Paisley as Parson

Alan Stewart

Crossgar is a small town of some 2,000, about fifteen miles south of Belfast. Most traffic tends to pass straight through. But on Saint Patrick's Day it stopped. The reason was that the day marked the t*enty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster in Crossgar, and the church's Moderator, the Revd Dr Ian Paisley, was coming to Celebrate the jubilee. The church was full a good half-hour before the service began. The overspill was herded into two nearby halls, the Orange Rail and the B Special Hut, both of which were wired up with loudspeakers, although, as Dr Paisley pointed out, it probably Wasn't necessary, since he has rather a loud voice. Most of them were in their forties or above; sober, respectable people wearing dark suits and narrow ties, the women in suiall hats. It is the kind of church where Practicality is admired rather than ostentation. They settled back in their seats when the Moderator took the stage, flanked by four of his ministers. The Free Presbyterians like their medicine in good long doses, and t°daY would be a marathon.

There was a lot to celebrate. The Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster is the fastestgrowing church in Britain, and claims that the Martyrs' Memorial in Belfast where Dr ,Paisley preaches twice on Sundays is the largest Protestant church built in Europe since the War. It can hold 3,000 without laYing out chairs in the aisles, and it is normally full. This church alone had an ,Income of £.100,000 last year, and there are °rtY-nine others, one of,them in Coragarry, o Monaghan, just over the Border. We were asked to pray especially for that one. The Crossgar foundation was established as a result of the official Presbyterian Kirk refusing to let the young Ian Paisley preach within its own walls on a bitterly cold March evening in 1951. He was just twentY-four then, a freelance preacher with a growing reputation for chill, hard-line Calvinism and passionate fervour. So he Spoke in a corrugated iron shack, and there ,artd then a unanimous decision was taken °Y the dissidents to found their own Church, a Free Presbyterian Church. Many of the congregation could remember that first day, and indulged themselves in a Cosy evening of communal nostalgia, n.nirmuring assent as Mr Paisley moved Into action, recalling the hard times at the start: 'Our achievements were not gained without sracrifice. Twice as your moderator I have ?een behind prison bars. Twice I have been ?.efore the Courts for opposing apostasy .. . we have been deported from Rome and

Geneva because of our protests against the World Council of Churches. Our people have also been persecuted. In the early days some lost their jobs and some were driven from their homes. That Was the price they had to pay for religious liberty.'

It may sound rather absurd on paper, but that does not take account of Mr Paisley's ability to transform the most banal senti ments into compelling evangelism. He preaches a brand of fiery Calvinism that is practically extinct elsewhere, an austere dogma of redemption that abhors 'backsliders'; and this is the kind of faith that the Ulster working classes, abandoned by the Presbyterian Kirk and the Church of Ireland, no longer a staunch bulwark against the encircling Catholics, cling to with devotion.

That is why he reserves his special scorn for the sin of apostasy, a word bandied about in Ulster politics and applied to almost anyone who abandons the extremities of political or religious opinion to move towards a more moderate position. The World Council of Churches, then, are apostates, as indeed is the whole ecumenical movement. William Craig is an apostate, and was denounced with particular venom at a Loyalist rally in the Ulster Hall two days before. In fact, although Mr Paisley would never admit it, he probably has more respect for the Romish Church than he has for ecumenical Protestants and his former political allies.

'This Church', he roared on the day of the jubilee, 'is God's laugh at Romanism, God's

laugh at ecumenicalism. This Church carries in its bosom the intense fire of pure evangelism,' and as it was the twenty-fifth anniversary he went on to describe exactly what the Church stands for—in essence a return to the realities of the Reformation.

They believe that Man is redeemed by faith alone, not by the intercession of wily priests, by relics, confession, or assiduous churchgoing. They believe in the Deity of Jesus Christ, that he was a man with two separate and distinct natures and not (as modern apologists would have it) that he was a man-made God, or God enclosed in flesh. They believe that the 1611 Authorised Version of the Bible is the only fundamental

text—all further efforts, carry the stain of Romanism and ecumenicalism. Above all,

they believe that there is only one head of the Church. Anyone who sets himself up as its head, and usurps the place of the Lord

Jesus Christ, is an Antichrist. That includes archbishops, pontiffs, and the 4 Pope. Especially the Pope.

And so Dr Paisley styles himself as the Moderator of his Church, and its favoured

son. He is famous all over the world for his fiery preaching, particularly in America. He frequently crosses the Atlantic on lucrative lecture tours and last year the Paisley machine dispatched 10,000 tapes of his sermons to all corners of the globe. One

group in Sydney hire a hall every Sundays hold a service, then switch him on when it is time for a sermon. There are bands of

Free Presbyterians in Philadelphia, Toronto and Melbourne, although there is no official Church outside Ireland.

In the autumn, however, this will change, when Paisley opens the first overseas Church in Toronto. If that is a success, there may be others. But Paisley is uncharacteristically coy about the chances of his Church overseas. It is as if he feels that his heady brew may lose some of its fizz away from the vat of Ulster politics.

'We are', he says, 'an Ulster Church for Ulstermen, and the Church may well not be right for everywhere else. In particular it is possible that an Ulsterman too easily loses his identity across in the UK. There is a definite need for a large evangelical centre in London, but I am not sure than an Ulsterman would be the right man to do it. The situation in England is not at all clear.'

Perhaps that is Paisley's secret. He knows his flock, both congregation and constituency, and he knows how far he can go. He can identify what they need to hear, and he serves it up in torrents, whether in the pulpit, or on the political stage. As a result he has the most secure of political power bases. At night, his wife says, he sleeps like a baby.