Rev. Harold Good—Protestant minister, contemporary of Desmond Tutu, and key figure in Northern Ireland’s peace process—reflects on what it means to pastor through division. Having played a pivotal role in bringing Catholics and Protestants to the same table, Rev. Good shares hard-won wisdom for our polarized age, inviting us all to lead pastorally with courage, compassion, and the hope of reconciliation.

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I think one of the most important lectures I ever attended was when

our teacher said to us when you come across somebody who takes a different

position than you or somebody who wants to pick a fight with you,

don't see it as an invitation to World War iii.

See it as a pastoral opportunity.

And I am always so grateful for that particular lesson because I

found that you can disarm people, even the most aggressive people by

being pastoral in your response.

Welcome back to the Mending Divides podcast.

I'm Jer

Swigart.

Today we're honored to be joined by Reverend Dr. Harold Good from

Northern Ireland, pastor, author and peacemaker who helped guide his nation

through one of the most entrenched conflicts of the 20th century.

The troubles.

Dr. Good's story is not just history.

It's a living testimony of what it means to stand in the rubble

of violence and dare to believe in the possibility of peace.

As our own nation feels increasingly fractured by ideological and political

divides, Harold's wisdom and experience offer a roadmap for how we too

can become Everyday Peacemakers.

Let's dive right into the conversation.

Harold, I think that you have lived the story that seems to be unfolding

in our own country in the United States, and where it was sectarian

violence in Northern Ireland.

it's ideological violence in our own.

However, it's becoming more and more seasoned with religious fervor.

we're

Yeah.

to this and some of the commentary on Charlie Kirk's assassination,

and is this person a martyr?

And that's very religious language.

That's not just political language.

And, and of course, we're in over here, we're in a space

of reciprocal assassinations.

the right and the left are trading violence, lethal violence.

And this is something that you've lived this story and within it.

Made some really significant decisions around how you're gonna follow Jesus.

And some of that had to do with your role as a Pastor Harold, but I think

it has a lot more to do with you being a person of faith and recognizing that

as the neighborhood burned around you, Jesus compels us toward the pain with

the tools to heal rather than to win.

And so, I wanted to have this conversation with you because we need your guidance.

we need we need your word, we need your story and your voice.

And of course, I'm sitting next to The book that you wrote which you

actually tell so much of the story.

In Good Time it's called, and Friends Who Are Listening In, I compel you

to get In Good Time by Harold Good.

It needs to be in the library of reconcilers on this planet, but it

tells the story of of much of your formation and how you showed up as a

reconciler in the midst of the troubles.

but I wonder for those of us who are listening in, who are unfamiliar

with the story that you lived can you take us back to what was happening in

those, the early days of the troubles, especially as you began to pay attention

to the acceleration of violence?

What was happening around you and how did that begin to invite you,

not to walk away from it, but to walk toward it as a peacemaker?

What was happening?

I returned from a period of study In the United States in 1968, and my

appointment was right into the midst of the inner city of Belfast where

things were just beginning to erupt.

Northern Ireland was very influenced by what was happening

on your continent at that time.

The civil rights struggle in the US uh, have said how Just before I left America,

I heard Joan Baez sing, we shall overcome.

And when I got back to Northern Ireland, there she was on a

platform singing We Shall Overcome.

And the whole civil rights movement, the legitimate cry for the

rights of a minority at that time

. That was resisted by the established traditional unionist, loyalist

Protestants in inverted commas community.

And so you got this confrontation between two cultures two aspirations

two creeds all intertwined.

Now we live in a world where what's happening in one place impacts

Yeah.

overnight, on another.

And we're seeing that at the moment, aren't we?

Yeah.

the restlessness around the world.

Mm-hmm.

I find myself almost as an innocent abroad in the midst of that.

But I would have to say that my four years in the States had unconsciously

more than consciously been preparing me,

Hmm,

For a ministry in a community that was not at ease with itself.

Where there was increasing fracture and which because of the resistance,

to the legitimate cry of the people who were marginalized, that broke

out then into, well, people feel that they are not being heard.

Yeah.

Violence is the language, sadly, to which they will so often resort,

and that's what's happening here.

Mm-hmm.

And then counter violence.

And so, I found myself in the midst of this.

And for me as a pastor, those situations, you have to stay somewhere

in the middle of all of that to stay detached from one or the other.

So that if you want to have a ministry within a fractured society, you need

to be very sure that you are uh, and I think this is where we learn from Jesus.

He lived in a fractured and divided society, but did not get involved

in taking this side or that side.

He just took the side of what was right.

