RECONCILIATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND BUILDING THE PEACE THAT JESUS MADE POSSIBLE

Meg Welch Dendler

On a glorious spring day last April, Reverend Doug Baker and I sat down to talk in the quiet community room of the chapel at Alma College in Michigan. Baker, a Presbyterian minister and missionary, was scheduled to give a presentation in the chapel later that evening about the progress he sees has been made toward reconciliation between Protestants and Christians in Northern Ireland, and the ongoing challenges to peace.

As coordinator of the Partners in Transformation project, a ministry in Belfast, his work is to forward its mission "to enhance, nurture, and support the capacity of churches and faith communities in their calling to be peace builders and agents of transformation" across social, political, and religious divides. "When the Gospel is truly lived out," Baker tells me, "it has the power to unite and create a more inclusive community."

Born in America, Baker was sent to Northern Ireland in 1970 through a mission program, at a time of increasing violence in the region. Despite his being hijacked at gunpoint, getting caught in aggressive crossfire, and seeing glass shower around him once after a nearby explosion, he chose to accept an invitation to return to Northern Ireland in 1979 "in mission" with the Presbyterian Church (USA), shortly after receiving his Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary. Since then, Northern Ireland has become home.