Hard Brexit and the Ulster Covenant

This book, HEAL NOT LIGHTLY, was written by a friend of mine a number of years ago, but the message is especially vital right now; especially as we face the prospect of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Since the Good Friday Agreement, we've been living in a time of relative peace - that's "peace" as in "no noise", or "no people being killed", but one that requires "peace walls" between communities that still hate each other.

With a hard border, a major supporting factor for the Good Friday Agreement will have disappeared. We could be back to square one. It's time to tackle the root of the problem. That, according to Harry Smith, is the Ulster Covenant. His book gives an excellent background and a way forward. You can  buy it here.

My grandfather and my great-grandfather both signed the Ulster Covenant. It was a covenant solemnly sworn by two thirds of Protestants in Northern Ireland in 1912, to fight and be willing to die rather than submit to rule by the Dublin government, which was perceived to be Catholic controlled. In effect, we coerced Great Britain to keep us.

The crowds outside Belfast City Hall waiting to sign the
Ulster Covenant on 28 September, 1912

The Ulster Covenant was signed before God, and, in the words of Bob Dylan, we had "God on our side".

The only hitch was, God never gave us the mandate, as Christians (which is what Protestants are), to fight or spend our energy in making the world safe for our own kind. So rather than assuming we have "God on our side", should we not ask, are we on God's side?

The sentiment that both inspired the Ulster Covenant and is reinforced by it, is the same that is now pushing us towards a hard border situation; but what's worse is, the same sentiment also insures that the road beyond will be fraught with violence and strife. The next decision facing NI after a hard Brexit is whether to remain in UK, or reunite with the Republic. The Good Friday Agreement stipulates that that would be the choice of the people of NI. It will most certainly be debated, with more than just words...

I believe, with all my heart, that we've come to the crises point in Northern Ireland history, in which we have to examine our attitudes and correct the mistakes of the past. God has been telling us about this; we are now approaching the due date.  For myself, I've asked God's forgiveness for my grandparents' part in the signing of that covenant.

I believe that's our only hope for true peace.

Among my FaceBook friends, there people of every type, from Tea Party goers to Wall Street Occupiers, from anarchists to libertarians, even someone with Neo Nazi sympathies as well as Zionists, and of course Trump lovers and Trump haters. No, I'm not just maintaining FB friendships just to brag about my “collection”; I sincerely value their friendship, and I intend to keep them all, if you don't mind.

So, my FB experience often includes memes and comments from just about every perspective, praising Trump, cursing him, as well as for and against every other issue from guns to refugees. It's also hard for me to express any political opinion without offending someone. So, what do I do?

More often than not, I don't.

That's not a cop out. It's just that there are things that are far more important to me, namely the Kingdom of God. The Church doesn't stand or fall depending on who’s in power or what laws are passed. Christians in places like China, the old USSR and Africa have demonstrated that over and over.

Now, I'm not against Christians voting and being involved in the democratic process. I did vote, not for or against Trump, but for UK to remain in the EU. I live in Northern Ireland where the consequences of Brexit are becoming more and more obvious. But I think, at this point, it would be an even bigger mistake to turn around and disregard the choice made by the people and remain in the EU in spite of it. The damage done to democracy would far out last the damage of leaving the EU.

When both sides love their own political agenda more than they do the democratic process, even to the point of scuttling the normal political process for the sake of their agenda; we no longer have national politics, but civil war - or more accurately “civil cold-war”. In sports, it's called bad sportsmanship (which also happens).

I'm very much afraid that some places very close to our heart, are in a state of civil war.

Living in Northern Ireland gives me a perspective on this (I stop short of saying “unique”). I'm a participant of a “24-7” prayer cell in S. W. Belfast, where we've been both praying for and working towards reconciliation between the two communities.here. A lot has improved, but also a lot of work still needs to be done. Ethnic reconciliation has been close to my heart for quite some time.

But now, I'm also seeing another area badly in need of the ministry of reconciliation; the rift between conservatives and liberals.

I realise there are issues at stake that are very important, such as what's the proper response to refugees and immigrants (legal and illegal); how much ought to be spent on military or on welfare, or health and education; what laws should be passed regarding various moral issues, how to legislate guns - the list is endless. But we must not forget that there are Christians on both sides of these issues who truly love God with all their heart, soul and strength, and their neighbours as themselves, even if they disagree on what’s good for their neighbour.

The solutions to these problems do not ultimately lie with changing the laws, or voting in this politician or that, however wise and wonderful. Nor will the same laws and politician, however sinister, stop the Kingdom of God - that is, once believers realise where our strength lies.

