Migration this year has become an explosive issue and a major challenge not only to Christians, but to all the communities of the developed world and their governments. Will we step up to the mark or incur judgment as self-protective xenophobes? So SEARCH returns to the challenge in this issue with four articles, led by Dr David Shepherd of TCD, a version of whose autumn lecture for BACI is a major contribution to biblical thinking in this area. To follow, we offer Peter Cheney’s recent experience in Malta, Tiffy Allen’s Places of Sanctuary initiative to help local people help immigrants in Dublin and my own thoughts on the outsider as bearer of God’s blessing.
Migration this year has become an explosive issue and a major challenge not only to Christians, but to all the communities of the developed world and their governments. Will we step up to the mark or incur judgment as self-protective xenophobes? So SEARCH returns to the challenge in this issue with four articles, led by Dr David Shepherd of TCD, a version of whose autumn lecture for BACI is a major contribution to biblical thinking in this area. To follow, we offer Peter Cheney’s recent experience in Malta, Tiffy Allen’s Places of Sanctuary initiative to help local people help immigrants in Dublin and my own thoughts on the outsider as bearer of God’s blessing.The debate on the Eighth Amendment could be considered an even trickier challenge in that conscientious Christians can see the ethical issues either way. Paul Loughlin’s article on the history of the debate on TV leading up to the 1983 referendum illustrates the hardline determination and often emotional presentation of the conservative side and the cautious reasonableness displayed by most Protestant representatives. Bishop Kenneth Kearon, a onetime lecturer in Christian ethics at TCD and more recently secretary general of the Anglican Communion, offers a consideration of the ethical imperatives.Discipleship has become something of a buzz word in recent years and one result has been the ‘Come & C’ project in Dublin and Glendalough, exploring the Anglican Communion’s Five Marks of Mission. David Tuohy SJ and Canon Horace McKinley have contributed reflections on the project from the development and reception perspectives respectively.Healthcare chaplaincy has been an evolving field over the past 25 years, requiring specific training and acute sensitivity. Revd. Daniel Nuzum of Cork University Hospital explores its development in partnership with colleagues Revd Anne Skuse and Kathleen Keaney.Finally before the Book Reviews provided by our new reviews editor, Raymond Refaussé, two unexpected bonuses: from Belfast-born Professor David Hempton, Dean of Harvard Divinity School, a re ection on the pluralist calling of Divinity Schools today, and, from church historian Henry A Jefferies of Derry, a thought-provoking exploration of the different ways historians have analysed the very different responses to the Reformation in England and Ireland. This last should prove a tempting foretaste of the SEARCH Colloquium planned for April 22nd on the legacy of the Reformation – Ecclesia Semper Reformanda.
Contents
Loving the immigrant: when will the foreigner find favour?
While I’ve done my best to ‘fit in’ since arriving here in Dublin some three years ago, any illusions that I am a ‘native’ Irishman disappear as soon as I open my mouth. The words that I say (and especially the way I say them!) make it clear that I’m from somewhere a bit further west than Sligo. In fact, my home town is about 6000 kilometres west of Sligo; it’s a place called Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which is that part of Canada which people fly over on their way to some place more glamorous, like Toronto or Vancouver.
‘Well, I’m sure you were scared.” It seemed an obvious statement. The Sudanese man, in his late 30s, had surely heard it before and his relaxed demeanour suggested someone whose fears were mainly in the past. “Not when you consider where I came from.”
We all know what a difference it makes, arriving in a strange place, to be made to feel welcome and at home, sometimes by a simple act like a smile and a warm handshake. How much more important this is for people who have lost everything and arrive in Ireland fearful, uprooted and traumatised.
The Citizens’ Assembly, by the time it reports to the Oireachtas, ideally in June 2017, will have tackled one of the most fractious problems to have bedevilled Irish society and politics in the last 34 years. It has to consider a set of interlocking issues beginning with the fundamental question as to when human life begins. It must balance the strict ban on abortion, modified by the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Act (2013) with the knowledge that several thousand Irish women (3,451 in 2015) seek abortions annually in Britain.
Ethical issues in the abortion debate – a Church of Ireland viewpoint
From a Church of Ireland perspective, what were the ethical issues to be considered at the time of the passing of the Eighth Amendment in 1983, and now, in 2017? Several points can be made:
Healthcare Chaplaincy: a contemporary Irish perspective
Care for and ministry with those who are ill are core gospel values underpinning pastoral ministry both in healthcare institutions and in the community. Inspired by the ministry of Jesus Christ, churches have always placed a particular emphasis on care for those who are sick.
Healthcare Chaplaincy: a contemporary Irish perspective
The Come & C project in Dublin and Glendalough 2015 - 2016
2016 was the year of “Come & C” in the diocese of Dublin and Glendalough. It has been a year of developing a deeper sense of discipleship in relation to the Five Marks of Mission of the Anglican Communion, summarised for our purposes as Tell, Teach, Tend, Transform and Treasure. The concept developed from listening to the voices of the different parishes, and was expressed in four main phases.
It’s surely not insignificant that our two Archbishops, of Armagh and Dublin, have recently invested leadership time and energy to advocate the Anglican Communion’s Five Marks of Mission. These five ‘marks’, first developed by the Anglican Consultative Council in 1984, were subsequently affrmed by the Lambeth Conferences of 1988 and 1998 as follows:
The calling of a Divinity School today – enabling religious understanding in a pluralist world
Professor David Hempton, Dean of Harvard Divinity School, was in Dublin recently to address an audience at the Irish School of Ecumenics in Trinity College, Dublin. He had just led this premier school through its bicentenary year; and towards the end of a lecture devoted largely to the demographics and philosophies that led to the Trump presidency, he spoke about his vision for the calling of a divinity school
in the pluralist world of the 21st century. This article is a shortened version of his recent interview on this subject with the Harvard Gazette, published by kind permission.
The Reformation in Ireland and England: changing stories
A generation ago we thought that we understood the Reformation in England and Ireland. Today, 500 years after Martin Luther’s momentous protest against indulgences, we are not so sure. With the Church of England and the Catholic Church in Ireland in seemingly irreversible decline, historians have re-written their histories, questioning everything we once thought was true. Now, however, a clearer understanding of the formative years of the Church of England and Church of Ireland is starting to emerge.
