I just got back off holiday and, as part of it, we decided to take a day trip to Dublin. It was an insanely long day, but so much fun. Particularly for me as long-time readers will know, the history of Ireland and Northern Ireland is very much my thing. So, a chance to go to the GPO and see those bullet holes inflicted during the Easter Rising – whilst of no interest to some – was for me absolutely amazing. FYI, if you get a chance, the GPO museum is brilliant!
As anyone who has spent any time studying Irish (and, even more so, Northern Irish) history and politics will tell you, there is always something of a tension between supporting ends and supporting means. Most people in Dublin in 1916 were politically aiming for Home Rule and not much more. The Easter Rising was largely viewed as a bunch of unelected troublemakers trashing their city. Most people were not aiming for total independence, had run-ins with the rebels that were not welcome and then booed them when the whole thing failed. It was the seen as the destructive and unnecessary action of a few unelected, self-important people.
That was, of course, until the Brits did what we Brits tend to do. The British put down the rebellion, which was welcomed. But the roundup afterwards was, let’s just say, cack-handed to say the least. Lots and lots of clearly innocent people were rounded up in order to kill off any further uprising. Worst of all – having arrested the main ringleader and clearly won the battle – the British decided it would then be wise to shoot them all, even those who could not stand up. It is something of an unpopular view to point out that – given the values of the time and the seriousness of the uprising – that only 7 people were shot is quite lenient by the standards of the time.
Nevertheless, combined with the heavy-handed roundup of evidently innocent people who previously had no time for the rebellion, the shootings were a key turning point that caused public opinion to shift. No longer did Dubliners view the Brits as quelling a destructive rebellion wrecking their city, they began to sympathise with the rebels. Had the British been less heavy-handed among the by-standing population and had they not shot, but only imprisoned, the rebels orchestrating the uprising, it is entirely possible that Ireland would have still sought Home Rule but within the United Kingdom. Brits frequently don’t know when they have won and, going much further than they ever need to, they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!
Something of the history of the Provisional IRA in the North follows a similar trajectory. In 1972, the IRA were largely a spent force until Bloody Sunday. The excessive force of the British army that day acted as a huge recruitment drive. By the late 1970s, they had largely dwindled down again. But the hunger strikes – and particularly the death of Bobby Sands – once again led to a huge uptick in recruitment. Had Margaret Thatcher simply accepted the desire of the prisoners to be treated as political prisoners and allowed them to wear their own clothes, the IRA would have largely petered out. Again, the refusal to be pragmatic and the adamant belief ‘we do not negotiate with terrorists’ meant that the hunger strikers garnered much sympathy among the Catholic community and, once again, their numbers swelled when another course of action would have ended matters much sooner and in a way that would have suited the government at the time better.
Of course, in both 1916 and later during the troubles, there were always those who supported the broad aims but not the means of those found guilty. Many Nationalists in Northern Ireland supported the cause of uniting the 6 counties of Northern Ireland with the 26 counties in Southern Ireland but absolutely reject the non-constitutional efforts of the Republicans. Likewise, in 1916, there were those who had been arguing constitutionally for Home Rule who were tearing their hair out that their lifetime’s work – that was making some progress at the time – might be entirely undone by a bunch of unelected rebels seemingly intent on destroying Dublin and showed little to no regard for ordinary Dubliners. Many who died did not ask to be part of the uprising and the rebels displayed a fair amount of callousness toward them, much as Northern Irish Republican (and, by the same token, Loyalist) paramilitaries seem to show little regard for the people in the communities, whether they share their political aims or not.
Two interesting parallels stand out that we can learn from in the church. First, the church has often hit upon issues emerging between doctrinaire purist and pragmatic reforming approaches. It may be that all share the same gospel ends but the doctrinaire purists consider the the pragmatic reformers to effectively be compromisers whilst the pragmatic reformers consider the doctrinaire purists to be unrealistic and/or impatient. The issue is not to do with the ends to which all are working – there may be absolute agreement on the goals and where we want to be heading – the issue is the means by which we get there. Do we demand an ‘all or nothing now’ approach or is it legitimate to slowly move towards our goals, recognising the incremental steps it may take to get there? Often this is the tension in our churches; less between where we are going and more between how we get there.
The other parallel, on similar lines, is the question of tactics. There have even been some interesting examples of this in recent weeks. Often, those who share the same end – even the same beliefs on a given issue – disagree over the best tactics. Some will accuse those who argue for nuance – because there are no single issues that exist in a vacuum – of being compromised and refusing to stand up and be counted for the truth. Those who argue for unbending purity on the issue are seen as causing other problems for the wider witness of the church and approaching the issue with the wrong tactics. Both may well agree on the issue at hand but simply disagree over the tactics, timing and approach. There may well be other issues at stake which are also considered in the round.
Sadly, much of this ends up dividing us despite the broad agreement between us. It ends up causing us to lose support rather than gain it, not because the message we bring is wrong or we do not stand rightly on the issue at hand, but because we fail to recognise those who otherwise agree with us because we disagree with the way in which they go about matters. Other times, what we think are strong tactics actually end up undermining our cause and we go too far in making our case in such a way as those who would be won, or who even already agree with us, are entirely turned off simply because of the way in which we say it and the means by which we have gone about matters.
In the end, tactics are important. We must be careful to think of both what we say and the way that we say it. We must be careful to think both of what is right to say and how it will probably be heard. We must be careful to think both of what we say and when it is appropriate to say it. None of these things alter the right and wrong of what we say. There may very well be a clear and obvious line on what is right and wrong. But we must consider the way we say it, the timing of what we say, how we will be heard because – like it or not – the medium is the message and if people don’t like our means they won’t accept our message when had we been a bit more savvy, they might have accepted the message if the medium was better.
Just knowing a little bit of history might help us see how this often plays out and why it is important. But we need to get to grips with these things for several reasons. It has gospel implications for what people hear from us when we share the gospel with them. It has cultural implications for how people hear us if and when we raise concerns on social issues. It has ecclesiological implications for our unity as God’s people, who we do and don’t associate with and whether we have understood the issues rightly as one to separate over or if we have even understood what it means to agree on an issue but disagree over means. It may well have implications for whether we separate as, or even within, churches or whether this is a fellowship-breaking matter at all. It has implications for how we ever have meaningful discussions and engagement with one another.