We desperately need the ministry of reconciliation very close to home.

Israel had twins, their names were Christianity and Islam...

...perhaps not in the sense that we normally think; they were born 600 years apart. The elder twin, Christianity wasn't called by that name at first. It was the local street urchins and the bullies who began calling him that as a taunt. They kept it up for so long that soon he was calling himself that, and the name stuck.

At first, Christianity took after his mother, which meant he reflected the two divine attributes, Justice and Mercy -- also known as Holiness and Love. In fact, he reflected them so well that the mother became jealous, and he began to find it difficult to live in the same house with her. This was also due to the fact that Israel's husband had called, dressed as a beggar; and she, failing to recognise Him, had turned him away. However the son had recognised him, and they stayed in communication. He promised the child that one day, they would all be reunited.
As time went on, the son could no longer stand to live in the same house as his mother, and left home. About that time, the house was seized and the mother also had to leave. They became a broken family.

Cut off from his mother's influence, Christianity began to emphasise the divine attribute of Love and Mercy, neglecting that of Justice and Holiness -- receiving only the new and rejecting the old. He also began to emulate the neighbourhood boys in other ways, and was soon unrecognisable as the son of his mother.

This was truly sad, as the child had been destined to reign as a prince alongside his mother, a queen, and his father, King Messiah. This would bring perfect balance to the universe, however it couldn't happen, because the child who was to be prince was away from home, and his character was becoming increasingly unbalanced. Even as it was, the mantel of “Prince of the Universe” was still on the child, and as such, his imbalance also affected the universe.

What happened next was not the original plan of Him who was to reign as King, but it was as though nature were correcting the imbalance. He allowed it to happen, knowing that it would bring about his purpose in the end, and in the mean time, there would be a semblance of balance in the universe. So, because of the imbalance in the cosmos, a twin was born. Just as the older twin was the son of Abraham through faith, the younger was also a son, through Ishmael. That twin's name was Islam.

Everything that the elder twin rejected, the younger twin embraced. The elder child had clung to mercy at the expense of justice, so the younger twin clung to justice, but rejected mercy. The elder twin had become careless in describing the Holy Trinity, giving the impression that he believed in three gods instead of One God manifested as three persons. The younger twin responded with, “That's polytheism! There is only one God,” and rejected the Trinity. The elder child had begun to describe the doctrine of the Incarnation and Virgin Birth in a pagan sort of way, as though God had intimate relations with Mary to give birth to Messiah, thus His title, the “Son of God”. The younger brother was repulsed by this idea, and retorted, “No! God cannot have children!”

Never-the-less, the younger twin did believe in the Messiah, even acknowledging that He was the Word of God, not realising that that's what the term, “Son of God” really meant in the first place. But he didn't believe in the crucifixion and the resurrection, because those were the ultimate expressions of Mercy. In essence, he had rejected Mercy because his elder brother had so distorted it by divorcing it from Justice. However, his own understanding of Justice was likewise distorted.

It was truly a broken family, and all nature wept. The mother, having fled from her home and living wherever she could, was tormented and persecuted by both of her children – when they weren't too busy fighting each other.

Then, one day the first child had an awakening. He began to realise what a horrible son he had been, and began, by degrees, returning to his mother. The mother's heart also began to open to her son. The son asked her, “Please, remind me of the truths I've neglected this past 2000 years, like Justice the Fear of the Lord.”

As the mother began to open up to her child, her eyes also opened to King Messiah, whom she had once turned away from her door when he came dressed as a beggar. He had been communicating with the elder twin from a distance all along, but the child had not been very good at remembering all that he told him, and didn't know how to mix the new with the old. But now that the King was revealing Himself more directly, the elder son also began to think more clearly and understand the will of the King, and the divine attributes of Justice and Mercy.

Another thing began to happen: the more the older child embraced the more balanced view, his twin began to fade away as his soul began to merge with that of his older brother. Soon, they were no longer two separate twins, but one child. Only a shell of the younger twin's body remained, sort of like a zombie that continued to put up a fight until it disintegrated. There were also other zombies, clones of the mother and elder child that had spawned when the reunion came. For a short time, all the zombies joined forces in an attempt to devour the Queen and the Prince, trying to bring about a zombie apocalypse. That was short-lived, and soon total harmony was restored in the universe as King Messiah reigned with the Queen and the Prince for the rest of eternity.