Yeah.

I agree with that.

And yet I see in the US right now, there's a lot of side taking, happening

between not just pastors, but congregants.

there are different understandings of Jesus that are surfacing and a Jesus

who is in defense of my perspective, or a Jesus who justifies my behavior

in pursuit of the world that I want.

and so, I see a lot of side-taking, a lot of tribalism happening within

the US American Christian community.

Here you were in Northern Ireland where you're, Catholics and Protestants, that

was more of the divide in that space.

what did holding.

a more pro-human approach.

what did not taking sides look like for you in that time?

Well, yeah, I hear what you're saying.

'cause there comes a time when you have to, you're going to follow Jesus.

You have to take his side,

his side very often, is gonna put you in opposition to others,

even others who claim his name.

And that's, that is always very difficult.

when you find yourself in conflict with people who claim that

they also are following Jesus.

Right.

and where do you find the language where you find the way of

trying to break through that?

Very often an impasse.

Mm-hmm.

and I swear, I often say we've part of our problem is we in our situation

people got confused between the kingdom of God and the United Kingdom.

So, you, when you try to interpret your theology in political terms

and that has to be confronted when that is, when clearly contradiction,

Mm-hmm.

to the way of Christ.

So in the midst of that I think I would find myself in my preaching,

having to challenge some of what I knew to be a distortion,

of faith.

A distortion within your own congregation.

They would've been listening to other people and, and reveal

their other strong voices.

And I found unapologetically that I had to challenge that kind of distortion,

Mm.

Or not, not

in a way where I could open conversations with people, not

sort of saying, this is, but.

challenging people in the context of a gospel interpretation, and

inviting them into a conversation.

hmm.

And a lot of what I would've done, some of it would be from the pulpit, but

a lot of it would be on the streets

Mm-hmm.

when people would confront you on the street.

Yeah.

found myself almost like a street preacher

Yeah.

You know what, you know, that's not what Jesus would say.

And so,

but again, mostly through relationships.

As I say, a lot of it was at firesides.

kitchen tables.

Sometimes on the street when you'd meet people on the corner and, constantly

trying to reaffirm that my role was there was not to take a political position.

For example you know, the, the, the debate, are we going to

find ourselves outta the United Kingdom and into United Ireland?

Mm-hmm.

And I would have to help people think through, is there actually, is there

a theological problem with this?

And if so, what is it?

Let's talk about that.

And at the end of the day, you find yourself talking about territory

rather than theology and culture.

Culture more than creed

Hmm.

having to help people to see the distinction between culture and

creed and territory and theology.

Oh, that's so good.

That is so good, Harold.

I I see that I see that in spades here, conversations that should

be theological are territorial,

Yeah, yeah,

I think this moment in time is demonstrating for us how easy it is to

be seduced into a kingdom of this world,

yeah.

Orientation rather than a king Kingdom of God orientation.

You

yes, yes.

for these things to be confused.

yeah.

so much of what you just said, I think is dynamic.

What I think is unique is that as a pastor in that time, as a Protestant minister a

Methodist minister in the Shank Hill, and for those of you who are listening, and

that is in the epicenter of the troubles I think it would've been easy for you to

understand your place as in the pulpit.

Yet what you just said was, happened in the pulpit and in the pulpit.

You're talking to your own people.

Right.

But it also happened in the streets and next to fires.

Talk to us about that.

I think that we need more pastors, to use the pulpit well, but also make

sure that what's happening in the pulpit is seasoned by what's happening

in the streets and around fires.

So talk to us about how did you use these spaces?

How did you find yourself there?

Was it accidental?

Was it intentional?

What did you do around the fire?

Yeah.

and how did that then inform your leadership of your congregation?

Gotta say, I think it was more accidental and intentional.

I mean, you, your life is laid out for you.

11 o'clock on a Sunday, on seven o'clock on a Sunday evening, you,

you, you have a responsibility to conduct worship and to preach.

And those days we would've had a morning service and an evening service.

Hmm.

And so the evening service would've been generally more people who were

more faith driven and would've been wanting to maybe probe more deeply.

It'd be more like a study opportunity and where you could

really, like Sunday morning tended to be all things to everybody, all

families, all ages and all of that.

But I found that very often, the Sunday evenings when you had people who in

a quieter and it'd be entirely an adult congregation in the evenings.

I treated almost like a, a Bible study.

let's look more in depth at some of the things that were happening this week.

Hmm.

Let's look and see what is Jesus saying to us about this week?

Not what I'm saying, not what I think, but what is he saying to us?

And I found that prompted very, very very important conversations.

