Showing posts with label John Coulter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Coulter. Show all posts
Dr John Coulter ✍ Today is my 35th wedding anniversary and a chance to reminisce once more over our marriage photos from 1989.


There were relations and friends who could not come to the wedding even though they were invited, so I wonder what would have happened if we’d asked our wedding photographer to photoshop them into the family photos?

Former UUP leader, the late Jim Molyneaux, was a guest at our wedding and appeared in wedding album photos. Could you imagine if I was to photoshop Jim out of those photos and, when showing the album today to family and friends, replaced Jim with an image of current UUP boss Doug Beattie?

I don’t think there would have been all the fuss and furore which has engulfed the Royal Family over the Princess of Wales admitting she had edited the picture of herself and her children.

If ever there was a storm in a teacup, it was the near hysterical reaction to the evidence that the Royal snap had been supposedly ‘doctored’. It forced Kate into making a grovelling apology and reignited the speculation about her health.

We’ve had to listen to loads of moaning about trusting the Royals. But what was the big deal? It wasn’t as if Kate had edited in Prince Harry’s youngsters or changed the backdrop to a ski resort in the Alps. All she did was - albeit in a fairly amateurish way - adjust a few bits of the photo. It still remained a photo of her and the kids.

Then again, given the looney woke society in which we now live, there seems to be a body of opinion which looks for any chance to bash the Royals and especially the monarchy.

Basically, we could dismiss all the who-ha about Kate editing her photo as a bunch of eejits with nothing better to do with their time. Then again, were there more sinister undertones to the criticism over Kate’s actions?

Even in asking this question, have I too fallen into the wokery pitfall of seeing an issue where none exists? Have I too inadvertently become a conspiracy theorist?

What for Kate was simply a do-it-yourself tidy-up exercise of a family photo, has turned into a full-scale political row questioning the very future of the monarchy!

Given all the pomp and pageantry of the late Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022 and King Charles’ Coronation events last year, it is clear the British Monarchy is as popular as ever. So where is all this anti-Royal clap-trap coming over an edited photo?

The hard reality is that there is a republican element within British society which just want any excuse to call for an abolishment of the Monarchy.

Ironically, because one of the hallmarks of British democracy is freedom of speech, the anti-Royalists can have a platform to churn out their honestly held, but totally nonsensical rants.

Whether this small band of vocal republicans like it or not, the British Royals - and indeed Monarchy throughout the globe - are big business.

It’s been one of the main planks of the United Kingdom culture and heritage since the Monarchy was restored by King Charles II in the 1660s following the brutality of the earlier English Civil War of the 1640s, the execution of King Charles I and the Cromwellian era in British politics.

Then again, because of the evolvement of the so-called snowflake society, those folk classified as celebrities, or who live their lives in the glare of publicity and the public domain, can now expect to have every aspect of their lives poured over with a fine judgemental tooth comb looking for an excuse for someone to either criticise or be offended.

Politicians are having to watch off the cuff remarks; clerics are having to monitor the language used in live-streaming sermons; sporting stars are having to think about where and how they are being photographed - and now the Royals have to watch how what many of us ordinary folk indulge in, using modern technology to adjust family pictures.

Kate’s trivial editing of a photo is now being branded as a public relations disaster for the Royals. It has sent the memes industry into hyper-drive as folk make their own editing adjustments to the photo and share them online.

Maybe it says something about the kind of society the snowflake brigade have converted our once forgiving communities into. Are folk being hounded by the so-called wokerati who would be offended if a pin fell the wrong way onto a floor?

Is this happening to such a degree that people in the public gaze have to say sorry for comments or behaviour which a decade ago would have been laughed off as silly?

And not content with the present day, the snowflakes are trawling back over years, even decades, to find material to be offended about by challenging people in the public domain if they still held these views.

Unfortunately, it will deteriorate to a situation where people in the public arena will have to employ a new post know as a Comment Censor to vet every word uttered.

It won’t be just the concept of freedom of expression that will be under threat; the very idea of freedom of thought will also come under the scrutiny of the snowflake society.