Image: By William Fraser [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Subtitled: Deep Healing Needed

HEAL NOT LIGHTLY, as the title suggests, is a book about healing – not light healing that might be applied with antiseptic cream, or a sticky-plaster or band-aid, but a deep one, that might require the skill of a surgeon. More often than not, problems between ethnic groups fit into the latter category. This book takes a look under the surface of what have been called “The Troubles” of Northern Ireland, and Harry Smith finds a few areas requiring the deeper sort of healing.

One of these is the Ulster Covenant, which was the response of the Protestants of Northern Ireland in 1912 to the proposed Home Rule Bill that had been submitted to the British Parliament, and looked like was going to become law. This would have placed all of Ireland, North and South, under an autonomous parliament in Dublin.

This was good news to the Irish Catholic community, whose experience of British rule had been quite turbulent and often traumatic. However, the Protestants community in Ireland didn't share the same historical perspective. There were other issues.

Among the biggest was that such a parliament would have a Catholic majority. The Protestant community who had migrated to Ireland in large numbers during the times of Queen Elizabeth I, James I, and William of Orange to serve as their political pawns, would suddenly find themselves in the minority. It was rightly believed that the Dublin government would be heavily influenced by the Catholic Church. A common slogan was, “Home rule is Rome rule”. If that seems far-fetched, remember that religious freedom was not taken for granted in Europe then as it is now. Also, those were the days before the Vatican II council, which liberalised the Catholic Church's position towards non-Catholics (however, even now, there are many Protestants who regard these changes as strictly cosmetic).

So, many Protestants feared the worst. The Protestants of Northern Ireland, primarily under the leadership of the Presbyterian, Church of Ireland and the Methodist churches, banded together and signed a document called the Ulster Covenant. In this, they swore not to submit to Home Rule, and in the event that it was forced on them, to resist, taking up arms if necessary. Some prominent Ulster Protestants signed it with their blood. This covenant has been the basis of Northern Irish identity ever since.

The first chapter of the book contains numerous statements in the press by various church leaders, politicians, editors and others regarding the danger that was eminent, and the necessity of every Protestant who values his history and his freedom as a British subject. Just reading them gives one a sense of the atmosphere that prevailed. In all, around 250,000 men signed the covenant – with a similar number of women signing a supporting document.

Harry Smith also goes into some more background, relating how former Moderators of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland utilised the Scottish National Covenant of 1638 to unite people politically and spiritually against the Home Rule Bill.

The Scottish National Covenant was a vow of solidarity, which established Scotland as a Christian nation under God with their Presbyterian values, in their resistance to attempts at control by the Church of England. In effect, it was a reminder to God whose side He was on. It was even said that in the same way that God had once regarded the Israelites as His chosen people, whom He had now rejected under the New Covenant, He now regarded the Scottish nation. In other words, Supersessionism, or Replacement Theology was a cornerstone of Covenant terminology.

Then, we read details of how, during the times of James I and William of Orange, Scottish Protestants were offered land in Ireland from which Irish Catholics had been forcibly removed. They regarded this as their divine mandate, and that later became the basis of the Ulster Covenant.

So, whose side was God on? Reading all the press statements in the first chapter compels one to consider that a covenant may have seemed like a good idea at the time. In fact, one would have been considered a traitor – an enemy of God – for opposing it. But was it really a good idea? The song by Bob Dylan, “With God on Our Side” comes to mind.

Harry Smith believes that the Ulster Covenant is now one of the biggest hindrance to peace in Northern Ireland.

But, you ask, didn't the Good Friday Agreement bring peace? There still exist huge fences crossing whole sections of Belfast, which are referred to as the “peace wall”. They are, in fact, proof that there isn't peace, otherwise, why would we need walls to separate us? That actually fits with the same passage in Jeremiah 8:11 from which Harry Smith took the title: "They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace."

God showed Harry Smith that it is like a log-jam that holds back the flow of His Spirit - like the river mentioned in Ezekiel chapter 47, which brought healing to the land. Repentance at Church government and personal levels are essential for the removal of this log-jam so as to release the river of God.

To achieve peace in Northern Ireland, Protestants in Northern Ireland must renounce the Ulster Covenant, and the Nationalist community must renounce the Sinn Fein Covenant (that was signed a few years later); let go of our political agendas, and trust God to direct the future according to His plan.

There are also chapters on intercessory prayer, a helpful exposition on the basis for believers' authority, and many practical guidelines on how to seek God's plan for a city or a nation, with particular emphasis on Ireland. Even if it were just for those aspects, it's a worthwhile read.

If you're interested in ethnic reconciliation and want to understand more clearly, what you're up against, definitely, get this book.