And sometimes those conversations would be followed up during the week,

maybe when you're visiting a home.

I put a lot of importance on home visits in my ministry.

It's the kind of thing that seems to have gone outta fashion here.

But, you know, in those days you could knock on door, people say,

ah, come on in, take cup of tea.

And I found in those conversations where we didn't have an audience,

so people could be honest with me and I could be honest with them.

and sometimes it'd be, you were saying on Sunday morning, something

that I really had problem with.

Tell me, you know, I, and off you go.

Or sometimes I would be approached maybe by journalists and they would

want to do an interview with you on television or in the papers.

Mm-hmm.

And that would reach a wider audience, but maybe.

You'd be walking down the street and somebody say, Hey, com'ere.

You know, what did you mean by what you were saying the other day?

That was ridiculous, you know, on earth,

Yeah.

you know, and so opens up a conversation.

So that's what I mean about conversations at firesides, on the street corner

Mm-hmm.

within the context of worship.

But totally being true, having to be true to your understanding of the gospel.

You know, I would never have said, you know, if you're asking me, I think...

I'll be saying, let's, you know,

let's look at what this means within a biblical context

and, you know, and people find that very difficult to contradict

if you can give a biblical

basis for whoa for where you're coming from.

Now, it doesn't mean I was preachy all the time at all.

'cause sometimes when you're with people who don't have anything

understanding of scripture or who don't have any interest in it, and who

would actually be quite, dismissive you had to use a different vocabulary.

But you could be interpreting the gospel in more secular language.

And I think that is important as well.

I think that the idea of challenge in a way that opens up conversation is

a critical life skill for all of us.

I, the who are listening in, some of us are pastors but the

vast majority of us are not.

And I think we're looking for skills, I think conversational

Peacemaking skills to be able to find our way back into relationship

with people with whom we disagree.

One of the things that you just said, or even the stories that you just told

or the people would come to you and just say, I flat out disagree with you.

Or, what were you talking about?

What did you mean when you said,

Yeah.

Yeah.

I, it takes a kind of relational and conversational resilience.

And what, by that I mean, thick skin?

Soft heart.

To be able to be challenged by another person's critique and actually stay in

the conversation, it seems that like.

Some of your challenge, the whole impulse behind it was to provoke conversation

and often provoke it with people who might see it a little bit differently.

How, how, how is that not intimidating to you when someone came at you and

said, I disagree with what you had to say, what was going on inside of you

and how did you use that as a moment to actually build a relationship

rather than fracture it further?

I think one of the most important lectures I ever attended

was when I was in seminary.

Our teacher in pastoral studies.

He said to us when you come across somebody who takes a different

position than you or somebody who wants to pick a fight with you,

don't see it as an invitation to World War iii.

Hmm.

See it as a pastoral opportunity.

See it as a pastoral opportunity.

And I am always so grateful for that particular lesson because I found that you

can disarm people even the most aggressive people by being pastoral in your response.

I don't mean that you're sort of saying that you're gonna lie under

it and say, oh, that doesn't matter.

But letting them know that you're taking them seriously,

Mm mm.

you want them then to take you seriously.

I take you seriously, it's an invitation asking you to take me seriously so that

our conversation could be an honest one.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm going to respect,

where you're coming from and your right to say what you think.

and

All I'm asking in return is that you also hear me out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, it, it can be a long, slow process because you might be only

having those conversations one or two or three people in a day or in a week.

But I, I, I found that if I came at it in a pastoral way with people.

Understanding, I mean,

You very often find that it's actually not you they're having

issue with, but you're the fall guy.

you're the person they can unload their anger.

very often I would find when somebody took a very different position from me, and

was angry with me because of something I had said or a position that I took.

Very often you find this person was a hurting person.

Yeah.

There had been something in their family or in their situ... i, I

think of somebody who had lost a very close loved one through violence.

And here am I talking about, forgiveness and grace and they're saying, but

you didn't lose anybody, did you?

And I didn't.

And I had to sit and say, you know, you've made me think.

I have to try and think my way into where you are at.

Mm-hmm.

And this kind of

conversation which brought you into a relationship with people

rather than confrontation.

Hmm.

And where people would say, I don't agree with you.

I don't agree with you, but I hear what you're saying.

Yeah.

Yeah.

and you know, and I can remember one night when I was the police had

asked me, they'd given me a megaphone

Hmm.

and they said because it, it was a very tense situation.

It was all the potential of a hugely dangerous physical confrontation

between people from our side of the road

Mm-hmm.

with people on the other side, on the Falls Road.