Perceptions will merge with reality. Snowflakes will say - that person looks like they could make a racist or offensive comment! False stereotypes will be created and folk could end up having to apologise for wearing the wrong colour of clothing.

Wait, I’m bald! Maybe I should start wearing a wig or toupee. The snowflake society might perceive my baldness to be a sign that I’m from the skinhead culture, that I’m a fascist, racist, transphobic, homophobe! Dare I say it - Bald Folk Matter!
 
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Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online.

Wokery Has Gone Ultra Woke Over Royal Snap!

Dr John Coulter ✍ Those Europhiles across Northern Ireland who are banking that any future Labour Government at Westminster will lead the UK back into the European Union need an urgent reality check.

The make-up of the European Parliament which will emerge after this year’s forthcoming elections will be a radically different political beast from the parliament at the time of the 2016 referendum.

Put bluntly, in 2016 when the UK voted to leave the EU, the Far Right grouping in the European Parliament was merely a noisy fringe movement. If the opinion polls are correct, the Far Right will become a significant player in the European Parliament after this June. Populist politics and Eurosceptism will become the order of the day.

While Northern Ireland voted ‘remain’ in the 2016 referendum as a region of the UK, those Remainers in the Province need to remember the non-Biblical proverb - be careful what you wish for!

Forget the convenient and cosy trading arrangements which existed under the old European Economic Community (EEC). The modern day European Union, and especially the European Parliament, which will emerge from the elections in June will be a different cumbersome beast whereby nationalist and populist movements in the respective EU member states will adopt a ‘put the nation first’ rather than a ‘put Europe first’ approach.

France, Germany and Hungary are already major players within the EU. It is expected that the European Parliamentary elections in all three nations will return a substantial number of Far Right MEPs who will form the core of a new Far Right grouping.

It would be easy to adopt a flippant view of this impending development by the Far Right. After all, the UK has quit the EU, and surely the Republic of Ireland as the UK’s nearest EU neighbour has always been a welcoming place for migrants and the ethnic communities?

But let’s not forget about the late November 2023 riot in Dublin which allegedly had a racial undercurrent to it.

Whilst the Far Right may not yet be politically organised to the degree that it could win European seats in the Republic, Southern voters should not forget the experience of the UK in the 2009 European poll when the Far Right British National Party (BNP) won two European seats.

Remainers seem to be living in the political cloud cuckoo land that the cost of living crisis and all the financial woes which the newly formed Stormont Executive face will magically disappear if the UK rejoins the EU and all that supposed European cash starts flowing again.

What Remainers fail to fundamentally understand is that the UK will have a pay a major financial ‘buy-in’ bill for the price of rejoining. Before Brexit, the UK was a massive contributor to the EU’s coffers.

And Southern voters should not forget it was British millions which bailed out the Republic financially following a past collapse of the once thriving Celtic Tiger economy.

And what would be the fate of the Windsor Framework, Stormont Brake and Irish Sea border if the UK was back in the EU? There would be no doubting that the Eurocrats in Brussels would replace the Framework with such draconian legislation that the UK would never again consider the concept of British withdrawal from the EU.

Such legalisation would be so binding that it would serve as a warning to the Eurosceptic movements in other EU member states - look what has happened to the UK, do you want the same if you try to leave?

And then there’s the Ukraine crisis. Should the war with Russia ever end, it will require a massive rebuilding programme in Ukraine.

There’s no doubting any Ukrainian politician with a titter of wit will push for EU membership to try and milk those European euros to rebuild the devastation caused by the war with Russia. And that means less funding for the UK and Ireland.

Southern Ireland has benefited substantially from EU membership in terms of project funding. But at what point will Brussels decide the Republic must become a substantial giver towards the EU’s bank balance.

It will not have gone unnoticed in Brussels the millions which the Republic has promised to invest in Northern Ireland. If the Republic can pour such cash into a region of the UK which is not in the EU, maybe the Republic should pay much, much more into the EU?

Any new influential Far Right grouping in the European Parliament will want that funding to ensure an effective solution to the migrant crisis sweeping across Europe.

