Ian Paisley: from Northern Irish ayatollah to Chuckle Brother

theguardian.com ^ | 12 September 2014 | Henry McDonald

[miss marmelstein]

Do you know anything about Protestant paramilitary groups - clearly as illegal as Catholic paramilitary groups? Both sides created a hellhole of Northern Ireland for generations. I don’t know who I’m talking to here - either kids or the usual group of fanatical Catholic haters who congregate here. It’s a revelation to me that the disgraceful Paisley was even allowed over here to speak to evangelical groups. And don’t bring up IRA killers - they should never have been allowed here either.

[.45 Long Colt]

You haven’t offered one bit of evidence. And I’m no child. What I am is a born again Christian, an attorney, writer, and historian. I’m a Baptist in the mold of Englishman Charles Spurgeon who understands our historic Protestant roots. I don’t view Dr. Paisley through the lens of the news accounts. I’ve heard Ian Paisley preach hundreds of times. I know what pastors who knew him personally say of him. I’ve heard some of his closest friends speak of the private Ian Paisley. I’ve heard some of his congregants speak of the man.

Ian Paisley boldly took up arms in the great battle of the ages. He was a great man of God who is now with the Savior he utterly trusted. His boldness was an outgrowth of his rockribbed faith and his clear understanding of the enemy. I’m not defending his every move anymore than I would unequivocally defend the great Ronald Reagan, a man I also admire. But I can promise you that if more American pastors had the steel and moral clarity of Ian Paisley this country would not have lost so much ground.

I’m leaving to go on a short trip out-of-state, so this is it for me.

I suggest you listen to some of his sermons if you want a better understanding of who he really was and what him
tick. Here are a few to get you going.

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=6863

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=6860

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=6847

[miss marmelstein]

Why listen to his screeds? I can come right here with all the Catholic haters and blind fools who think Paisley’s quite the guy.

[Vanders9]

He was a conviction politician and we need more like that, even ones that you disagree with. At least you knew where you stood with Paisley. I’d rather have him than the mealy mouthed lukewarm politicos that infest the Western democracies these days, the kind that never say what they really think but only what they think you want to hear...

[.45 Long Colt]

“Why listen to his screeds?”

So that you might hear the gospel. In Romans 1:16 Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

We are unlikely to ever agree on Ian Paisley, but I can tell you he did what he did because of his utter commitment to the gospel of Christ. I don’t know you, but perhaps you will hear that very gospel for the very first time in your life. I know people who have spent their whole lives in church and they’ve yet to really hear and believe it. I know others who thought they’d heard and understood it only to really hear that Word for their first time in their 60’s or 70’s. We all here and respond in God’s time. “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power...” (Psalm 110:3)

Three weeks ago I met an Italian-American man who grew up in the Roman Catholic Church. When he was in his late 30’s he was visiting family in Italy and went to the Vatican, a place he had wanted to visit all of his life. That experience changed his life. While there he gave his confession to a priest at the Vatican. Something about what he saw there and the feelings that welled-up during his confession stirred him awake. Much like Martin Luther 500 years ago, his visit to Rome shook him to his core. He knew something wasn’t right. He sensed darkness in that confessional and throughout the Vatican. He began praying and studying in search of the truth. It took several years, but he found that same freedom and truth that Martin Luther found and was born again sometime in his 40’s. Today he’s fifty-something and a member of a conservative Presbyterian church. His eyes were opened to the truth at the time and in the manner appointed by God. He has a powerful testimony that I wish all Roman Catholics could hear. I would love to have him talk to my Catholic relatives.

The Gospel of Free Grace
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=619071230

Today the moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church, the denomination founded by Dr. Paisley, is Rev. John Greer. Here are two of my favorite by Rev. Greer.

The Gospel Defined and Discerned
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=81901181950

Unmasking the False Gospel
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=1010665821

[miss marmelstein]

Go away, please.