And they were at a barrier and the police had made a, a cordon

and tried to hold the crowd back.

And they said to me, would you speak to these people?

So I got up and gave me the megaphone and I started to try

and plead with the, the crowd.

And there was one woman in the crowd who was very angry with me

because of something I had said, and, that she thought I was betraying,

the, the Protestant faith and all of that.

And she started screaming and shouting at me about the fact that I had taken an

initiative to build a relationship with the Catholic priest, and she shouted,

there's a man who was, you know, and he's all chatting up the priests and

you know, you couldn't trust him.

Don't listen to a word he is saying.

And I could see a, a lynching, a verbal lynching if not a physical one coming off.

There was a man stepped out of the crowd.

He'd been involved in some very violent, from the loyalist side.

And he had told me about these, and he and I had sat at his fireside, literally

on more than one occasion, and I thought he had never heard me, but he stood

up, he said, give me that megaphone.

And I handed him the megaphone, And

Well.

he stood up and he appealed to the crowd.

Look, you know, and he saved my skin that night.

He was the most unlikely person that I could have thought of to

come to my help in that situation.

And he interpreted to the crowd what I'd been trying to say to him.

And, and he'd been involved in some very violent things himself,

and I had challenged him on these.

But there he was.

It's because he and I had built a relationship.

It wasn't that he was agreeing with me, but he came to my defense to

protect me, which in one part was he was saying, I actually don't

agree with this guy, but I respect

his integrity.

This isn't the way to to deal with these situations, and the

crowd dispersed at his request.

I couldn't have dispersed them, but he did on my behalf.

Wow, wow.

that, that's incredible.

Harold, what I'm finding in the, the first segment of this conversation

so far is we're actually spending quite a lot of time talking about what

Peacemaking looked like within your own constituency, within your own crowd and

what it means to navigate disagreement and have conversational resilience.

And like the fact that you had, you had put in the time.

Around the fire with this gentleman to the point at which he didn't see

it like you saw it, but there was enough relationship where he was

willing to risk his own safety, to defend yours and to protect yours.

That's the stuff.

and then there's this whole other side that you just opened up where

there was a widening fracture, in your neighborhood, not just in your country,

in your neighborhood a sectarian fracture between Protestants and Catholics.

And I wonder what was it for you, Harold, where you began to recognize, yes, I

need to do Peacemaking work within my own community, but part of Peacemaking

and peace building also looks like me being in real relationships with people

on the other side of the fracture.

what was that realization like and how did you go about building that

relationship with that Catholic priest?

I think it was, things had got so bad between the community that I was serving.

And there were, it was a very short physical distance between

the Schenkel Road and the Catholic Falls Road community.

Very short, physical distance,

And for those of us who haven't been there, we're talking hundreds of meters.

Yeah.

But yeah,

this is, this is

yes,

miles

no we're about half a mile or so, you know, people used to say

it, a stone's throw, literally it

Yeah.

But things were getting very bad and so I remember thinking, we've no

conversation or communication between the clergy on our side of the road

Hmm.

and the clergy and the Falls Road, the Catholic side.

No communication.

It wasn't because we as clergy were an antagonistic necessarily.

We just didn't know each other.

And so I remember, I made contact with the priest in St. Peters, called McMurphy

and you can't be more Irish than that.

And he said come on over, so I went over to his place and we good chat.

And we related very comfortably and very well, and found he

had the same concerns as I had.

So we decided I would bring some clergy from my side of the road and he would

bring some from his side of the road.

And we had a very good meeting.

It was the first time there had been any kind of a crossover meeting.

Hmm.

And at the end of the meeting we said, you know what we need

to bring some of our lay people.

So we decided we'd, each next time we'd meet, we'd bring three

from each of our congregations.

Then somebody said, but where could we meet?

Our lot won't come over to your place and your lot won't come over to our place.

Where could we meet?

And this is interesting what's going on at the moment?

I remembered getting a phone call from a member of the Jewish community

Who, who had said to me, we we would like to do something to be

helpful, but we don't know what to do because we are neither, we

are not seen as one or the other.

Yeah.

But he said, if there's anything we could ever do, you think, let me know.

So I slipped out of the room and I phoned this gentleman and I said,

we look, we need a place to meet.

Hmm.

A neutral place.

We come to the synagogue, he said, of course you can.

So we had our next meeting where we brought people from our churches to

the synagogue, where at that time they wouldn't have been ready to

go to either one side or the other.

And I think it's a supreme irony that it took the Jews to

bring the Christians together.

And and they did.

And we we met there on more than one occasion.