Europhiles may dream of more European integration in terms of the flow of goods between member states, but Far Right MEPs will want to see even tougher border controls to greatly restrict the flow of migrants.

Put bluntly, which member state will become the political dumping ground for Europe’s migrants? Could a price for the UK rejoining the EU be that it must massively increase the number of migrants it must take, making the current small boat crisis seem like a Sunday school picnic in terms of costs to resettle those migrants in the UK. And no doubt, Northern Ireland will have to take its allocation of migrants under any new EU joining terms.

If the recent incidents involving racist posters in Belfast is taken as a benchmark, the consequences of rejoining the EU could see an alarming and clearly unwanted increase in hate crimes against the migrant and ethnic communities in Northern Ireland.

Could the unthinkable happen - that generations of sectarianism in the Province could be replaced by a generation of racism?

Likewise, if any migrant crisis in the Republic does spark a BNP-style political kickstart for the Far Right, could the island witness the rejuvenation of the Far Right Blueshirt movement of General Eoin O’Duffy from the 1930s?

The Far Right has never had a political foothold of any significance in Northern Ireland. But if such a movement was to emerge in the Republic, could its ethos spill across the border into the Province?

In short, Remainers need to have a long, hard think before they go chomping at the bit to rejoin the EU. Remember another secular proverb - what goes around, comes around!
 
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Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online.

Does Northern Ireland Really Want To Be In An EU Influenced By The Far Right?

Dr John Coulter ✍ As a born again Christian since January 1972, a theological issue I have often struggled to get my head around is the concept that killers, especially terrorist serial killers, will end up in heaven whereas many of their victims could be sent to hell because they were not ‘saved’, according to Scripture.

After all, one of the 10 Commandments given to Moses in the Old Testament is the Sixth - thou shalt not kill. These Commandments are the foundation stones of the Christian faith.

Then again, in the New Testament Gospel of St John, especially the text of Chapter 3 verse 16, states:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

This is the core of the doctrine of Salvation that if we accept Jesus into our hearts, it will guarantee that Christian a place in heaven, provided they have repented in the first place.

So does this gift apply to killers if they repent? According to Christian teaching it does. The benchmark for this contentious theological view is Christ’s crucifixion. Jesus was not crucified alone; two thieves were executed along with him.

One mocked him, and presumably ended up in hell. The other asked Christ to remember him when Jesus went to heaven. Christ’s response was that that thief would join him in heaven. In modern theology, this can often be referred to as a death-bed conversion.

Ironically, the Apostle Paul, who wrote many of the great chapters of the New Testament, before his road to Damascus conversion to Christianity, was known as Saul of Tarsus and was a hunter of Christians. Yet after Paul’s conversion, he spread the Gospel of Christianity before his own execution in around 64AD.

The real challenge for me as a working journalist for the past 46 years has been the New Testament book of Acts, and especially Acts Chapter 2 and verse 21: “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” These were the words of St Peter himself quoting the words of the prophet Joel.

The issue if serial killers can get into heaven really raised its head substantially in 2007 when I was Northern Political Correspondent for the Irish Daily Star and wrote a piece to mark the 10th anniversary of the murder of loyalist godfather Billy Wright inside the Maze prison in December 1997 by the INLA.

Wright had been one of the founders of the breakaway dissident loyalist terror group, the Loyalist Volunteer Force.

At one time, Wright had been a senior figure in the Mid Ulster Brigade of the UVF, but had fallen out with the organisation’s Belfast leadership. As a dissident loyalist, Wright had also disagreed with the Combined Loyalist Military Command’s 1994 ceasefire.

A cleric who knew Wright said the loyalist terror boss had been a Christian until the Spring of 1986, when the latter become a backslider (a Christian term for someone who has been a born again believer, but has walked away from their faith).

As the 10th anniversary of Wright’s murder approached, the cleric told me in an interview for the Irish Daily Star: 

I believe Billy Wright is in heaven right now - perhaps even sat next to the ‘repentant thief’ who died on a cruel Roman cross next to Christ on the day of Crucifixion.

