Flags are flying from lamp posts around England. It’s newsworthy here – and yet reports barely note that for those of us from Northern Ireland, we know something of this. A couple of weeks ago, the backlash was loud when Ed Sheeran declared himself ‘culturally Irish’, attributing greater significance to his family’s heritage than being born and raised in England. When it comes to signs of identity, things can quickly get personal.
In my family – Northern Irish mother, English father, two daughters born in London but most of our childhood spent living just outside Belfast – we’ve been known to debate points to tot up our national identities over the dinner table. Does a place of birth outweigh the school years? When does formation finish – on turning 18 or do the months away at university count for anything? Does it matter how our mixed DNA actually expresses in our hair, our eyes, our stature?
It’s a game and it’s our deeply felt reality. It’s the years spent with my schoolmates teaching me to correctly say ‘how now brown cow’ – and the arrival in England to find people couldn’t understand me saying my own name. It’s the stomach churn I still feel when I see flags flying, having grown up in a country where banners signal who is in – and therefore who is out. It touches on the questions of belonging and home.
Irishness seems to travel well. The popularity of the island’s artists and art (from Paul Mescal to Derry Girls) are all signifiers of this cultural moment. But being Irish has always carried more cachet when I’ve been abroad, and I confess that when it has suited, I have led with my more ‘palatable’ half (or quarter or… the family maths is still up for debate). It’s convenient – but there’s also a discomfort in the enduring appeal of ‘Irishness’ outside of the island. It’s an ‘otherness’ that evokes intrigue and warmth, rather than fear. Difference that is more than acceptable, sometimes desirable. Distinct enough to be interesting but unthreatening for often being associated with white skin.
Underneath the light-hearted arguments of our dinner table is a question of formation. Ed Sheeran attributes his sense of being Irish to the things that he feels have shaped him. It’s in being away from Belfast, living in England, that that I have seen more clearly the ways that Irishness has formed me. Watching Derry Girls with my English husband I freely laughed at what I assumed were universal jokes, only to have to hit pause and explain them. The show unearthed memories – not bad, just not often recalled – of Bill Clinton’s historic visit and the ‘across the barricades’ style gathering of primary schools from different sides of the community.
Signs and symbols matter. I recently rewatched an episode of tv show, The West Wing, in which the US flag may – or may not – have been burned as part of a trick by magicians Penn and Teller. A media maelstrom follows. Whether or not the flag burned matters, as does the symbolism of this act taking place in the White House, itself an emblem of national identity and power.
Reflecting on the news, I find myself thinking about the signs of a different kind of kingdom, one that transgresses national borders. In the Bible there's the story of one man who died once for all the world. And in dying, he brought forth his kingdom – one that crosses boundary lines to be truly global. The signs of this kingdom are not division or disconnection but peace and justice, joy and comfort, healing and presence.
This is not about homogenisation. It’s not about the erosion of cultures, but about the beauty of all represented. As Harvey Kwiyani, a theologian from Malawi, puts it: “We are all welcome to God’s kingdom with our unique cultures. Being in the kingdom of God does not erase our cultural differences… The kingdom of God finds its fullest expression in intercultural mutuality. It is a multicultural kingdom.” The kingdom of God in all its richness – that’s a tempting proposition.
It’s easy to see that we aren’t living in the fullness of this yet. But the world is not a static place. One metaphor used to describe the kingdom of God is yeast; living cultures filling the dough, making it rise. This is an image that is expansive, generous. The kingdom isn’t wholly realised yet, but we can see more and more of it.
And like the yeast, we have a role to play in culture changing. As Graham Tomlin wrote following debates about ‘Englishness’, belonging to the kingdom of God means we have an identity not defined by where we live. Being part of this kingdom, we also become active participants in it. Formation is not just about us; we get to play an intentional role in the formation of a kinder world, in the coming of God’s kingdom. In the midst of fear and uncertainty, our ability to engage in such life-giving action offers a concrete hope.
This is not a defensive position, but a brokering one. The kingdom is bigger than our individual lives, churches or communities; recognising this helps us to break out of a fortress mentality. So far, this century has been marked by fortification. As well as the raising of flags, there have also been walls. At the end of the second world war there were fewer than five border walls; there are now more than 70, most of them built in the last two decades. But the kingdom of God offers a view of home that is not about defence, not about perimeters, or even places. It’s a relationship with God, who made and sustains this world, who crosses the divide to meet each of us. In meeting him, we can partner together in seeing more of his kingdom on this earth.
Anthropologist Andrew Shyrock defines sovereignty as “manifest in the ability to act as host”. Or to ground it in the day to day: to be able to offer a cup of tea. Perhaps some of the anger about Ed Sheeran’s claim is because of what it seems to either take or reject, pulling towards one nation while turning a back to another. Belonging to the kingdom of God invites us to think beyond what we can have to how we can intentionally serve. It has room to honour heritage and at the same time, it bends forward towards eternity. In the day to day, I find this a comfort: to see formation as not just about the past, but also the power of creative act after creative act in shaping the world that’s coming.
