How time flies! It only seems like yesterday that I penned an analysis of the Free Ps to mark the 50th anniversary of their formation in 2001, which was published in the Sunday Business Post under the headline: ‘Fifty years free and saved for Ian.’
A few days ago, a leaflet dropped through my letterbox detailing plans to mark that 75th anniversary. The blurb read:
Seventy-five years ago, on 17 March 1951, the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster was founded on the day the world recalls Patrick, who preached the same Gospel first entrusted to His apostles. While the world is rapidly changing, the message of the Gospel is unchanging and it is needed as much today as when it was first proclaimed.
This year, we celebrate 75 years of the Free Presbyterian Church by continuing to share that very same Gospel. Throughout 2026 our churches will be holding special services and mission events.
What struck me about the well-designed informative leaflet was that there was no mention of its historic founder Dr Paisley. When I penned the 50th anniversary article in 2001, Dr Paisley had been the Moderator of the Free Ps for virtually all its existence and would continue to be its leader for some years to come.
This is unlike its rival in the mainstream Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI), which elects a new Moderator each year. However, it can be suggested that Dr Paisley paid the price for entering a power-sharing Stormont Executive in 2007 with McGuinness in a working partnership which became dubbed ‘The Chuckle Brothers’.
While this era saw perhaps the most stable period of devolved government at Stormont since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, ultimately the ‘Chuckle Brothers’ routine sparked great unease among the ranks of the Free Presbyterian Church. It would lead to Dr Paisley’s resignation as Moderator.
But the Free P Church of 2026 is a far cry from the denomination I wrote about in 2001. While it would be some 20 years from the Free P foundation in 1951 to the launch of the DUP in 1971, the Free Ps were often later dubbed ‘the DUP at prayer’.
For many years since 1971, and especially through the generations of the Troubles, the Free P Church had a significant influence in the party. It seemed to be an unwritten edict that you had to be a communicant member of the Free Ps to rise to any role within the DUP.
Traditionally, when Protestants became disillusioned with PCI or the Ulster Unionist Party because of their respective liberal views, they quit both and joined the Free Church or the DUP.
The political problem for the Free Church came when current North Antrim MP Jim Allister quit the DUP and established the more hardline Traditional Unionist Voice party.
TUV members and supporters who were also members or worshippers at the Free Church did not necessarily leave those Free churches. Numerous TUV supporters chose to remain within the Free Church, thus creating a unofficial dissident Unionist movement within the denomination.
It would be this internal dissenting voice within the Free Church which would ultimately lead to Dr Paisley’s quitting as both Free Church Moderator and DUP boss.
In my 2001 article on the Free Church, I noted:
For its 40th anniversary celebrations in 1991 it packed 1,500 people into Belfast’s King’s Hall. The half century celebrations come at an opportune time - a matter of weeks before the expected British general election and local government elections in the North.
Those 50th anniversary celebrations in 2001 - at which Dr Paisley was the keynote speaker - were to provide a springboard for the DUP to overtake the rival UUP at both Assembly and Westminster levels.
Mind you, one observation I noted in 2001 still applies to the Free Church in 2026. Then I wrote:
Over the next two weekends many Free Presbyterians will be pondering what the spiritual and theological direction of the church should be, not just for the new millennium, but also for the next half-century.
Put bluntly, where does the Free Church now go post-Dr Paisley to see the denomination mark its centenary in 2051? One anecdotal evidence seems certain - the Free Church does not wield the same influence in Unionist and Loyalist politics as it did during the Dr Paisley era.
Dr Paisley for many years was also the keynote speaker at the Independent Orange Order’s annual Twelfth demonstration. Free Ps also played an influential role in Protestant pressure groups, such as the Evangelical Protestant Society and Caleb Foundation.
As Northern Ireland is now perceived to be a more secular and pluralist society, so too is the perception that these groups do not have the same influence within the Christian and pro-Union communities.
Other questions also need to be posed of Free Presbyterianism. Would the Free Church have had such a high media profile had a number of its leading members not dabbled in politics?
Would Dr Paisley have become the Billy Graham of Western Europe if he had stayed out of Ulster politics?
Similarly, the Free Church must use its 75th anniversary celebrations to ask itself how it will maintain its numbers in the pews given the current popularity of other fundamentalist and evangelical Protestant denominations, such as the Baptists, Elim Pentecostalists, Independent Pentecostalists and even the Brethren?
Like PCI, is the Free Church perceived to be an ageing denomination in terms of the folk in the pews? The real challenge for the Free Church in the years ahead will be to make itself more appealing to the youth of Ireland, north and south.
Young people are the lifeblood and future of any place of worship. If a church does not have a vibrant youth movement, the elderly will eventually literally die out, as will that church.
The Free Church was always perceived to be very traditional in its music and dress codes, especially for women. The latter must always wear hats to worship, not short skirts or trouser suits.
Like many Christian denominations across the geographical island of Ireland, the answers to these questions will be the key to the Christian churches development and survival.
While my late dad, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE, was best known for his ministry within PCI, he was at one time a minister in the early Free Church. The photo with this column shows my dad, on the left, with a very youthful Dr Paisley, on the right, at one such Free P event.
Before meeting my mother, dad was minister of Mount Merrion Free Presbyterian Church in Belfast in the Fifties. Before he became a born again Christian, dad had played in a dance band. His favourite musical instrument was the piano accordion.
During his brief ministry at Mount Merrion, dad would have Sunday evening Auld Tyme Gospel Music praise events. When Dr Paisley discovered that more people were going to Mount Merrion on Sunday evenings for the music praise instead of coming to hear him preach at his church in Belfast, he urged folk not to go to Mount Merrion!
Dad saw the writing on the wall in terms of his tenure in the Free Church and quit soon afterwards, later joining PCI. In spite of this, dad and Dr Paisley remained on good terms throughout their lives.
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| Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. |
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