Letter: ​Both sides in Garvaghy Road dispute need to recognise that no people owns the land in which they live

Two communities set against each other, backed by their respective leaders, held apart by the police, each asserting their right over the other.

What does this event teach us about Northern Ireland?

It says, 'Nothing has really changed when an event replays itself with the same rhetoric and optics as thirty years ago.' More fundamentally, it reveals idolatry is at the root of what is seen as a purely political problem.

Orangemen idolise the Union with Great Britain. Doing so under a veneer of Christianity, they claim to defend the Reformed Faith (biblical Christianity). To make such a claim is blasphemous. Jesus Christ defends the Faith through His Church.

If Orangeism understood the Reformed faith correctly, it would be marked by love for God and for its neighbour as itself.

Surely, this latter truth would be enough to make it take a long, hard look at the matter of parades and parading.

On the other side is a Republicanism, fronted by residents groups, which is equally idolatrous in its claim that the island belongs to the Irish (as if such a grouping can be easily identified) and a reunited Ireland, under Dublin, is its holy grail.

Republicanism has its own cultural identity which is just as triumphalist, whether in its pursuit of the Irish language or its celebration of political commemorations. As such, it is just as offensive to those who call themselves Unionists.

So, is there any way out of this impasse? Hope does not lie in a ruling from the Secretary of State, the courts, or the PSNI. All such merely compound the problem. Hope lies only in the realisation that both sides have made an idol of the land.

Both need to recognise no people owns the land in which they live. At best, we are tenants and sojourners and residency can change quickly despite our most cherished wishes or our most valiant efforts. We spend typically 70 - 80 years here and we will leave like a morning mist.

It is here that biblical Christianity provides a different perspective on the land and nations. It teaches us that, in the past, God formed the earth and its creatures, the most important of which is humanity, made 'in His image and likeness'.

In sinful rebellion, however, humanity has displaced God and put itself in the driving seat with all the resultant misery for individuals, families and nations.

In regard to the present, biblical Christianity asserts 'the earth is the Lord's'. Though humanity has sidelined God, , through its sinful rebellion, God is still in control. The nations are subservient to His purpose for the earth. God cares for His entire creation to the point that He has sent His unique Son, Christ, into this world in human form to redeem the earth for Himself.

Further, biblical Christianity prays, 'Your King (dom) come; Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven'. All of us are headed for the establishment of the eternal kingdom when God will right all wrongs and injustices done by us and to us.

God will give the renewed earth (as well as heaven) to the people He has redeemed from idolatry through His Son.

His eternal kingdom will be one kingdom, reconciled and united in the truth, righteousness and justice of His King, Jesus.

When all is said and done, His is the only kingdom that matters, not the United Kingdom, not a united Ireland or any other earthly kingdom.

It is time for all of us to examine our love for Him and our loyalty to His Kingdom. If it is absent, we will lose the land forever, that is unless we repent now and bow the knee to Him who is 'King of kings and Lord of lords'.

Harry Coulter, Enniskillen