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16 October 2014
大象传媒 NI - Eyewitness

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Sectarianism - Voices - Brian Lennon is co-director of Community Dialogue, which promotes greater understanding between diverse people Image of Brian Lennon

I think sectarianism is a very complex issue, but of course churches can rightly be accused of encouraging sectarianism, just as I think any individual has sectarianism in us. I have that in myself. There is a particular way in which I think churches can inadvertently encourage sectarianism, and that is by building community, which churches are very, very good at doing, and which of itself would seem to be a very good thing to do.

In other contexts, outside Northern Ireland, building community is a positive thing. But in Northern Ireland it may have negative implications, because if we build a community and that interacts with other elements in a situation to increase division, then you may end up with a lethal cocktail. So if people are living in separate houses, work in separate jobs, interpret history separately and interpret the future separately, building separate communities in that context can actually be dangerous.

So my plea would be that churches would, in our context, always be aware of that danger, and look for ways of overcoming separation, given the other factors in society that are pointing in the direction of separation.







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