Custom House Square

Stop number 6 on the Methodist Conference's "We Make the Way by Walking" event took us across from the "Big Fish" into Custom House Square. This square reflects a number of dimensions of Belfast's history. Its origins as a trading town at the mouth of the Farset (hence its name “Béal feirste” - “The Mouth of the Farset/Sandy River”), where it discharges into and Lagan Rivers is reflected in the erection of Custom House here in the middle of the 19th century, one of the many buildings in Belfast (including Queens University, The Botanic Gardens Palm House and Sinclair Seaman's Church) designed by Charles Lanyon. But McHugh’s Bar across the square reflects the shadow side of those origins as a port, in that it dates from the 17th century and together with DuBarry’s Bar, that used to sit beside it were “houses of ill repute” frequented by sailors. Indeed "The Albert Clock" (at its jaunty angle, caused by the foundations being somewhat unstable because of the river underneath) was synonymous with prostitution in my younger days. Although it also reflects Belfast’s important place in the British Empire under Queen Victoria, Albert’s long-mourning wife, and indeed it was Victoria who granted Belfast city status in 1888.
On the steps of the Custom House is a statue called “The Speaker” sculpted by Gareth Knowles in 2005. It reflects the fact that those steps were used as Belfast's "Speakers' Corner" during the 19th and 20th century, right up to the time of the Troubles, with political speakers and evangelists, including many of my predecessors as Superintendents of Belfast Central Mission speaking here, often with significant crowds gathering in the Square… with the audiences commemorated by the bronze footprints facing the speaker…
It still hosts political and other protest rallies and the occasional religious event, as well as concerts and festivals in temporary marquees, and in better weather is a hang-out for young people,  especially  skateboarders. Indeed on the walk some young people sidled up to see what we were up to leading to a discussion with some of those walking with us.
But in many ways this square is a physical representation of the consistent question as to how should the church engage in the public square in the contemporary world? St. Paul famously debated philosophers in what he saw as the idolatrous city of Athens… But in his later letter to the Corinthians he seems to question whether his earlier approach was correct… Here in this monologue, written for the walk, we find him beginning to wrestle with what is the right approach to take... Perhaps there is no "one size fits all" recipe, rather it is a matter of doing what is right for the place our journey takes us to, although there are perhaps a few general principles to hold in place:

 

Our journey through Greece was not turning out to be much of a holiday… Just like on the other side of the sea, wherever we went trouble seemed to follow… So much so that my friends smuggled me out of Beroea further up the coast and sent me on ahead of them to this idolatrous city… Everyone had always told be about the beauty of this place and the wisdom of its citizens… That everyone was a philosopher… But all of it was founded on myths and superstition. Every hole in the wall had a god wedged in there… They were covering all their bases in case they left one vengeful deity out of their devotions… I talked about this with fellow Jews in the local synagogue… But most of them thought that I was as much of an idolater as the Greeks because of my faith in Jesus Christ and Son of God… But I also got into discussions with some of the so called philosophers in the market place… It was as much a market place of ideas as food and other produce… And all the different philosophy schools were trying to sell their wares… The Epicureans encouraging people to enjoy life while they could, the Stoics suggesting that the only way out of misery was to stop caring and all manner of ideas in between… So I thought I would pitch in my drachma’s worth… At first they didn’t take me seriously because of my barbarian Greek from their perspective… But eventually some of them invited me up to the Areopagus… the Square of Ares, Mars… the god of war… where serious intellectual debate to place…  and they gave me a platform to outline my  “new teaching.” So I thought I would be clever and butter them up a bit:

“Athenians” I said “I see how religious you are in every way. As I went through your beautiful city and inspected all the altars and shrines, I even found one among them with an altar dedicated ‘To an unknown god.’ Well friends, what you worship as unknown, I want to make clear to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, the one who is the real Lord of heaven and earth… he doesn’t live in shrines and temples made by human hands, no matter how beautiful they may be… Nor does he need human hands to bring him offerings to eat and drink because he gave us everything we have in the first place… he made us all that we are… Giving us life and breath and everything else. From one starting point he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and it is he who allotted the ebb and flow of nations powers and the borders within they will operate… not our own strength or wisdom… We can search for God as much as we like and perhaps our groping in the dark may lead us to him—because he is not far from each one of us, indeed as your own writers have said “In him we live and move and have our being… we are all his children.”

But what idol of gold, or silver, or stone, images formed by the, admittedly amazing art and imagination of human beings… What idol can give birth to us? God may have overlooked such idolatry in the past… but now is the time for us to change our hearts and minds… because he has revealed himself by raising Jesus from the dead.”

Everything was going well until that point… but the mention of resurrection just led to mockery… Nothing new there…

But I thought I was being so clever… That my words would win them all over… A few did come to follow Christ, but the vast majority will stick with their more tangible deities… 

I think my time here is at an end… When my friends get here I think we’ll move on to Corinth… I’ve had enough of trying to prove myself to the wise men of Athens… Perhaps I will stick to proclaiming the foolishness of Christ and his cross.

Selah