A tough row to hoe

The Field is a film based on a play by Irish playwright John B. Keane. In it a priest says to an American businessman, "You must understand, there is only a thin veneer of religion over the Irish people. The real religion is the land."

This could be true. At least it lends some perspective on the troubles in the North. It also gives insight on a country that looks religious but is empty at the core.

Renewal and church planting are the two channels in which World Harvest has sought to run. In Dublin, all over the Republic, and in Northern Ireland, I work with church leaders who are beat up and dry as a bone. I also look for those in churches who are gifted to plant churches. I hope to bring them back to the gospel and get the river flowing again.

Last week I spoke to a group of pastors and their wives from a mainline Protestant denomination in Northern Ireland. Using the encounter between Simon the Pharisee and the repentant woman found in Luke 7 to talk about sin and repentance for Christians, I was surprised to find this audience drew a far different conclusion to this passage than I intended. They condemned the woman by accusing her of using the perfume of her trade to anoint Jesus. I was stunned! These modern-day Pharisees were beating Simon at his own game.

It was a painful realization to see how little some of them knew about the gospel and its power to crush self-righteousness. The gospel was lost in legalism. From this, a theology of unforgiveness in the North justifies hardness and continuing strife.

Here in the South it is just the same but packaged differently. Sin is reduced to a few "terrible" trespasses. Even these, however, can be atoned with a sacramental forgiveness that involves little true repentance. There are many rules but only a few external ones to really worry about. The clergy have been embroiled in allegations and charges of sexual abuse that scandalize and overshadow the need for change of heart. Jesus, under these circumstances, becomes someone who helps your sweat-stained efforts rather than a mighty Savior who rescues sinners from certain death.

In a country like Ireland, where a large percentage of the population attends church, the work is to bring people back to the gospel and to plant churches where people can thrive.

But it is a personal work. We find that it is a "go and tell" work rather than a "come and see." So we go to the pubs and we go to homes of friends and we go out on the street corners. We have parties in our home that are comfortable for unbelievers to attend. We believe the gospel can change anybody, as it has certainly changed us, and we work hard to show its power even in the rugged Irish soil.

Mr. Dockery works with World Harvest in Dublin.