From the Minister... 

Dear friends
By the time you open this edition of INSight, Easter will almost be upon us. I’m looking forward to the events through which we will remember and celebrate this most significant of Christian festivals, including the walk of witness that we’ll make from St John’s back to SBC on Good Friday. However, as well as looking back to the events of the first Easter in Jerusalem, my thoughts will also be turning to home.

The Good Friday Agreement was signed in Belfast in 1998. I still have a vivid recollection of sitting in our lounge and watching the news on the day that the breakthrough finally arrived, a power sharing agreement that brought an end to almost 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland. 

Those memories were rekindled for me a few weeks ago, while reading Peacemaker, a moving and thought-provoking new biography of one of the architects of the agreement, the Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble, written by the journalist Stephen Walker. The book could never be described as a hagiography. It provides an honest account of Trimble’s strengths and weaknesses: a brilliant intellect and eye for detail, but also a manner that was frequently brusque to the point of rudeness, a lack of people skills and a famously short temper. As with other biographies I’ve read of great and consequential people, I’m not sure I would have wanted to work closely with him.

This turns out to be one of the important lessons of the book. Peacemakers are not perfect; they are people like us, each with their own besetting sins, but also displaying some important and defining qualities. Reflecting on this biography, three stand out.

Firstly, peacemakers are courageous. Almost 30 years on from the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, it’s easy to forget the intense and constant pressure Trimble faced. He often had little if any room to manoeuvre, seeking concessions from his nationalist opponents while also trying to keep wary members of his own party onside. At a time when many other politicians refused to involve themselves in the peace process, Trimble persisted, often in the face of scathing criticism and violent threats.  

Secondly, peacemakers have stamina. It is exhausting to read about all that Trimble did during the peace process – deadlines coming and going without agreement, constant brinkmanship, endless late-night negotiations over the fine detail of documents. It’s telling that one of his most important personal principles was a belief in always keeping going: as long as he had even a small majority of support from his party, or a narrow window of opportunity, he persisted, driven by the conviction that to walk away would be to let down those who voted for him and placed their faith in his leadership.

And, thirdly, peacemakers are willing to make personal sacrifices for the greater good. One of the tragedies of the Good Friday Agreement was that the two politicians who worked hardest to achieve it, Trimble and his Nationalist counterpart John Hume, saw their careers ended prematurely by more extreme politicians and parties. They always knew this was likely to happen, but they saw this as a price worth paying for an end to violence. They realised there were flaws in the agreement but knew an imperfect peace was better than a prolonged conflict.

Nearly 30 years have passed since that momentous Good Friday, yet it feels like we need peacemakers more than ever. In recent weeks, a new and terrible conflict has begun in the Middle East and the War in Ukraine is now in its fourth year. In the UK, our politics are angrier and many people around us seem to be adopting increasingly extreme views, unwilling to recognize the validity of others’ perspectives. 

Among those he spoke of as particularly blessed in his kingdom, Jesus mentioned peacemakers. He said they would be called children of God. As Eugene Peterson translates Matthew 5:9 in The Message: “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.” This Easter, as we remember the greatest love of all, shown to us by the one who made possible our peace with God, in what ways might he be calling to us to help those around us live in peace with other?

Wishing you God’s grace and peace, Trevor