But that began, it broke down the wall of partition, if you like.

Hmm.

And so we were able to keep a relationship with each other.

And I remember it wasn't long after that that there was a terrible night when

Catholic families were burned out of their homes in a place called Bombay Street.

It was a terrible, terrible event.

And the families were being sheltered and looked after in a Catholic school

up in the other end of the west Belfast.

And I went up and just

Brought the the sadness of our people.

'cause by congregation generally would've been very

Hmm.

sad about this.

And they they, you don't said, anyway, I said, there, is there anything you need?

And they said, well, you need things for babies and we need this, or we need that.

And I met Sunday morning, the next day was Sunday.

And I went up my pulpit and I asked, I said, you know,

I've been up to this place.

But I took the liberty of going in your name to bring the sympathy of

the Methodist people . And I asked her, I said, anything I need, and they

told me this, that, and the other.

And I said, I'm going to go up again next couple of days if any

of you had any of these things that you'd like to leave at the church,

and I'll take them in your name.

And I had the car full.

Is that right?

and I had some people going outta church.

And they were a working class congregation.

They weren't wealthy people, but to put money in my hand and said, well, we

don't have any of those things you're looking for, but maybe that would help.

And for me it was incredible and very moving, and it was very

moving both ways to go up into that Catholic school and bring these

gifts and the thoughts and prayers.

Now, that's not rocket science.

Yeah.

that doesn't take courage.

That's just instinctively thinking, what would Jesus do in a situation like this?

What would he have us do?

You don't have to have a PhD in theology to understand that's

an obedience, that what we claim to be and who we claim to be.

There were some of my friends would've thought, gosh, you know, that was very

courageous and I find if you, again in the context of the relationships

that you build up with people and the trust and they realize you don't have

any ulterior motive in doing this.

This is doing what?

You know, what is right.

Yeah.

and so I'm not putting this out as a oh, and I had the secret 'cause there

were others doing the same thing.

Yes,

and, and, and many of us were doing it together, which was important.

Very important.

I think but part of what I hear in that story, Harold, is, It may not have

required courage, courage probably looked like that time when you were standing

with a bullhorn and people were getting.

yeah.

up or courage maybe looked like when you walked from your space into

a Catholic space, knowing that's probably not the safest thing that

you can do, but it's worth it for the sake of building relationship.

But in the context of relationship, this wasn't courage to go up and express

your grief and to bring supplies.

You were just simply accessing compassion.

that's just a deeply human thing to do, especially when we're in

relationship with one another.

And,

Yeah.

and I wonder that, that moment right there that you speak of, I, I can only imagine

that was contagious among your people.

Yeah.

Because once you access and begin to unleash compassion, I think

it becomes like a contagion and it starts to overtake people.

I what happened for your people your congregation in the aftermath of that

act of compassion and generosity?

Well, I think people just would've said, well, I'm glad you did that in our name.

Hmm.

This is who we are.

who we are.

That's the thing we'd like to do it.

We didn't quite know how to do it, but you did it for us here.

You helped us to, you were the channel.

And so that it's hard to know.

I mean, all I'm saying is that if you instinctively thought, the problem with

many of us here, is we're always wondering what will other people think about what

we're going to say or what will other people think about what we're going to do.

But people were saying, well, I wouldn't get away with that.

Or if I said that, oh, and there were some of the clergy in some of the churches

here who found a huge opposition to like, I think of one man who had to move.

Yeah.

No doubt.

No doubt.

There were clergy who were punished by their people

yeah,

for, for courage and compassion.

yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Now we come from a tradition which is perhaps a bit more open than others.

Hmm.

I mean, some of the traditions here.

I think for example, of the people who in parts of the Presbyterian world,

where they are still the descendants of the settler people

and you know what that's about in your country, the conflict between

indigenous people and settler people.

Yeah.

And where we've had people who are the descendants of the settler people that

could affect theology and understanding of how you relate to the people around you.

Harold, I like the parallel that I would draw would be like the white

militia movement, or even a little bit,

yeah,

Maybe a little bit closer to home.

This phenomenon that some are referring to as Christian nationalism.

This,

yeah,

this understanding of the fusion between partisan politics and

the Christian religion that is deeply tied to manifest destiny,

yeah.

and the settler orientation around a God who is for them

regardless of the cost of others.

I remember I sometimes tell the story.

I I used to go to St. Thomas' university in Houston.

Hmm.

I remember the first time Father Alec Reed and myself, were invited to go

out to this University of St. Thomas where they had an Irish study center.

And we were staying in a lovely apartment on the campus.

