Worship and Politics

Johnny was recently interview by the very nosey Mr. Mike Rimmer who asked a few questions about worship and politics. He is an excerpt from the interview:

Northern Ireland has gone through so many changes in the last decade and just driving around the city there is still plenty of evidence in the physical landscape of its recent history. There's been the Peace Process and the end of hostilities so, I ask, is there a huge sigh of relief in the country? "Yes, I think there is a huge sigh of relief. Coming from the dark days, looking back and knowing what the place has been like in the past and what you used to hear on a daily basis on the news and the kind of environment that we lived in, which always seemed dark and gloomy and uncertain, now it feels that there's a completely different atmosphere. It feels a lot safer first of all but there just seems to be a bit more hope and stability about the place and a bit more vision, which is fantastic. But it's not all over. It's like the now and the not yet, like the Kingdom of God; the Kingdom is here but it's not quite here. The job is done but it's not finished yet. We still live in a society which is immensely segregated. There are 14 miles of walls that run through Belfast that stand 25 feet high that are called 'Peace Walls' to keep Catholics and Protestants apart, and if they weren't there we would hurt each other. That's not God's plan for our city and it never was and never will be, so I suppose there's a part of us that really wants another Jericho; we want walls to tumble down."

He continues, "It feels like, whilst there's some sense of stability and some movement, there's not been a deep healing in the country yet and I personally really want that. I want communities to go through a process where there's healing and that can only come when people are going to take a risk; when we are at the stage where we feel safe enough to take a risk. Healing only comes through confession and forgiveness and all that stuff, and that will only come when people feel safe enough to be able to do that. So that says to me that we don't feel that safe yet. So there's a big sense of relief but I feel there's still a little bit to go in terms of how we operate living side by side."

The new album features a song that takes up this theme. "Walls" is one of the rockiest songs on the album. "You know the funny thing is," Parks jumps in, "we as a band are loving this song at the moment because when we play it live we talk about the city and about the walls in the city. For us it feels so important and I can't reinforce this enough. I wish I could do something to reinforce it more. But for us it feels so important that worship music and that worship writers HAVE to engage socially and HAVE to engage politically. You can't write songs that aren't birthed out of a local context and I think there's too much of an agenda at the moment to write songs for the globe. You know, 'Let's write a song that travels around the world!' Which means that generally speaking, things get watered down and you find the lowest common denominator statements that don't really have much relevance in people's communities. They may say some truths in your life individually but they don't have relevance in your community and I think that is a shame, it's a crying shame, because there are truths that get lost about what God is doing in nations; what he is doing in local communities. And that's where God operates! It comes from local church, from local communities and local nations and grows from there. So for us it felt really important that we connected into, 'What has God done in our country? What has God done in our community? What is he continuing to do?' We're really passionate about that. So this song actually is really important for us when we play it live and on the CD. We dug our heels in to make sure songs like this were included on the album because it felt really important to us that we connected with a local context of what God's doing here."

If you want to read the rest of the interview, please paste this link into your browser: http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/music/Johnny_Parks_Band_The_Irish_worship_man_amp_his_compatriots_break_the_silence/31263/p1/