Church and Gospel Failure

That the Gospel is needed more than anything else in Northern Ireland has been demonstrated again with the launch of a report into the extent and depth of division that still remains in our society.  The division is along religious lines - Protestant vs. Catholic.  Sectarianism is still alive and well in Ulster. 

What is the reason for this?  There is the fundamental issue of human responsibility for our behaviour.  But there is also the responsibility of the Church to preach the Gospel faithfully and passionately.  There is the responsibility upon the Church to engage in vigorous evangelism.

But what has been done instead?  The church has continued with her ecumenical activities and at the same time has failed to evangelise those in their catchment areas.  The Gospel which is God's power for the salvation of everyone who believes has been withheld for perishing sinners. 

Indeed, the entire ecumenical enterprise engaged in by the Community Relations Council has been an abysmal failure, an enterprise that shares the backing of the main churches. 

There must be a wholehearted return to the passionate preaching of the Gospel by all the Christian churches in Northern Ireland.  Our country needs to feel the power of the Gospel in a new way, a way that will bring about radically changed lives.  Inventing new ways of dealing with the problems of sectarianism that ignores the Gospel are doomed to fail.  Any new approach must be Gospel based and its realistic teaching put in place.