Sir, So now the four Church leaders have decreed that boycott is "unchristian and immoral". Let the faithful he warned if your shopkeeper insults your husband, wife or children and blocks the road so that you cannot go to your work some Monday morning, it is "unchristian and immoral" for you to stop buying in his/her shop. Well, well. Is this a development of Christian theology, or is it religious blather?
In order to find out which it is, could the four Church leaders tell us by what moral law we are bound to give our custom to any shop other than the one we choose? Their answer could surely represent a new dimension to Christian teaching.
And what a pity the teaching is so new if they had known about it before this, the Archbishop, the Moderator and the President could have applied it to the members of their religious secret society who, as we know, are bound to boycott Catholics as spouses, Catholics at worship and even Catholic pubs. If only they had known about this Christian teaching in time, look how much boycotting these leaders could have prevented!
Ah well, in spite of that, thank God for the excitement of a developing theology. You never know what challenges to our reason it may turn up next. - Yours, etc.,
Springhill Close, Belfast BT12 7SE.