RITE AND REASON:The Irish churches, as splintered traditions within the Body of Christ, are undoubtedly being compromised and even demeaned by disunity
ONE OF Tennessee Williams's least known plays is the somewhat surrealist Camino Real. With some distinctly bizarre aspects, it is very rarely performed, and yet it may well be Tennessee Williams's masterpiece.
It is set in an impoverished town in some Spanish-speaking wilderness. An inhospitable place, there is a sense of people being unable to determine their fate, and of being unable to escape. It is not an inappropriate image for the Ireland of 2011, nor indeed is it far off the mark as an image for the church in Ireland today.
In Camino Real, we find notable figures wandering in and out – Don Quixote, Casanova, Lord Byron – and in one strange monologue Byron produces the classic line, "There is a time for departure, even when there is no certain place to go." An uncertainty in journeying without a defined destination and of travelling without knowing how we will find our journey's end are things most of us will avoid.
Yet it has always been part of the quest of faith: Abraham setting out as an old man to an unknown place; Moses leading the children of Israel into a wilderness where the promised land must have seemed only a distant dream; Jesus going into the desert with no obvious destination; St Paul on his long missionary journeys, with no expectation that he would reach his journey’s end in safety.
We have to ask whether we are satisfied with where we stand at present, as splintered traditions within the Body of Christ, whose witness to the country in which we live is being compromised and even demeaned by our disunity. If we are to move beyond this, we also need to have the security of considering the steps we would take to begin such a journey.
I suggest three steps.
The first concerns baptism. Virtually all Christian traditions that have a sacramental practice recognise the baptism of other traditions as being baptism into the One Body of Christ – which transcends the limitations of their own particular tradition.
Would a statement of the deepest of all unity not be made if at the celebration of baptism in one particular tradition, members of other Christian traditions were invited, representing the wider church, so the reality of the entire Body of Christ was symbolised?
A second step is that we make it a principle that as Christians we will not study the Word of God in denominational isolation. No Christian tradition owns the Word of God, and no Christian tradition has a monopoly on the right interpretation of it.
Finally, one of the tasks of ministry within the church – and I am not speaking only of the ordained ministry – is the pastoral care of others in Christ’s name.
Pastoral resources in most Christian traditions are being much stretched in the country, and yet we do not take the step of committing pastoral care of some people to those of a different Christian tradition than our own. It should be both common sense and good ecumenism.
In Camino Real, there is a strange friendship between the aging Casanova (Jacques, in the play) and an equally aging courtesan, Marguerite. They are about to part, when there is a telling exchange. He tells Marguerite that we are only alone if we distrust one another. Her reply is a sad: "We have to distrust each other. It is our only defence against betrayal." To which Jacques replies simply, "I think our defence is love."
The only defence, the only motivation for our moving into an ecumenical future that will be an adventure rather than drudgery or a duty, is love – the love of God for each of us and, in response, our true love for one another.
- Richard Clarke is president of the Irish Council of Churches and Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath and Kildare