In the name of religion, Ian Paisley adds to the disquiet and confusion in Northern Ireland.
The farther away one is, the easier it is to explain the complexities of Northern Ireland. Said one Belfast citizen: “Anyone who isn’t confused here doesn’t really understand what is going on.” One gets thrown by finding humor amid devastation: beneath the standard slogan NO POPE HERE, someone has added LUCKY OLD POPE. You marvel at the resilience of ordinary decent folk caught up in a web spun yesterday and the day before. A sense of history can be a drawback where hard facts are no match for tradition.
In handling this subject, evangelical writers are in a dilemma, for the province’s best-known Protestant politician believes in the inerrancy of Scripture—and this can be a subtle invitation to blind-eye-turning to more questionable activities. Earlier this year, the Reverend Ian Paisley paraded in rural Antrim a 500-strong body of supporters who waved firearm certificates instead of guns before a few carefully selected journalists. The intention of the demonstration, which took army and police by surprise, was a warning against the setting up of an all-Ireland republic. Paisley insists that he acted within the law, and adds that the next development would “produce something more substantial.” Some dismissed the parade as a gimmick not unrelated to the upcoming local elections in May.
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley was born in 1926, and studied at South Wales Bible College and the Reformed Presbyterian College in Belfast. He was ordained at 20 by his Baptist pastor father, and subsequently ministered to a group that had broken from the Presbyterian church in Ireland. There emerged in 1951 a body known as the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, with Paisley as moderator—a position he still holds. In an age when most other churches were declining, Paisley’s denomination grew: 1,093 members in 1961, probably more than 10 times as many today—exceeding the total of Baptists and Congregationalists in the province.
Even that modest total is misleading, for Paisley’s influence extends far beyond his own church or political party. He is the voice of many inarticulate Protestants who fear and distrust the Roman Catholic church, and are suspicious of British politicians who deal with Dublin, capital of the Republic, which comprises 26 counties of Ireland (the six others are in Northern Ireland, which is part of Britain).
Paisley’s defense of his Protestant heritage led him to distribute Christian literature at the opening of Vactican Council II in 1962. The authorities remembered that clash with the police and barred him from Italy in 1966 when he flew there to protest the archbishop of Canterbury’s visit to Paul VI. In 1969 he led a party over to Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, seeking to disrupt proceedings when a popish cardinal preached there. Often the center of violence, Paisley claims: “I have never threatened anyone in my life—not even the Pope.”
The august proceedings of the Kirk’s general assembly in Edinburgh were once interrupted by him, but when he returned to that city in 1976, Paisley found himself the target. Scottish Baptist Pastor Jack Glass, an erstwhile ally, mustered his people and placards outside a hall where Paisley was speaking. They complained that he had come “to shore up the popish freewill gospel of Bob Jones” (Bob Jones University had given Paisley a D.D.).
Twice convicted back home and imprisoned for unlawful assembly or similar offenses, Paisley professed to see a conspiracy against him by the government and the World Council of Churches. The civil-rights movement was dismissed as a hotbed of Communism and what he would call “the rest of the devil’s crew.”
I once heard him give a splendid rationale for his political involvement. Some fundamentalists, he declared, had been so occupied with the great battle in the churches that they had not found time for the battle in the state. Separation was not an end in itself, but served to establish righteousness in the nation. He pointed out how odd it was that it should be considered obligatory to confront evil at its lowest level, “but when evil climbs on to the throne I’ve no right to combat it.”
That involvement began in 1970 when he was elected first to the Northern Ireland Parliament (now suspended), then to the British Parliament as one of its 12 members from Northern Ireland. In 1979 he became also a member of the European Parliament, coming out on top of the poll in the province. All this time he has continued his ministry in Ravenhill Free Presbyterian Church, Belfast, where visiting journalists will not be accosted if they carry a Bible and leave notebook and tape recorder at home. Paisley has little love for the press. CHRISTIANITY TODAY’s representative was once described in Paisley’s Protestant Telegraph as “this hired lackey [who] spews forth a whole spate of lies.”
Toward Roman Catholics his attitude is ambivalent. About the efforts of a past prime minister to build bridges to the Catholic community, he is quoted as having responded: “A traitor and a bridge are very much alike, for they both go over to the other side.” Nonetheless, I have heard in Belfast that Catholic constituents who go to him as their elected representative find him helpful and impartial.
Paisley is now mustering support from Protestants to block current Anglo-Irish negotiations aimed at improving and simplifying relations between Britain and the Irish Republic. He is convinced that Mrs. Thatcher has made some long-term deal about Northern Ireland’s constitutional status. She denies it, but will give no specific details of the discussions. Paisley has issued a “declaration” to be signed by Loyalists, referring to “our time of threatened calamity,” and he asks signatories to help “in using all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to edge Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom.” He is cagey about spelling this out.
American evangelicals tend to regard their extreme right-wingers with a degree of affectionate indulgence. Paisley’s dual role, on the other hand, demands that he be taken very seriously indeed.
Who is he? A pastor who cares for his own large congregation as a faithful shepherd, whose words God has used to bring many to himself, and whose ministry in the homes of his people has brought blessing and comfort.
Who is he? A pied piper whose summons to rally round the Union Jack can promptly bring out many whose indignation is not notably righteous and whose language is not the language of Zion.
This unquiet province needs someone who will lead, not a popular political cause, but an unpopular religious cause that advocates doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly. Baptist Pastor Herbert Carson put it well some years ago: “The great tragedy of Northern Ireland is that Catholics see the gospel as a club raised.”
J. D. DOUGLAS1Dr. Douglas is a writer living in Saint Andrews, Scotland, and editor at large for Christianity Today.