The report caused uproar, especially among the nationalist community, with one reaction piece having the headline: ‘That f**ker got what he deserved.’

My original interview with the cleric was also illustrated with a photo of Wright lying dead in the prison van where the INLA had ambushed him.

I have spoken to another evangelist who knew Wright from the terror boss’s days as a born again Christian and how they did evangelical outreach together in the Irish Republic.

Before he died in that prison van, did Wright have the chance to make his peace with God as stated in Act 2:21? Given the number of terrorist murders Wright was responsible for, how could he be in heaven? Was this a case of a death-bed type conversion?

While Wright’s killing was carried out by the INLA, it was the death of another former senior figure within that organisation that has posed the theological dilemma of a death-bed conversion by a serial killer.

I was working in the BBC Belfast newsroom on the night in February 1994 that former INLA Chief of Staff Dominic McGlinchey was shot dead in Drogheda.

According to one eye witness, McGlinchey’s last words were reported to be: “Jesus, Mary, help me.” This was from a terrorist serial killer personally responsible for the deaths of dozens of folk.

One question has bugged me ever since that night in the BBC when I heard what his final words were - under Acts 2:21, could McGlinchey have cried out to Jesus as he lay dying and earned himself a place in heaven in spite of the terrorist atrocities he inflicted on people during the Troubles?

There would be many families who lost loved ones to McGlinchey who - like the cleric’s comments on Billy Wright - would view the notion of the former PIRA and INLA terrorist in heaven as totally repulsive.

In both the McGlinchey and Wright cases, we shall never know the answer until all of us stand before God on Judgement Day.

The major theological problem with McGlinchey calling out to Jesus for help - did many or any of his victims have that chance? Put bluntly, how can McGlinchley be in heaven under Act 2:21, yet many of his victims end up in hell because they were not ‘saved’ or were given a chance to cry out to Jesus for help?

This remains a very difficult theological circle to square.
 
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Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online.

Can Serial Killers End Up In Heaven?

Dr John Coulter ✍ All this Dublin dosh coming to Northern Ireland is merely the Leinster House establishment trying to buy the next Southern general election in a last ditch bid to outmanoeuvre the growth of Sinn Fein.

Ironically, Sinn Fein should already be in government in Southern Ireland, but the movement made one fatal electoral flaw during the last Dail showdown in 2020 - it didn’t run enough candidates!

No doubt the instructions coming to the party from the republican movement’s ruling Provisional IRA army council will be to ensure it has sufficient candidates on the ballot paper in the hope that enough TDs are elected to give Sinn Fein at least an overall majority in the next Dail general election, expected either later this year, or early in 2025.

Indeed, Sinn Fein was only kept out of power in 2020 because the two rival establishment parties - Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael - set aside their differences and formed an historic coalition pact in the Dail.

Sinn Fein boss Mary Lou McDonald will be hoping she has enough TDs elected to give her party an overall majority - a situation Sinn Fein has not enjoyed electorally since the 1918 Westminster General Election - which will guarantee she becomes Taoiseach.

Plan B would either be to persuade Fianna Fáil to break its pact with Fine Gael and enter a coalition government with Sinn Fein, or persuade enough Independent or Left-wing party TDs to prop up a Sinn Fein-led coalition government.

Sinn Fein was so keen to get the DUP back into Stormont this month, not because the republican movement has had a Biblical-style Road to Damascus political conversion to the existence of Northern Ireland and its partitionist parliament, but because it needs to convince Southern voters that it can become a responsible party of government.

The Sinn Fein back door plan to Irish Unity is to show to Southern voters, especially those who vote Fianna Fáil and particularly first time voters, that it can run a parliament in the hope that those Southern voters return Sinn Fein to power in Leinster House.

The real test of this republican strategy will come later this year in the European elections when Sinn Fein will be standing candidates in the Republic, which for the time being, remains part of the European Union.

The kick starting of Stormont has triggered the British Government’s promised £3.3 billion package with possibly more Westminster cash coming down the pipeline.

