kingdom of God
is a priority for changing the world, and pursuing the things that make for
peace. Many people in our churches, and many who have left them but still hold
on tenuously to their faith, are looking for a vision to build a better world.
Most know that it will be costly.
Ours is a faith that
has always held together two apparent opposites: resistance and healing. It is
hard to stand against the prevailing mood and culture; to refuse to be fearful
when fear is all around us. It is hard to be self-giving, when all around us
are self-seeking. It is hard to see others as ‘our concern’, when all around us
‘others’ are a threat and a problem. It is hard to ‘seek peace and pursue it’,
when all around defences and weaponry are being built up and stockpiled. But
that is the call of the Christ, the Prince of Peace.
We
are called to resist all the things that do not make for peace and justice. Our
vocation is to stand with all those who are poor, vulnerable and under attack.
This means being prepared to defend those from different faiths, backgrounds
and cultures from our own. It will mean reminding governments of their duty to
‘establish peace’ by building up community, and refusing to play on fear, and
seeking to justify the use of state-sponsored violence.
The communities in
which I have found the greatest strength to ‘keep on, keeping on’ have been
those most aware of their own need of healing, as much as they have been aware
of the need for the healing of the nations. As they have studied Scripture and
sought discernment, they have prayed for faith, courage and hope to stand up,
speak and act in solidarity for those most in need.
On Advent Sunday in 2016,
I listened to the moving testimony of a Syrian priest who had been taken from
his monastery by ISIS and tortured. Subsequently, in another prison he was
confronted by his 100-strong congregation who had been taken hostage. All
expected the worst. To their surprise their captors released them, ‘Because,’
they said, ‘you Christians did not take up arms to fight us.’ Of course such a
story does not answer nor solve the deep and complex issues that face us, but
it does exemplify.
My journey of
possibilities from bystander to peacemaker grew out of a commitment ‘guided by
ethical principles, chastened by the lessons of history, and embodied in the
experience of practical peacemaking’.(14) It
has been enriched because of those whom I have met on the ‘common ground in the
multiplicity of our spiritual and guiding lights’. I have been humbled and
encouraged by people of many faiths and none who have ‘fought the long defeat’.
When I have asked
myself why I keep on keeping on, I find A.J. Muste’s answer to a similar
question is mine too: ‘I don’t do this to change the world. I do it to keep the
world from changing me.’ When I am asked what kind of Church can meet the
challenges of the future, I want to reply in the words of the second century
Church Father, Justin Martyr: ‘We who formerly treasured money and possessions
more than anything else now hand over everything to a treasury and share it
with everyone who needs it. We who formerly hated and murdered one another …
now live together and share the same table. Now we pray for our enemies and try
to win those who hate us.’
Because
somewhere in the recesses of my memory stirs the story of the coming of the
Prince of Peace, whose Presentation in the Temple I celebrated on the
completion of this book. Like the old man Simeon who waited for ‘a light for
revelation' (15) – I too wait in hope.
1. Bloomfield, Accord Insight 3, Transforming Broken Relationships, p. 46.
2. The Burns Price Foundation set up in 2015 makes grants to 11–18-year-olds for community projects. See www.burnspricefoundation.org.uk
3. New Way is an open community and it would welcome your contribution to its life. See www.newway.org.uk/whatwedo
4. Martha C. Nussbaum, Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice (Cambridge, Belknap-Harvard 2013), p. 2.
5. See Chapters 6 and 38 for more detailed definition of shalom.
6. Matthew 5:33, New Jerusalem Bible, italics mine.
7. Lapide, Sermon on the Mount, pp. 21–2. I was tempted to use the word sedekah throughout this section, but have opted for the more familiar, but less adequate, ‘saving justice’.
8. Lapide, Sermon on the Mount, p. 22.
9. John 8:32.
10. Erik Borgman: ‘The struggle against evil and dehumanisation in Europe, or how to deal with the other’, Concilium 2008/1, Evil Today and The Struggle To Be Human, pp. 22–5.
11. Willard Swartley, op. cit., p.15.
12. David Cortright, Peace: A History of Movement and Ideas (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 339.
13. O’Halloran, Giving Life Away, p. 102.
14. Cortright, Peace, p. 339.
15. Luke 2:32.
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