"It so happens that I am a unionist, but that is not because I am a Protestant; the two are quite separate matters." So remarked in a Church of Ireland pulpit a young curate friend of mine in mid-1960s Belfast. He was talking to his parishioners about some of the issues and local problems of being a Christian.

He had been there for a year or two, was popular and was considered a good hardworking pastor. As a result of that sermon, he had to draw heavily on those resources of goodwill.

Many of those who listened that evening were puzzled. They had not heard opinions like this from a clergyman. Some reacted with regret that the preacher was dabbling in politics, some were angry at what they suspected was a clergyman implying criticism of the Unionist Party, of Protestantism and the perceived essential link between the two. Some recalled that, unlike his father, their curate was not an Orangeman.

"You'll be criticising the Orange Order next," he was told, half in jest.

Clearly, Christianity does not offer any simple blueprint for modern political and social living; followers of Jesus have to think out the implications for themselves of his life and his teaching. One obvious requirement of the Christian way is to avoid making any earthly ideal an end in itself, to question the conventional thinking of any particular era. With hindsight, surely most of us in Ireland would conclude that few of our ancestors in the first half of this century achieved much success in this regard.

During my own religious upbringing in the years after, I was exposed regularly in church to anti-Romanism. ("Why, oh why did the German people follow the leadership of the RC Hitler?") To say that I was never pastorally encouraged to see Roman Catholics as fellow human beings or fellow citizens would be an understatement. Needless to say, it was never remotely suggested that they might be fellow Christians.

Belonging to a large city parish, we went through the hands of many curates. I recall one whom I met a decade later. To my surprise I discovered that he was fairly "green" and certainly had never had any time for Orange extremism. I lacked the courage to ask him if it had never occurred to him to share this information with his parishioners, to see this as a matter of Christian witness.

Neither at the time nor subsequently did I doubt that a young Belfast Catholic was being brought up in an ambience the mirror image of mine. Nor do I think for one minute that my own church is the worst offender among the religious traditions of this island.

Now that the chickens are coming home to roost, I acknowledge that in recent years the effects of the Troubles would have been immeasurably worse if it had not been for the hard and often unappreciated work of this generation of clergy. However, it is a pity that the institutional church, the spokesmen and decision-making bodies of the church, seem to be lagging behind. Where is the forthright leadership and teaching which might liberate our people from the conventional Protestant and unionist ideologies which have captured the minds of so many of us to the exclusion of any attitudes that could be called scriptural or Christian?

One Sunday in September 1912, the rector of Carrickfergus stood in his pulpit before a full congregation and explained carefully why, even though he came from an Irish Church Missions background, he was not going to sign the covenant. By so doing he put himself in the opposite camp to the primate, his bishop, the moderator, the dean of Belfast and virtually all his brother clergy.

The immediate shock-horror which greeted his courageous and clear thinking gave way to respect and love for him as a rector and spiritual guide. In just over 20 years, John MacNeice was the bishop of the diocese, his commitment to serious Christian thinking and teaching about everyday and political matters maintained.

Twelve months ago, a Church of Ireland bishop in this paper addressed the question: should the church distance itself from the Orange Order? His answer was: "The Church of Ireland does not have any connection or identity with the Orange Order . . . therefore, one cannot really talk about the Church of Ire- land distancing itself from an organisation that is not directly linked to it." So that's all right, then?

For two or three years, a small group of us church people, mainly from two Belfast city-centre parishes, has been exercised over the problems of being a Christian in our time and place.

We have organised lectures bringing together Christians who have thought about local religion and politics to join in dialogue with politicians of virtually all parties (only the DUP declined our invitation).

We have tried in a small way to influence church opinion because we have been unhappy at what seems to us to be the unwillingness of the church establishment to admit that there is much of a problem - and, with Harryville and the continuing Drumcrees, at the succession of bland official statements, which seem to us not to come close to grasping the nettle, but to be couched more to minimise the inevitable offence they will cause.

We are also dismayed that episcopal and other official statements seldom seem to be dealt with by the press with the same critical analysis and scepticism which are accorded our politicians and their utterances.

Last week we were grateful to our Primate for the letter he and his fellow clergy sent to the Portadown Orange Order. In view of the reasonable requests of the diocese, we hoped for an appropriate response from the loyal orders. We had stated in our submission that, if there was a real likelihood of confrontation, the bishop should consider changing the venue of the service.

As we say in our submission to the anti-sectarianism committee, for 300 years the Church of Ireland was seen by both members and onlookers as the religious arm of the British state. It was not taken seriously as a theological or ethical force.

In the Republic, wrenched into the modern world by events outside its control, it has been released from the bonds of the ascendancy and is now being taken seriously on its theological merits and valued for its thoughtful contribution to the life of a vibrant society.

If only something similar could happen in the North. If only we could proclaim confidently as a church that we are of the ecumenical people of God, dedicated to working for God's kingdom on earth along with our brothers and sisters, that we have been freed from the shibboleths of pre-critical biblicism, freed from the intellectually absurd bondage of imagining we alone have the wisdom of God and the benefit of his grace, and that uniquely and irredeemably Roman Catholics do not.

The situation is very bad; let us grasp the chance to move beyond being merely a social-political institution with a religious veneer and become instead a lively, thoughtful Christian church.

Canon Charles Kenny is based in Belfast and is one of a small group of Church of Ireland people which recently made a submission to the Synod's anti-sectarianism sub-committee