Southern voters will be watching Sinn Fein carefully to see how the republican movement spends those billions before definitely opting to give Sinn Fein the reins of power in the Dail.

In a bid to derail Sinn Fein’s spending spree in Northern Ireland, the current Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil administration has embarked on its own spending spree north of the Irish border.

But this could also be a Trojan horse for Sinn Fein, not for Unionism. If Sinn Fein does become a majority government in Dublin, it too, will embark on a massive spending spree in a bid to alleviate the huge lack of social housing in the Republic - a spending spree which could easily bankrupt Southern Ireland, with the so-called Celtic Tiger economy facing a collapse which it endured several years ago.

In this event, there will be no British millions to bail out the Southern economy as happened when the UK was still a key member of the EU.

Five years of Sinn Fein rule in the Republic could well wreck the state financially in the short-term, but it could guarantee long-term that Sinn Fein’s Irish Unity plans would be in the political dustbin for generations to come.

Southern voters may not be so forgiving of Sinn Fein if the party’s high-spending social housing policy results in soaring taxes and an economic wilderness.

It is becoming clear the current Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael spending spree for Northern Ireland is a double-edged political sword - showing how financially generous the present Dail government can be, and spending as much money as possible so that Sinn Fein has a very small budget if its happens to win the next Dail election.

And even if Sinn Fein makes gains in the European elections, its MEPs will be going back to an expected parliament which will have increased representations from both the centre Right and Far Right movements.

A thriving Far Right group of MEPs in the next European Parliamentary mandate will operate a rigid populist agenda, meaning they will keep the EU cash for their own member states rather than give it to the Republic to help with any Sinn Fein needed bail out because the republican movement drastically overspent on providing social housing.

But bluntly, Unionism should not be alarmed by the current Southern establishment spending spree in Northern Ireland. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are not trying to buy Irish Unity. In reality, they are setting up Sinn Fein for a financial fall.

The late Rev Ian Paisley, when he was a DUP MEP, said he was going to Europe to milk the European cow. Unionism and Loyalism should milk every penny from the current Southern administration because if Sinn Fein has any say in the next Dail government, as in the 1920s, the republican movement will inevitably spark a second civil war in the South - only this time not with guns and bombs, but with social housing, jobs and the Republic’s Celtic Tiger economy.
 
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Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online

Dublin Parties’ Irish Unity Deposit Is Really Bid To Out-Spend Sinn Fein!

Dr John Coulter ✍ Earlier this month, I was having a relaxing Saturday when a headline in a national newspaper story hit me like a brick on the head - “Stop bullying us, ‘hounded’ clergy tell parishioners”, it read!

As a preacher’s kid married to a preacher’s kid, I’ve heard some horrific tales over the years about the treatment which some parishioners can dish out to their local clerics.

Forget all the schoolboy jokes that ‘yer da only works one day a week!’ And ‘Sure, you all live in a grand free house!’ Nothing could be further from the truth.

However, if that north east Ulster Bible Belt was taken as a benchmark, especially in the Seventies, many inbred Rednecks took the view that simply because they gave a few quid to the offering on Sundays, they owned the cleric and when they shouted ‘jump’, the cleric must respond with ‘how high?’

Just because becoming a cleric is seen as a calling or vocation from God, that must not mean the clergy should be denied a trade union to represent their interests, especially when faced with a deliberate intimidation campaign from parishioners.

Last month just before the Stormont Executive was reformed after a two-year gap, Northern Ireland witnessed probably the largest walk-out by public sector workers in the history of the state. It is estimated some 170,000 workers took part.

Among all the banners and flags, I could not see one bearing the title - National Clergy Union. Maybe the time has come for clerics to form an independent trade union to represent their rights.

I personally have been a trade unionist since my teenage days; firstly with the National Union of Students/Union of Students in Ireland (NUS/USI); then the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), and also with the University and College Union (UCU). Put bluntly, I know at first hand the benefits of being in a trade union.

Many Christian denominations are complaining that not enough folk are coming forward to train as clerics. This trend cannot always be blamed on the growth of the so-called secular society and a more pluralist attitude among folk where participation in church life has a lot more distractions to compete with.

