OVER the past few weeks a series of episcopal addresses, followed by debates at diocesan synods, have reflected the mounting concern in the Church of Ireland over its relations with the Orange Order.

During the summer we looked over the precipice as Northern Ireland experienced levels of sectarian ill feeling that led to serious civil disorder and came near to triggering communal violence on a scale that is still disturbing to contemplate.

The temptation to attribute these problems to a few hotheads is to sidestep the uncomfortable fact that clergy and members of the Church of Ireland were involved in actions that have inflamed passions and promoted strife.

Unless a distance can be put between the Church of Ireland and the kind of behaviour witnessed at Drumcree, it is difficult to see how the church is not tainted by association. To do this effectively will require both a condemnation of individual outrages and an unequivocal rejection of the sectarian spirit that lies behind them.

It is often pointed out that there are many law abiding and decent Orangemen. While this is undoubtedly true, as an institution the sectarian nature of the order is evident from the way it has made the condemnation of another religious tradition a founding principle. Members are required to "strenuously oppose the fatal errors and doctrines of the Church of Rome and scrupulously avoid countenancing any act or ceremony of Popish worship".

Although political violence has undoubtedly fuelled fears that have done much to create the atmosphere where sectarianism has flourished on both sides of the religious divide, this only serves to underline the need for the Church of Ireland to be vigilant in its opposition to sectarianism.

Orangeism has fostered a self duty that has viewed Protestants as God's chosen people. The Siege of Derry, and other events in the Orange calendar which are directly associated with a highly selective reading of the Old Testament, act as symbols to fortify this sense of Protestant election and identity.

The images portrayed on Orange banners, which use biblical stories to suggest parallels that ally Protestants with the people of Israel, are false and misleading. The misuse of Scripture in this way has often resulted in an idolatrous attempt tub claim divine sanction for a narrow sectarian triumphalism.

The cancer at the heart of Orangeism is its refusal to recognise its Roman Catholic neighbour as also a child of God and a sister or brother in Christ. Contemporary Anglicanism accepts the Roman Catholic Church as a fully Christian church with which it seeks reconciliation. The position of the Orange Order is inconsistent with this.

Protestantism is at its best when it sees itself as a movement for reform and renewal within the universal Catholic Church. What unites us as Christians is not a set of particular doctrinal opinions which we hold, but what God has done in uniting us in fellowship with his beloved Son.

Christ's Church is already one. Our failure is that through our divisions we do not show forth this glorious truth and thereby put the Gospel at the service of unity and peace among all peoples.

Although there is no structured connection with the Orange Order, many church members in Northern Ireland are also members of the order and services for lodge members are frequently held before or after parades. If sectarianism is to be wholeheartedly resisted, more should be done to dissociate the Church of Ireland from the order.

In those areas where a witness of this kind would be as costly as it would be effective, individual clergy need to have their hands strengthened. This could be achieved by support from church leaders and debate at the General Synod.

This issue should be seen as a basic point of Gospel obedience, since there is clearly something profoundly wrong when, in a society that has been so marred by violence, marches that strain relations within the community and provoke civil disorder often set out from or end with church services. Even if clergy do not attend these services, by permitting their churches to be used in this way, clergy and congregations are, if only tacitly, lending support to, and implying divine approval for, demonstrations of a sectarian nature.

An argument can be made for action along the lines of the recent South African example in relation to apartheid and making the repudiation of the Orange Order a status confessionis. This term was first used in the Reformation to define matters vital to the being of the church and was raised by Dietrich Bonhoeffer with regard to the struggles of the German Confessing Church against the perils of Nazism.

Ways should be sought to ensure that church premises are no longer made available to the Orange Order, and church members should be encouraged to examine their consciences as to whether Orange membership glorifies Christ and promotes peace and reconciliation.

At a time when more forward thinking unionists are seeking to distance their party from the order, the Church of Ireland is in a good position to lend encouragement by adopting a more prophetic stance and taking action which places its voice unequivocally behind calls for a more inclusive politics.

WHICHEVER way the current political situation unfolds, the time is opportune for such witness. Without it, should there be a descent into communal violence, there could be the prospect of incurring guilt by association with ethnic cleansing.

Political progress is only likely to occur if unionists can articulate a vision of an inclusive unionism that has abandoned the sectarianism of the past and therefore dispensed with its relationship with the order. Better surely to encourage such a development than be seen to impede it.

A conception of political community which is tribal and exclusive has no place in a democratic society. It also has no place in the presentation of the Gospel of the Saviour who ministered to the Samaritan women, commended the foreign Roman soldier for his faith, and said that many from east and west would sit at his table in fellowship.