Paisley puts political power before his church’s shrinking pew of bigots

PROOF that something is rotten in the state of the North came at the weekend with the resignation of Ian Paisley as moderator of his own Free Presbyterian Church.

The First Minister and Deputy First Minister might be getting on so well that they have been nicknamed The Chuckle Brothers, but not everyone is smiling, let alone gurgling with laughter, about the DUP-Sinn Féin coalition.

Does it matter? Surely the two governments must have got something right if the Free Ps are offside? Or does it reveal deeper unease within the unionist population, mirrored by republican “dissidents”, about standards of integrity in public life? And how capable are the naysayers of undermining the Paisleyites just as they, in turn, undermined David Trimble?

Even close observers were surprised by the outcome of Friday’s meeting of the church’s presbytery, its rough equivalent to the Church of Ireland synod or the mainstream Presbyterians’ general assembly. It was a bolt from the blue.

Paisley doesn’t enjoy the nickname The Protestant Pope for nothing. Having set up the church in 1951 and been its top dog ever since, many assumed he was its life president. In fact, he was merely re-elected every year (except one) for 56 years.

To understand why there will be no new term in office requires an understanding of Free Presbyterians and how they differ from General Presbyterians, Reformed Presbyterians, Evangelical Presbyterians, Non-Subscribing Presbyterians and any other church describing itself as presbyterian.

The distinctions between all the different varieties are trivial to outsiders and of only historical interest. Save to say that the Free Ps differ from all the rest in key ways; so much so that some question their presbyterian credentials.

Notably, the Free Ps, unlike other Presbyterians, take a very liberal stance on baptism: some congregations practise adult baptism, others infant baptism. Some have no fixed view. Another legitimate difference is their attitude to the Day of Judgment: Free Ps tend to believe that the end of the world is nigh.

But it’s when that millenarianism is combined with Free Presbyterianism’s militant anti-Catholicism that the church becomes controversial. They take very seriously passages in the Book of Revelation about a period of turbulence in the world when Christians will be persecuted before the 1,000-year reign of God on Earth. The EU, founded as it was by three Catholics, is taken as evidence that we are in the last days. Unsurprisingly, given that belief, Free Ps veer towards separatism. Not for them good neighbourly relations and agreement to disagree. On the contrary, those in error — Catholic and Protestant alike — must be vigorously denounced.

Yet when it comes to the Catholic Church, the Free P conviction is that it is not merely spiritually dead — plenty of fellow Protestants are scorned for not preaching the need to be “born again” — or even that its teachings are false.

No, Rome is intrinsically evil. Again looking to Revelation, they see the Catholic Church as the biblical “whore of Babylon” and “mother of harlots”, which persecutes true Christians through its “shock troops” such as the IRA, the Croatian Ustashi and the Spanish Falange.

Furthermore, the social vices they associate with Irish Catholics — large families, gambling, smoking, drinking, fecklessness and disloyalty — Free Ps regard as the inevitable outworkings of “devil worship”, as Paisley himself has described the Mass.

In fairness, very many of that minority of Protestants who describe themselves as “evangelical” tend towards some or all of these views in private. In the 19th century, many more would have held to such beliefs.

Yet in Ireland today — and they have congregations as far south as Cork — the Free Ps are uniquely anti-Catholic. Given these peculiar stances, many of them don’t merely think the power-sharing government in the North is unlikely to succeed or is not in unionism’s interests politically: they believe it to be sinful in and of itself because it is not run exclusively by saved Christians. “Be ye not unequally yoked”, as it says in Corinthians.

And they have proof of Stormont’s immorality, as they see it. Free Presbyterians are always railing against “worldliness”— dancing, pop music, Sunday trading, the lottery, alcohol — but one “sin” exercises them above all others: “sodomy”. That the Good Friday Agreement promised equality for people of all sexual orientations was reason enough to oppose it, never mind prisoner release or “terrorists in government”.

So when Belfast’s Gay Pride march last month received part-funding by Assembly departments under DUP control there was just a touch of irony given the party’s long record of attacking “poofs”, “perverts” and “faggots”. As if that were not enough to rile the Free Ps — who annually picket the festivities and seek to have them banned — one reveller carried aloft a placard bearing the slogan “Jesus is a fag”.

The DUP ministers involved, Ian Paisley as First Minister and Edwin Poots as Culture Minister, claim they had no power to overturn decisions made by direct rule ministers prior to devolution in the spring. A weak excuse, say some Free Ps. As one minister puts it: “Political office and power were more important than honouring God’s word on the issue of sodomy.”

For them, like Daniel, the DUP ministers should have been ready to jeopardise their positions, even their lives, when they were required to offend God and break his law by the government of which they are a part.

TO ADD insult to injury, Paisley failed to dissociate himself from Martin McGuinness’s pledge at the Derry Gay Pride gathering that their joint office is “committed to ensuring equality of opportunity for all our citizens”. Worse was to come when it was revealed that Paisley’s and McGuinness’s office has spent public money defending an action in the courts brought by a coalition of Christians — including the Free Ps — which objects to the way legislation was passed to ensure gays and lesbians are not discriminated against.

The Big Man had to go.

So what?, you might say After all, as an excellent new biography of Paisley by Professor Steve Bruce makes clear, the Free Presbyterians are a declining bunch of bigots. Free Ps as a whole comprise perhaps just one in 100 Northern Protestants.

And it’s true that the issue of “sodomy” is something of a Free P obsession. It’s just that last week’s move was only the latest in a series of small cuts inflicted on the DUP. They have already lost their sole MEP, Jim Allister, who has become a vigorous critic of his former mentor. Almost every week, seemingly, another of the party’s councillors resigns: about 10% have quit so far.

As the DUP grew through its opposition to “the traitor Trimble”, it came to resemble more closely its new electorate: more secular, less paranoid. But many who cordially scorn Free Presbyterianism say that if you can’t even trust Paisley any more to keep his promises, who can you trust?

And if swathes of the Protestant population give up on politics and retreat into sectarianism, what kind of future does that hold for the North? The situation is not critical — yet — but there are ominous straws in the wind.

We haven’t heard the last of the North.