And we were having our breakfast on the first morning, and I was trying to

think, what am I going to say now and how am I going to explain something

of our situation and our history and our context and to blah, blah blah.

So, and I was sitting there, and I happened to notice the milk carton.

And I'm fascinated by the brand on the milk carton , the promised land dairies.

Hmm.

That's fascinating.

The promised land dairy.

And then I, looked at it, more closely.

And there underneath from Deuteronomy this is the land God gave us.

And I took us into the class that I was speaking to, as was saying, you

have, we have all the same challenge of trying to understand, where we, where we

come from and where we find ourselves.

And I said that milk carton could just as easily be on a table

Yeah.

where I come from.

Yep.

'cause there are people there, people where I come from who believe

this is the land that God gave us.

And you think of South Africa, you think of other places around the world people

who believe that God has placed them in these places and given them this land,

and that gives them license to live in a particular way and to whatever about

anybody else in those geographical areas.

And we have that within our culture.

And it's a very strong element within our culture.

And that influences people's political thinking

Yep.

as well as their theological thinking.

Yeah.

if you really believe this is the land God gave you, you, you may

not even give much time to God.

But if you think that this is land He gave you, then that legitimizes your position.

And that has to be challenged.

That has to be challenged.

And that's where like, I, I want to go there next in this conversation,

Harold, because I think we're in a space over here where, folk are

just writing those people off.

Whether I'm conservative, I'm writing off those liberal people, or I'm

a liberal person and I'm writing off those conservative people.

And I think on both sides there's malformed versions of Christianity that

want to place God on our own sides.

And and

Create God in our image,

exactly

Right, right.

and there is a societal atrophy of friend making, or even just conversation across

that fracture or across that divide.

And one of the parts of your story that I admire so much.

Is that you refused to distance yourself from people who hold theology

that claimed Jesus that was very different than yours, or had a desire

for a future for the country that was maybe very different than yours.

Rather than refusing to meet with these people and dehumanize them and other

them from your side of the fracture, you utilized your table as as an opportunity

to bring people together to form uncommon friendships with your ideological others.

And I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about the power of the table.

How did you use the table, and scones and tea?

How did you use that to bring people together?

And what did that begin to do in you and what did you see it begin to do in others?

I remember we used to, some of us, I wasn't alone in these efforts.

I remember saying we need begin to talk with people who

think differently than we do.

As Protestant clergy.

We need to talk with people in the IRA, the Republican movement.

And we found, interestingly enough, an open door.

Hmm.

They were willing to come and meet with us, and we would meet

around the table, meet with tea and scones, and get on to disarm.

And I remember at the same time there were others who were very confrontational.

They were going to bring people into the room as we had tried to do, but

they were gonna bring people into the room to let them know what we thought

of them, of what they should do.

And I remember going to one of these meetings and I could remember fingers

waving, if only you would do this.

If only you, if only you, you.

And I thought, I'm not going back to those meetings.

Hmm.

That was where it started.

And that was where we then said, that's not the way we'd come around

the table and meet in that kind of atmosphere rather than in the.

the the lecture theater.

Mm-hmm.

And we began then to get some trust.

In fact, we found after a little while, instead of us asking them

would they come and meet us, they would phone me and say, we'd like to

talk over something with you folks.

Can we come you be free tomorrow afternoon?

You know?

And we'd say, of course . And so they would come and be, they

would take the initiative after we had taken the initiative.

And those were very important conversations,

Hmm.

Because there was a trust that had developed.

Now, they wouldn't have phoned us if they hadn't had reason to trust us.

They weren't coming into this kind of

Yeah.

confrontation.

And then, we came to the more difficult thing.

We've already established this trust.

We've already got this conversation going.

A much bigger challenge was for us to bring people from our own

Protestant side of the community

into conversations with people from the Republican nationalist side, because

within the psyche of the people from within the Protestant loyalist community

to talk to your perceived enemy is to give credence to their positions.

To,

Yes.

to even suggest that you could have a conversation.

But that was a huge challenge.

Mm-hmm.

I can remember I tell the story for Gerry Adams, who was a, the

leader of the Republican movement.

I, I had been speaking in a Catholic church.

I'd been making suggestions as to how we could become reconciled.

And there was a question and answer session.

There was lady said Reverend Good you won't remember me, but I remember you.

Hmm.

I said, oh, really?

Yeah.

She said, when we were put out of our house by the Protestants,

you took us into your church.

Looked after us until we were rehoused.

She said, for 40 years, I have carried bitterness in my heart for what

happened to us when we lost our home.

But she said, tonight, I'm gonna let it go.

