The Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) has again shown her disregard for the innocent victims of terrorism from within that church by giving its full support to one of her ministers, Miss Lesley Carroll, holding reconciliation talks with the IRA's spokesmen, Sinn Fein. My youngest brother, murdered by the IRA on 2nd June 1977 along with two other police officers, was a member of PCI, and was buried by that church. The 35th anniversary of his /their murders is tomorrow.
My problem is not that they are talking to Sinn Fein, difficult and all that that is; it is rather that that church has supported that actions of one of its ministers who went on ahead of any church decision (it would seem) and engaged in those talks with Sinn Fein. She was clearly on a 'solo flight' which was then 'rubber stamped' after the event. Or was she?
Further, Miss Carroll is well known for her liberal theology and her support of and involvement in liberal theology's child, unbiblical ecumenism. She appears to have followed the liberalism of German philosopher Freidrich Hegel, and the equally liberal theology of German theologian Albrecht Ritschl.
While these men disagreed on many issues, what drew them together was their liberalism. They saw the whole world as a process; and a process has no morals. An act, on the other hand, is carried out by a responsible person, therefore has moral content to it.
No, my problem is not her/their talking to IRA/Sinn Fein; it is rather what it is they are saying to them. The track-record of people from this philosophical and theological stable is to work on the basis of their being no right or wrong, that murder is not a moral matter and that there are rights and wrongs on both sides.
While acknowledging the latter point, I have great difficulties with the earlier points. The Ten Commandments stand as eternal truth whose demands and prohibitions are always valid. Those who commit murder on the pretext of it being an 'political act,' have broken the sixth commandment (Ex.20:13) just as the murderer of the Soham children, Ian Huntley, did. 'Political offences' are an integral part of this process that these people talk so much about. They are by definition amoral, neither right nor wrong.
Given the liberal convictions of people like Miss Carroll, it is no surprise that they can regard the worst and most sophisticated terrorist machine in western Europe as involved in a process to free people from British oppression. And they view the people who perpetrate such evils as those who ought to be respected. They have to be 'liked' if they are to hear what we have to say, so we're told.
What atrocities has this terror machine been involved in? It has murdered a baby just a few weeks old as he was being wheeled through Strabane town by his young mother; it murdered a man in front of his wife and children as they sat together in the safety of their home; it shot its enemies at point blank range in the back of the head; it murdered police officers by shooting them in the back; it murdered people while at church; it murdered part-time soldiers as they were taking their leave of their wives; and on the list could go.
Yet this church has given its unequivocal backing to one of its ministers engaging in reconciliation talks with Sinn Fein. Yet, very seldom if ever have these same religious people met with the victims of these terrorist thugs or listened to their pain. They were careful to meet with those 'victims' who support the so-called 'peace process' (you see, process again!) and who support having IRA/Sinn Fein in the government of our land. But they have not, to the best of my knowledge, met with those who are utterly opposed to such political arrangements. Certainly Miss Carroll has never thought it worthwhile to meet with me or was interested enough to discover where I am coming from. I know of many victims of IRA terrorism who have never been met by her and her like.
What needs to be said to IRA Sinn Fein? This terrorist composite must be told that what it did, its acts, were totally indefensible and utterly unacceptable; the pain and suffering of their victims is irreparable and constant; their total disregard for laws that they did not accept was wrong and must be acknowledged as such; they have a moral responsibility to tell everything they know about who did what, to whom, how and when and why it was done, if true reconciliation is to be achieved. Dr Michael Ignatieff stated that without acknowledgement any reconciliation that results is false. I agree.
But these do-gooders will do no such thing because they are involved in a process. And in a process there is no right or wrong.
These 'former' IRA people must be called upon to relinquish the hold any republican oath has on them and volunteer all the information they have about the activities of their IRA comrades. They must come clean about everything. While an apology may be helpful to some, it is relevant so long as these people protect terrorist criminals whose acts they know about. These people must be brought to a true and full acknowledgement of what they have done, and its guilt, and then the justice system must kick in and take these confessions to their proper legal conclusion. As Dr P. T. Forsyth said so well, "Reconciliation ... has no meaning apart from a sense of guilt..."
They must also put the Gospel to them that tells of how Christ died for the sins of the world, He died for humanity, and that if and when they turn to Him for forgiveness and salvation in true repentance and faith, He will forgive and save them. Before there can be acceptance of these people by their victims, they must be accepted by God; and if God accepts them, no Christian has any right or reason not to accept them.
If they talk to them about anything else, they will again have betrayed the innocent victims within their own church and those in other churches across the board who have been butchered by these lawless gangsters.
The Gospel is "the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes," (Rom.1:16), including the IRA. They have not heard the Gospel, obviously, or, if they heard it somewhere, have they rejected it.
Now is the time for them to accept and believe the Gospel and after a full confession of their sins to God through Christ alone, to receive God's forgiveness. Once they have been reconciled to God in Christ, the major barriers will have then been removed for them to be reconciled to those they have irreparably offended and damaged.
Sadly, church appointees are not good at 'doing the Gospel.'
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