Editorial: Spring Fever
Anna Rankin

Comment: What is Reconciliation?
Michael Whitley

From the Director: Ireland is changing and so are we!
David W Porter

The Whole Gospel for the Whole World (and beyond...)
Johnston McMaster

Rwanda Ten Years On
Earl Storey

Anglo-Irish Relations
Russell & Katherine Norton

The Hard Gospel
David Chillingworth

Interview with Robin Eames: RECONCILIATION - A View from Armagh
Anna Rankin

Interview with Sean Brady: RECONCILIATION - A View from Armagh
Anna Rankin

Church-based Peacebuilding
Maria Power

Evangelism & Reconciliation - are they irreconcilable?
Patrick Mitchel

Dogville and the Drama of Redemption
John Kiess

Blessed are the Peacemakers?
Drew Gibson

Review: Bitter Fruit
David Buckley

Review: The Colour of Darkness
Jacqui Livingstone

Review: The Lost Message of Jesus
Ben Walker

Review: The Futures of Evangelicalism
David J Montgomery

Review: Evangelicals in Ireland: An Introduction
Stephen Cave

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CHURCH-BAESED PEACEBUILDING
Professionalising the churches’ contribution to reconciliation?

Assessing the developing role played by ECONI in church-based peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. This article is based on a case study from PhD research on the history of inter-church relations in Northern Ireland carried out by Maria Power independently but with the full co-operation of ECONI.

WHEN THE BELFAST AGREEMENT was signed in 1998, the critical challenge facing Northern Irish society was the need for reconciliation between the Protestant and Catholic communities. In contrast to previous political agreements, such as the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985, the Belfast Agreement reflected the ethos of the growing community grassroots movement, with its emphasis upon the involvement of local people in the community and the need for the participation of all shades of political opinion in the maintenance of peace. Two issues were fundamental to this desire for reconciliation: trust and understanding. Thus, in order for the two traditions to even contemplate trusting one another, they needed to understand the culture and beliefs of other community.

This emphasis upon the need to develop trust and understanding between the two communities as a means of promoting reconciliation is nothing new. Faith-based organisations, such as Corrymeela and other smaller, lesser known, local groups have been working in this way since the 1960s. Most of this work has operated on an inter-church basis, involving clergy and lay people from all denominations as a matter of course. It was usually run in an unplanned manner, reacting to the wants and needs of the local community rather than applying a strategic approach. By drawing upon biblical principles such as justice, forgiveness, and peace, these organisations have developed programmes and projects which allow members of the Protestant and Catholic Communities to come together in a ‘safe environment’ to build trust and understanding, eventually reconciling with one another.

Since the mid-1980s however, faith-based organisations have changed the way in which inter-church relationships of this kind operate. Groups such as Youth Link and Mediation Network have been invited into local communities and have worked with them to promote peace and reconciliation. In doing so, they have ‘professionalised’ the way in which this trust and understanding is built by providing community relations and reconciliation courses which can be adapted to suit most groups. Through their work with Evangelicals, ECONI have been central to the development of this movement in two ways: first through their education work, which promotes an understanding of the Evangelical Community and second through their training which introduces people to the language and process of Christian reconciliation in a structured manner.

ECONI stands within a broad tradition of church-based peace and reconciliation work in Northern Ireland which includes both inter-church and mono-communal organisations. Furthermore, although they aim to speak to the Evangelical constituency within Northern Ireland, dealing with issues such as sectarianism and identity, their work both in education and training has had a significant impact upon peace and reconciliation work.

Not only have they contributed to the methodological development of the community relations and reconciliation courses offered by the faith-based organisations, but they have also brought the Evangelical community into the mainstream in Northern Ireland. They have done so by creating an alternative voice to a more fundamentalist Evangelicalism, helping evangelicals to think about the issues surrounding an engagement with the Catholic Community as well as promoting understanding of Evangelical beliefs and culture.

In common with a number of other peace and reconciliation agencies, such as Youth Link, ECONI has produced a wealth of resource material which, although aimed primarily at Evangelicals, has found an audience within the wider Christian community. This material has been the key to ECONI’s contribution to peace and reconciliation work within Northern Ireland as it has helped to create an understanding of the culture and religious beliefs of Evangelicalism, both amongst Evangelicals and, more importantly, other Christians. Such publications have ranged from the Pathways series to Glenn Jordan’s research project Not of This World, which provided a rich account of the range of contemporary Evangelical identity. This creation of understanding as helped to demystify the Evangelical Community in Northern Ireland by providing clear and thoughtful assessments of issues central to Evangelical belief as well as reflections upon biblical issues, such as forgiveness and justice, which are central not only to Christian but also to communal and political reconciliation.

Such work was further promoted through ECONI’s training programme which, again, focused primarily on Evangelicals. The main value of this kind of work, which took participants through a process of exploring their own faith and political identity, was to strengthen and reaffirm this identity in a positive manner. Many people in Northern Ireland suffer from what can only be termed as a negative identity: they define themselves by what they are not, instead of what they are. The courses offered by ECONI help to rectify this by eventually moving participants into an exploration of other forms of identity, both religious and political, examining the myths surrounding these as well as their own attitudes regarding them. In designing and facilitating such training programmes, ECONI has developed important peacemaking tools which alleviate the ignorance surrounding the two communities in Northern Ireland and create the foundations for trusting, open relationships to be built.

ECONI’s work, both in the fields of training and education, has reached countless people. However, like most organisations of its kind, it now faces a period of renewal, during which it must decide whether to take a new strategic direction. So what lessons can be learnt from the past and what might the future hold for them?

The first major lesson centres on the influence that ECONI has had upon church-based peace building in Northern Ireland. Consciously and indeed prudently, they have only gone to the edges of their own community in their efforts to build peace. They have provided them, as well as those outside, not only with an understanding of what it means to be an Evangelical in the 21st Century, but also with biblical reflections upon issues central to peace building such as forgiveness, justice, love and reconciliation.

Furthermore, after 17 years in existence, ECONI has carved a niche for itself within the Evangelical community. During this time it has moved further towards the centre of the religious spectrum in Northern Ireland and represent the moderate voice of Evangelicalism. The impact of this work, both in terms of its contribution to reconciliation and its effect upon the Evangelical community in Northern Ireland, should be assessed and built upon. A key element of ECONI’s future programme should be the more ‘political’ aspects of their work, such as the Church in the Public Square. Such work examining the relationship of the religious to the political is sorely needed and could hopefully result in a theological reflection upon the current situation in Northern Ireland.

However, now that ECONI has consolidated its position within Evangelicalism, and now needs to begin working with the Catholic Community without losing its mono-communal identity. One result of this might be a tentative dialogue between ECONI and Catholics surrounding community relations issues as, although they have not previously been able to do this, the conditions now seem to be in place for such conversations to occur. This dialogue could then be extended to examine issues surrounding the churches in the post-conflict era, such as secularisation.

ECONI has been highly successful and courageous in creating an understanding of the Evangelical Community in Northern Ireland and presenting it to the wider world, perhaps the time has now come for them to take this expertise and put it to use examining some of the issues that Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, have chosen to ignore.

DR MARIA POWER completed her Ph.D. on the history of inter-church relations in Northern Ireland in 2003 at Royal Holloway, University of London. She is currently ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies University of Liverpool.

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