Granted, there are numerous clerics today who will maintain they are experiencing a spiritually, personally, and professionally rewarding ministry. That’s all very well … until they face the blazing row in the flock.

Some clerics take the view - such persecution comes with the job! But even Jesus Christ in the New Testament physically hounded the money changers out of the temple. So if it was good enough for our Lord to organise against his critics, then it should be good enough for clerics to form their own trade union.

I have often written about my own upbringing in the north east Ulster Bible Belt where there would be occasions when I was made an example off verbally and physically simply for being the preacher’s kid.

But what about the assholes who deliberately target our mums and dads? My late parents did what they could to protect me from these arseholes, but who protects our parents who are clerics? This is a question that numerous preachers’ kids have asked.

While the north east Ulster Bible Belt contained some of the most Godly, Christian souls I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, it also contained some of the most judgemental, vicious, gossiping scumbags Our Lord ever puked onto this earth. The latter seemed to take a real delight in making the lives of clerics as difficult as possible.

Even if the cleric was a ‘tough old boot,’ some of these inbred Rednecks would then target the spouses and children of the clergy - simply to make their points.

Some of the horror stories included:
 
  • Waiting until the cleric was away at a family function, then sneaking up to the home and pinning a notice containing foul language on the front door - basically telling the cleric to get out of the place of worship.
  • A person in the leadership of the church organising a stipend strike (not giving to the cleric’s salary) so that ‘we can starve them out!’
  • Threatening a cleric that if they went to work in another church, they would go there to disrupt the cleric’s services.
  • Targeting a male cleric’s wife to try and force her into having a nervous breakdown.
  • Trying to get the denomination to bring in a rule that when a cleric left a place of worship, the cleric should not be allowed to build or buy property within the parish boundaries.
  • Constantly ringing the cleric in the wee small hours to disrupt the cleric and the family’s sleep patterns. Many clerics would keep their phones beside the bed in case a parishioner took ill during the night; how is the cleric to know what is a fake call from a real one.
  • Cleric’s family members being put on anti-depressants and tranquillisers by the GP because of the harassment campaign against the cleric.
  • Spreading defamatory and malicious rumours about the cleric’s children.

Such examples resemble an intimidation campaign that any paramilitary group would have been proud to own.

If the list of actions above was directed at, for example, a public sector employee, there is no doubt that trade unions, solicitors and police would be involved.

Such an intimidation campaign would result in either an industrial tribunal, court action, or both. If public sector workers can have these rights in their place of work, why can’t clerics have the same legal protection in their place of worship?

Perhaps one of the reasons no such National Clergy Union has ever emerged is because of the fallout from the various clerical sex abuse scandals which have rocked many Christian denominations.

Unfortunately, the actions of these clerical abusers (convicted by the courts or not) have tarred the institution of the clergy with the one brush - that to become a cleric calls into question either your sexual orientation or sexual fantasies.

Too many clerics will not take their challenges to the police or the media, not primarily because they are forgiving like Christ as Jesus told Peter in St Matthew Chapter 18, but because they have no organisation to represent them.

The bottom line is simple. If the Christian denominations want to see a significant increase in folk wanting to embark on a clerical vocation, they will have to put in place measures and organisations which guarantee the rights and protection of clerics.

 
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Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online

Clerics Need Their Own Trade Union!

Dr John Coulter ✍ It may be St Valentine’s Day this week, but there’s still no love lost for the Windsor Framework by the vast majority of Unionism.

While hardliners are branding those Unionists who support the return of Stormont as so-called protocol implementers, apart from shouting from the sidelines, the Hard Right of Unionism and Loyalism has no effective workable strategy to completely eradicate the Windsor Framework.

If you go by the Donaldson deal, there is no Irish Sea border; if you follow the political logic of the hardliners, the Irish Sea border still exists.

Unionism remains a minority ideology in the up and running Stormont, so pro-Union MLAs will have to box clever if the Windsor Framework is to be politically eradicated in terms of its effects on Northern Ireland and the state’s place in the United Kingdom.