[.45 Long Colt]

Despite your hateful tone, I wasn’t ugly to you. I was nice to you and tried to help you. I’m done, but I will pray that sometime you listen to those sermons.

[Wallace T.]

Paisley may have been theologically sound from a Reformed perspective. However, he and his fellow Scots-Irish Protestants fell victim to an un-Christian attitude toward Catholics. Granted, the current leaders of the IRA are Marxists and thus Catholic in name only, but the grievances the Marxists exploit carry back several centuries when the Protestant ascendancy stole most of the land in Ireland, starting with Elizabeth I and continuing through James I, Cromwell, and William and Mary. Not only was the Catholic religion banned from being practiced, but those who refused to renounce Catholicism were reduced to serfdom, without rights to possess land, engage in most trades or commerce, or basic civil rights.

The ancestors of the Scots-Irish Protestants were settled in Northern Ireland from Scotland and England in order to subdue and Protestantize the island. However, dissenting Protestants, including Presbyterians, suffered legal discrimination, though not to the extent as the Catholics. America and the overseas British colonies offered better deals, and huge numbers of them emigrated, including the ancestors of perhaps a majority of white Southerners. The British scheme to eliminate Catholicism failed.

Catholics remained the majority on the entire island, and as classical liberalism and secularism replaced Anglican authoritarianism in Britain, their civil, property, and religious rights were slowly and gradually restored, as was also the case for British Catholics. Although Protestants were initially sympathetic to Irish independence, the British authorities successfully played them against the Catholics to retain control of the island for another century after the 1798 rebellion and after the successful Irish War for Independence in 1921, to hold onto Northern Ireland.

The Christian witness of the Protestants in Ireland was fatally compromised by hostility instilled by British authorities and their association with the tormentors of the Catholic majority. To this day, Irish Catholics, and their descendants overseas, are very hostile to the teachings of the Reformation.

[miss marmelstein]

I will not listen to that hatemonger, ok? I know him from a long time and a leopard does not change his spots. He encouraged bully boys (called billy boys) to use cudgels on the citizens of Belfast - those who did not agree with either his religion or politics. I also cannot listen to that harsh, ugly voice. So please take your videos et al and share them with someone else.

[.45 Long Colt]

I included two sermons that have nothing whatsoever to do with Paisley. That said, it’s the message that’s important, not the messenger. Truth doesn’t change based on who’s telling it.

[AppyPappy]

“However, he and his fellow Scots-Irish Protestants fell victim to an un-Christian attitude toward Catholics.”

It could have something to do with the IRA blowing people up in N Ireland and England. It’s easy to hate a system that exports terrorism. Didn’t the IRA assassinate Lord Mountbatten? And tried to blow up the Queen?

[AppyPappy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain

[Wallace T.]

The IRA in the 1960s and afterward were Marxist thugs in alliance with the Red Brigades in Germany, Palestinian terrorists, etc. However, Communist ideology often breeds in grievances of various groups who have gotten a raw deal from those in power. There were legitimate grievances against the Tsarist regime in pre-Bolshevik Russia, with its arbitrary rule, secret police, and anti-Semitic pogroms. These grievances were compounded in 1914, when the government dragged the nation into a long, bloody, and pointless war against Germany and Austria-Hungary. The same could be said for pre-Maoist China, and other regimes toppled by Communists. Our own civil rights movement in the 1960s had a strong radical element, but the grievances of African-Americans were long rooted in a history of slavery, segregation, and ill treatment, including lynchings and state and local government oppression.

In Northern Ireland after the secession of the rest of the island from the UK, the Catholics, descendants of the pre-1600 inhabitants of Ireland, were subject to discrimination in jobs, housing, etc. Additionally, the various Protestant militants like the Orange Order were permitted to parade in Catholic areas and openly insult the old stock Irish and their religion. It was perhaps not as bad as what American blacks suffered from 1876 to 1960, but it was clearly a breeding ground for radicalism.

The cure for communism is not right wing authoritarianism, but limited government. Jefferson, not Mussolini or Franco.