Ivan Foster on Ian Paisley

Amid the general eulogies and accolades being given to Dr. Paisley now he is standing down there have been dissenting voices; Jim Allister has decried Paisley’s legacy. In the Impartial Reporter (you need to register but it is free) Ivan Foster gives an interview about Dr. Paisley. Whilst personally, despite my religious views, I come at anti agreement unionism from a secular position and would not share all of Rev. Foster’s other views either; I find his analysis of how Paisley’s religious views led him into politics interesting:“In the early days of political activity, others were putting spiritual activities into the political realm. We were being forced by Terence O’Neill and others who were putting ecumenism into practice by promoting better relations with Republicanism. They wanted to forget the past in the spiritual realm; forgetting the past teaching of reformers. We rejected this new unity based on old falsehood,”

Foster notes: “It was Ian Paisley who constantly quoted Luke chapter six: ‘Woe unto you when all men speak well of you.’ For those of us who lived through the O’Neill must go days all this is like a déjà vu in reverse.”

And the final comment seems spoken more in sorrow than anger: “the days of conversions, of God’s people separating from the apostasy of the ecumenical churches.”

Although I would not agree with all of what Ivan Foster says and I suspect many of you will be much less supportive; I think it is worth a read if people want a further understanding of some of the views present amongst some fundamentalists in Northern Ireland. It also illustrates that there are significantly divergent views amongst such people and within their organisations. Alternatively you may wish to denounce me as a bigoted idiot; it will be neither the first nor I deem the last time.