Hmm.

I'm gonna let it go.

Then there was a young man who came to me a few minutes later whose

wife had been killed in an IRA bomb.

And he said to me, Gerry Adams was at the back of the church.

I have to make my peace with Gerry Adams.

Hmm.

And he said, should I go and speak to him?

And I said, not here.

There are people around with cameras and there'd be, be a journalist and he would

grab you and that wouldn't be, I said I.

If you're up to our, he's up for it, why not come to my table and

i'll pour the tea and you guys can do the talking.

Wow.

And they became reconciled to each other.

Yeah.

One who had lost his beautiful wife to,

Hmm.

An IRA bomber whose coffin was carried by Gerry Adams

Wow.

carried the coffin of the man who had killed his wife.

And then they sat and now I can only give credit to the Holy Spirit.

Yeah.

I can take no credit for that.

yeah,

All I can take credit for is pouring tea.

Yeah.

Harold, that, like, that's what strikes me about some of your superpower as

a peace builder in my view is um,

That could.

Yeah, because after long, long, long, long time building a trust in the light,

both of the relationship with both those people, you know, as I say, then

yeah,

I pour the tea,

you

but

tea,

but the spirits

takes over.

And that's like, as people of faith, I think the greatest, most liberating

news is that there is no force more committed to repair than the

spirit of the resurrected Christ.

Yeah.

And we get to be a part of it.

Right.

and in your case it's the, you knew the significance of a table

outside of the view of cameras.

You knew the power of hot tea your wife's delicious peace scones set the

conditions for reconciliation to happen.

The other thing that I wanna just draw out though, is the amount of time that

it takes to build the kind of trust where Gerry Adams, who was a very

significant political leader would accept that invitation to come to your table.

and I think we live in this moment where we just, we offer an attempt or two at

kindness or at relationship, and maybe it's rejected or maybe it doesn't go as

far as we want it to, and then we bail.

Like we give up, we

stop

fact, the pace of growing trust, which is critical to the work of

reconciliation, is far slower than any of us are comfortable with.

Help us understand how you went about building trust.

Like what's your, not like in a prescriptive way, although

it sounds like that in my question, but how did you do it?

how did you become efficient or effective at building trust?

There's some people who would say it was naivety,

Hmm.

you know what I mean?

Yeah.

That because I, I honestly wouldn't die in a ditch for either causes that

these folks... I would say I'm a very content citizen of the United Kingdom.

But I wouldn't die in the ditch to preserve the union against all other odds.

I'm a very contented Irish man as well.

That's my DNA also . So, you know, some people say, well, you

don't stand for anything, do you?

Because I, I don't.

This isn't for my emphasis.

It is not for my loyalties or in either of these political camps.

And so people would may saying, you're a bit of an innocent abroad, aren't you?

You're naive.

You wander in and out of these places.

I had a, a aunt who used to get very impatient with me, and she said,

you're neither one thing nor the other.

That I say, well, I think that's not a bad place for a pastor to be.

That story about Gerry Adams and the the young man, who lost his wife.

Two days after that I came home and there was a little tree on my doorstep

Hmm.

with a card attached.

And it was a thank you from Gerry Adams thanking me for

having facilitated this things.

Now, Gerry Adams hobby is planting trees.

Ah.

He has a big glass house where he cultivates plants and he had

picked out this little tree and it's out there in my garden.

I call it my peace tree.

Yeah.

my peace tree,

Wow.

Wow.

Hmm.

comes up with his way of saying thank you.

'cause it meant it was important to him that he was able to engage with this man

who was a victim of partly of his making.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

So what I'm saying is people will say, gosh, you're naive,

aren't you thinking that?

well,

I'm happy to be naive.

It's if that's how people see it,

Yeah.

and, it's intentional, bipartisan.

It's not that I sort of, let myself drift into these situations.

It's very intentional.

Because I can't be easily identified as this or that

Yeah, yeah,

I can forgiven for, not because they think I'm naive

yeah,

and I, I don't try to dissuade them.

yeah.

your naivete greased the skids for

repair to happen.

Yeah.

let me just ask you one, one last question.

in this conversation.

you're speaking to a community of people who recognize that we are

seeking to follow Jesus in the midst of a country that's addicted to

conflict that's consumed by violence.

And it seems as though we're careening toward a sheer

cliff right now as a society.

I have lots of conversations with followers of Jesus who

want to be a part of repair.

They want to do the work of peace building, hope is wilting toward despair.

And I wonder what it, what would you say, and especially for you, I guess, as you

were living this story and moments for you when you felt fatigued or overwhelmed

or when hope was wilting what did you do?

