The exiles from Jerusalem sat by the rivers and wept. They remembered what life used to be like…

They were the chosen people. They lived in the land God had promised, blessed through the laws and kings he had given them. And even though their more recent history wasn't the best, were they not still the people of Israel, favoured in all the earth? Did they not still have the temple, the place in which the Lord God of all creation lived with them? Wasn't their king still in the line of David? Surely that was how it was meant to be! They were God's kingdom on earth - charged with being the holy nation among all the nations.

But here they were now, hundreds of miles from home - a home which had turned over. They were living in Babylon, a huge pagan empire which overwhelmed these strange monotheists. A place so new, so different, so frightening. They had gone from seeing themselves as the chosen people of the earth to being a taunted minority among a people whose interest was in anything but the ways of God. With great bitterness, the exiles remembered glorious Zion, struggling to come to terms with their new surroundings. How could they sing songs of joy in such a God-forsaken situation?

For 1500 years and more, since the Emperor Constantine decided Christianity was the faith for him back in the 4th century, Christianity has dominated the countries and cultures of the West. Our societies have been shaped and formed by it. It has been the first principles of our knowledge and the bedrock of our morality. One way or another, with our Christian rulers and laws, we have sought and assumed the blessing of God. From this centre we have proclaimed our Christian beliefs among the nations. No country typified this better than Ireland.

And yet, in past decades, great Christendom has come to an end - ransacked and repopulated by new ideas. The domination of the Christian faith, an era which so many look back to with such longing, has ended. Even across the land of Saints and Scholars, church attendance, one indicator among many, has rapidly declined. As Christians, we sit now by the rivers of pagan post-Christendom, our faith just one among the many in the globalised marketplace.

It is a whole new place for Christianity in the West to be - a foreign land. We may weep for the past and wonder how we can live out our faith anymore: "How could we sing the Lord's song now?" And yet the question is more than a lament. As we see in the lives of the Old Testament exiles, like Daniel and Esther, it is a necessary practical enquiry. In a new place and a new time, with new surroundings and away from homely (if often false) comforts, how could we "Sing the Lord's song in this foreign land?" How do we maintain and proclaim our faith in a strange and alien world?

This is the task of the church in these times - applying the historical biblical faith to the new and changing world in which we live. This is what the Centre for Contemporary Christianity in Ireland is committed to. As part of this, we are very pleased to invite you to our Conference on 5th November 2005 at the Seagoe Hotel. There we will be thinking about "Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land" with Stuart and Sian Murray-Williams, urban church planters in the UK. We would love to see you there joining with us, not in longing for how things used to be, but in discovering "Biblical Faith for a Changing World".

Ben Walker

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Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land is the title of the Centre’s Conference 2005, taking place on Saturday 5th November. Stuart and Sian Murray Williams will be exploring the theme of social and cultural change and its impact upon the witness of the church. For more information and to book online, click here.

The Centre for Contemporary Christianity presents: The Road to Bethlehem, A Candlelit Celebration of Christmas in St. Thomas' Parish Church, Belfast on Friday 2nd December at 7.45pm. Contact the Centre (events@contemporarychristianity.org, 028 90325258) to obtain tickets £10 (£5 students, seniors, unwaged; under 16s free).

The Centre's latest resource, Power and Providence: Studies on the Book of Esther is now available online (click here) or by contacting Anna Rankin.