First Minister to step down as head of church
Despite predictions that he would be re-elected unopposed and the quotes from “well-placed” sources in this report – “We are not expecting anything untoward”, the outcome of last night’s five hour meeting of church elders and ministers of the Free Presbyterian Church was an unexpected statement
“It was agreed by an overwhelming majority of members that all presbytery offices remain as at present for the remainder of this calendar year. In January all offices will be vacated. Dr Paisley has indicated that he will not be standing for the office of moderator of presbytery.”
Officially it’s about not splitting the church.. But we already know what the First Minister thinks about those sceptics.. and what the Deputy First Minister thinks about them too.. Adds From the Irish Times report
One insider said: “It became very obvious that if he did stand he would lose and in those circumstances he pleaded with them not to humiliate him and just let it run to the end of the year and just walk away.”
Perhaps the words of General Douglas MacArthur in his farewell address, well fit Rev. Ian Paisley’s farewell to the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster:
“I am closing my fifty-two years of military service. When I joined the army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all my boyish hopes and dreams.
“The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barracks ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Good-by.”
Gen. Douglas MacArthur, April 19, 1951, Joint Session of the Congress of the United States of America.
Yes but MacArthur was an old fart and almost got us into WW3.
Oh and btw, MacArthur ran away too.
it is truly stomach churning to read the lilting and gentle prose of someone like Turgon and realise that his views if they were to gain any currency would plunge the north of ireland into another 30 years of sectarian blood letting… a real christian would not hide hateful views behind such an endearing but deceitful mask…hypocrite (note the spelling) indeed!