What would you say to a community of people who are living now a reality that

you're familiar with in this regard?

I'll Answer your question more specifically within the context of

explaining how way back in the early seventies, I was invited to a World

Council of Churches event in Bangkok.

I was only a young kid at that time and I loved to travel.

And so I accepted the invitation to go to Bangkok, the World Council of

churches you know, the big body of people.

And they had this very important event in Bangkok.

And they invited myself and a young woman, a Roman Catholic young woman.

They invited us to come and explain to this body something of

what was happening in Belfast at that time from her perspective.

So you have a catholic in the Legion of Mary and my perspective as a

young Protestant minister that was very interesting, very challenging.

But I can remember the first night we were there, we were in small groups and there

was a little black priest in the group.

We were all telling each other who we were.

And he was very recognizable at later years, but not at that particular night.

Desmond Tutu, he just were sitting there in the group and

we were saying, I'm Harold.

And he was saying, I'm Desmond.

And we weren't to know in the years that went by.

But there were two things that happened at that conference.

Two things I brought home from me at that conference that

were hugely important for me.

One was.

An address that was given by a politician from Angola

who had been a freedom fighter, a terrorist in the struggle in Angola, but

who was now a minister in the government.

Hmm.

And that I said myself, here's a guy who's, who's been a terrorist and

he's now a minister in the government.

And he was trying to help us see something of the journey that he had made.

Hmm.

when I came back I was interviewed by journalists here about the

experience and there was a big headline among the local papers.

Methodist minister says, we've got to bring the terrorists to the table.

Hmm.

And that's really where that probably began for me.

I was so, affected by this man.

And I came back and without thinking, I said to this journalist,

I said, I was saying, we've got to bring people to our table,

Yeah.

we can't leave them out.

And that was way back in 1973, I think it was, you know, way back then.

And I never thought for a moment that one day I'd be bringing them to my table

before they went to the other table.

But anyway, that, that's the first thing.

Then there was a, the closing address was given by theologian Jürgen Moltmann

Mm.

may know that name.

Mm-hmm.

And I remember his final sentence and he spoke, and I can't remember

anything else he said, but I do remember his last, he looked at us.

He just, he said, whatever else.

Never, ever forget, never, ever forget that Jesus can take the

inevitability out of history.

And those two worth that whole journey to Bangkok bringing people to the table

and never, ever forget that Jesus could take the inevitability out of history.

And I've hung onto that.

When everybody is saying there's no change, nothing happened,

nothing will ever be different.

So I, I can take no credit for a lot of what I had done because

I was hugely influenced by those two speakers at that conference.

Hmm.

And I had no idea that journey was going to be so important in my own journey,

Mm-hmm.

on the one hand, facing the reality of these people who were doing

dreadful things to each other and to our world and to our country.

But not writing them off,

saying Nothing will ever change is all hopeless.

There's nothing Jesus can take if we allow him, can take the

inevitability out of our history.

And I would say those two things have been very much a part of my, of my life.

And, influence upon my ministry and I and talk about America.

I mean, I grieve, I grieve deeply because we had four very special

years in the United States.

Learned a great deal, learned a lot in the classroom.

And I owe great deal to those who helped us in that, on that journey

in our own thinking as young pastors.

But I also built up some very wonderful friendships.

We still have frequent conversations with our friends in America and we grieve

for what's happening in your country.

We we really do grieve you know, and the way it's it's taking.

Yeah.

Well, if you come to the US my friend, there's,

I.

there are hundreds of us that would gladly sit in a room and learn more.

you've been, your life is is marked by the courageous, costly,

creative love of Jesus, Harold.

And, thanks be to God that those seeds that dropped in Bangkok one day.

Shaped your life and your love and your leadership.

And, and I want you to know that they have, as you've told

me, those stories, those seeds have dropped in my life as well.

And I know for we who are listening in, those seeds have now dropped,

hopefully into the fertile soils of our souls and God that you would

germinate them bring them to life for the sake of repair in this place.

And so, thank you, Harold, for the gift of your time.

Bless you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you my friend.

I hope you found as much encouragement in Harold Good's words as I did.

See, his story reminds us that even in the midst of deep division, trust

can be built, relationships can be restored, and peace is always possible.

If reconciliation was possible in Northern Ireland, it's

certainly possible here as well.

Thanks for listening to the Mending Divides podcast.

If this conversation stirred something in you, share it with a friend

and keep leaning into the work of Peacemaking right where you are.

Until next time, may we become people who mend divides and

embody peace in a dividing world.