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| Bishop Alan Abernethy & Jim Deeds photo courtesy of Neil Craigan |
Who “discovered” America? Columbus? Amerigo Vespucci? Sir Henry Sinclair of Orkney? Chinese admiral Zheng? Leif Erikson? Brendan the Navigator? (Ask Professor Google that question some time and descend into a deep and distracting rabbit hole...)
Or perhaps some unknown hunter gatherer crossing the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska sometime shortly after the last ice age, pursuing their next meal?
The thing is, despite the mythology that has grown up around each of the named individuals above, and our espousal of their credentials, often dependent on own ethnicity and background, the landmass that we know as America has been there since before human beings walked this planet or sailed its seas.
That is true of “Jesus in the Other.” Christ has never been our exclusive possession, whoever we may be. The missiological myth of “taking Jesus” to others, be they people in the “new” world, ripe for conversion as we colonise their land, or those of different religious traditions, has had a profound impact on our attitude to the other, particularly, such as here in Ireland, when different Christian denominations have essentially dechristianised each other.
Last night my friend and fellow 4 Corners organiser, Jim Deeds and Bishop Alan Abernethy, former CoI Bishop of Connor, launched the book that they have co-authored “Discovering Jesus in the Other: Challenging the Myth of Otherness” as part of this year’s 4 Corners Festival. As Steve Stockman said in his introduction, this book, based around the stories of Jim, a Catholic layperson from West Belfast and Alan, an Anglican Bishop from the East, is the epitome of this year’s theme “Our Stories: Towards a Culture of Hope.” But the launch was even more than that: not only did we have the different backgrounds of the authors, collaborating as we hope our new FM and DFM will find it possible to do, but it involved Ruth Patterson, a female Presbyterian minister, offering her reflections on the book alongside Archbishop Noel Trainor, erstwhile Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor, all within the South Belfast Methodist Agape centre, with an audience drawn from all over the city and beyond... as such it was the very epitome of 4 Corners full stop.
Seeing Jesus in the other lies right at the heart of the spirituality of the two authors... But even with that it is not always easy to work together to create something coherent and helpful... I haven’t yet read the book, but Noel Trainor noted that whilst it has two authors it has a single heart and mind running through it. Jim attributed that to the editor, but I suspect he doth protest too much. As a long-time collaborator with Jim on 4 Corners’ Wonderful Wander (come join us for what might well be a wet walk starting at Marshwiggle Way on Saturday), right at the centre of his “genius” is the ability to bring out the best in others. It’s there to be seen in his facilitation of events, for those who have worked with him over the years through the Living Church Project and subsequently, or in his writing partnership with Brendan McManus.
Ruth Patterson noted the reference to her late, longterm friend Monsignor Tom Toner in the book as a major influence on Jim’s life. My engagement with Tom, largely through our shared work with Belfast City Council’s Good Relations Committee, the late lamented Gerry Reynolds, and my colleague in Forthspring Sister Noreen Christian, did a lot to open my eyes to Jesus in those who I had once been taught to think of as other. I didn’t discover Jesus there... He had been there all the time, just unknown to me...
My 4 Corners friends Jim, Ed Peterson and Father Martin Magill have, to a large extent, stepped into the shoes of those giants... But last night again reminded me to continue to be open to seeing Jesus in places and people that we have traditionally “written off...”
And that includes those who I, in my self-righteous intolerance, have arrogantly written off as too narrow and intolerant...
Selah
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