08.06.2015
Forgiveness the Focus of Church’s Ministry of Healing Talk and Service
In post Marriage Equality Referendum Ireland, the Church can choose to love, a Church’s Ministry of Healing talk heard on Saturday (June 6). Speaking in Christ Church Cathedral, international speaker, author and activist Lisa Sharon Harper said that in a debate in which both sides offered an argument based on Christian beliefs, people needed to acknowledge that neither side had exclusive ownership of the truth.
Lisa, who is Chief Engagement Officer for Sojourners, a Christian, nonpartisan organisation in the US committed to social justice, was in Dublin to give a talk entitled Forgive Us: Confessions of a Compromised Faith based on a book of the same title she co–wrote. The talk was hosted by the Church’s Ministry of Healing: Ireland and supported by the Bookwell and the United Society.
Forgive Us outlines the sins of the Church against the world. Its focus is primarily on the evangelical church in America but there are lessons for the Church throughout the world. In seven chapters Lisa and her co–authors examine the Church’s sin, either by commission or omission, against seven groups of people: indigenous people, the African American community, women, LGBT people, Jews and Muslims and creation. They call for a Nehemiah–style corporate confession of the ways the evangelical church in America has injured the very people it should have been serving.
Lisa suggested that the basis of the Church’s sin was that it gave preference or dominion to one group of people – white, male and usually Christian – above all others. “Somehow we bought a lie that the only ones who are fully called to exercise dominion are a small group of people who are white, male Christians. Everyone else is a little bit less human,” she said adding that members of each community could also be taken to task over their treatment of other groups and so must also seek forgiveness.
She said that every human being was made in the image of God and urged participants to see the image of God in those who we see as ‘the other’. This, Lisa suggested, would help people understand that no one group was less human than another.
From confession comes healing and hope and she suggested that the book would help congregations enter into a process of healing. “The church has the capacity, more than anyone else on earth to lead on this… We as the people of Jesus walk in the way of Jesus in the public sphere. We can do this when it comes to how we vote, how we advocate, who we advocate for, who we love our neighbour,” she said.
She added that this was also relevant in post Marriage Equality Referendum Ireland where both sides in the campaign offered a Christian argument. “We need to acknowledge that neither side has full ownership of truth. We need to acknowledge that there are things that we just don’t understand. Neither side can say that our beliefs are inherently Christian… but once the referendum is made you can choose to love. The church can choose to love. Within the church debate is necessary but in the public sphere the public has spoken and the question is how do we love in the midst of it,” she said.
After the talk the theme of forgiveness continued during the annual Church’s Ministry of Healing service in the cathedral led by its chairman, Bishop Patrick Rooke. The sermon was given by the Revd Bruce Hayes, chaplain to the Church’s Ministry of Healing in Dublin and Glendalough, who said that Jesus talked about the fundamental need to forgive in the Gospel.
“Forgiveness is not some sort of luxury. It needs to be part of our essence. Jesus put forgiveness at the centre of everything. It is in the Lord’s Prayer,” he said. He added, “If we don’t forgive we wind up like a bride in a Quentin Tarantino movie hunting down those who have done us wrong.”
The preacher continued that forgiveness had to go deeper than just forgiving and forgetting – we had also to forgive others. “We all have to explore the meaning of forgiveness in terms of the reality of the lives we live. It should be the essence of who we are and the opening for our spiritual well being,” he said. He suggested three steps to letting go of our hatred and rage: firstly face up to the hurt, second let go of the pain, and third pray for the ability to forgive and pray for the person who hurt us.
Photo captions:
Top – Dr Iva Beranek (CMHI), Bishop Patrick Rooke, Lisa Sharon Harper, Richard Ryan (Bookwell) and Jessica Stone (CMHI).
Bottom – Bishop Patrick Rooke and the Revd Bruce Hayes before the CMHI annual service.