De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

A bit more following on from yesterday's post as I have been thinking and praying about this a lot. First of all, I would say that this is thinking aloud and not a personal attack on Mr. McGuinness - God rest his soul & have mercy on him. However due to the particular nature of his office and life and the stances he took publicly on a number of issues, I feel this is worthy of further discussion. If only to tease out the socio-cultural challenges faced by the Church today in regard to these issues.

The first issue is his terrorist/ freedom fighter legacy. Broadly it seems clear that all are capable of redemption if they acknowledge their sins and repent. This change - metanoia in the Greek of the Bible - is the principle of Christ's preaching and it conveys the power of the Gospel. It is the action which follows the word. The difference being Christian makes.

I know that Mr. McGuinness did not public repent of his murderous IRA activities, but he did become a peace broker,…

I have to say I was a little shocked at the responses to the death Martin McGuinness at the age of 66 on social media this morning. There has been a really obvious divide between people really praising him and people really decrying him.

Of course, we have to believe that repentance and God's mercy are available to everyone, no matter how heinous their crimes. But we must also remember that McGuinness has robustly defended his actions in the IRA, stating he is “proud” of what he did and will not apologise to anyone — and he has refused to clarify whether he ever killed. 
I have thought that he was extremely brave in making peace his priority and being prepared to broker peace with his bitter enemies. Although Lord Tebbit, whose wife was paralysed by the Brighton bombing perpetrated by McGuinness, gives a very different assessment, suggesting that at the point where there was no way forward for the IRA, rather than suing for peace, McGuinness in fact grasped for power. 
Whether yo…