One thing is certain - the Windsor Framework’s out-workings will not be eliminated by wee meetings in Orange or community halls, street parades, or even a campaign of civil disobedience which involves blocking roads or putting up posters and banners on bridges and signposts.

The operation to politically and economically neuter the Windsor Framework must be performed in the Assembly Chamber and committee rooms of Stormont’s Parliament Buildings.

While this May marks the 50th anniversary of the Ulster Workers’ Council strike which crippled the Sunningdale power-sharing Executive, so-called loyalist muscle on Northern Ireland’s streets will have no impact on the Windsor Framework.

Anti-deal Unionism and Loyalism needs to remember that the Ulster Says No and Ulster Still Says No street protests of 1985 and 1986 had no impact whatsoever on the November 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Even around 170,000 public sector workers recently marching about pay in the largest strike Northern Ireland has witnessed since 1974 did not unlock the £3.3 billion which the British Government had set aside for the Province. It took MLAs walking back to Stormont, electing a Speaker, First Minister and deputy First Minister.

While bobbies’ boots on the street may be the solution to any policing crisis, Loyalist hobnail boots prancing around roads will have no impact on the operation of the Windsor Framework, except to get a few previously innocent loyalists a potential criminal record for street disturbances.

Put bluntly, no matter how politically stomach-churning the Windsor Framework appears to Unionism and Loyalism, it can only be confined to the dustbin of history by economically poisoning it from the inside - and that can only be achieved through Unionist MLAs effectively working the newly-formed Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee at Stormont.

The chair of this new committee is Sinn Fein’s Declan Kearney, with the DUP’s David Brooks as deputy chair. Now is the time for the various groups in society which vehemently oppose the Windsor Framework to park their marching boots, and don their thinking caps by making clear, logical arguments to that committee.

The Windsor Framework was born out of democratic negotiations. It can equally be terminated through that same process. Yes, Unionism and Loyalism must understand this process may be long-term, just as it took several years until 1998 when the Good Friday Agreement eradicated the effects of the 1985 Hillsborough Agreement.

Unionism may not be able to immediately before Easter inflict the politically fatal single dose of cyanide to the Windsor Framework, but it can use this new Stormont scrutiny committee to initially give the Windsor Framework an upset tummy and slowly poison the Framework document by degrees.

However, that will not involve another suspension of Stormont. Sinn Fein played its veto ‘joker’ card for three years; the DUP for another two years. Vetos are now off the agenda. Only democratic persuasion and mature lobbying, not meaningless rants and empty rhetoric, will unlock the Achilles heel of the Windsor Framework.

Unionism and Loyalism must go on the ideological offensive against the Windsor Framework by asking the initial question - why would the European Union fear any termination of the Windsor Framework?

The answer may come later this year and before the summer when the next round of European elections are scheduled in the other EU member states. If opinion polls are correct, Europe’s Right-wing parties - and especially the Far Right - are expected to make significant gains.

Dedicated europhiles fear the emergence of an influential eurosceptic movement in the heart of the European Parliament leading to a surge in populist politics.

The last thing the europhiles want is the Far Right chanting - ‘look what the Brits got through Brexit; we want our own exit, too!’

The Donaldson deal with the British Government may have sparked a political realignment in Unionism, but it also served as a basic blueprint for other EU member states considering either loosening their ties with Brussels, or like the UK, severing formal links through Brexit.

The europhiles must be quietly, but considerably worried that any significant growth in the EU’s eurosceptic lobby of MEPs could see that faction campaigning for the EU to be reformed into its original format of the old European Economic Community (EEC), which was a very effective trading organisation in its prime.

Europhiles may herald the Windsor Framework as the solution to calm the Brexit storm specifically with Northern Ireland and generally with the UK.

But like a pack of political dominos, could the reality be - knock down the Windsor Framework using the Stormont Assembly and the whole of the EU may eventually crumble?

The so-called battle a day at Stormont is not going to be between Sinn Fein and the DUP, or the Stormont Executive versus Westminster, but it will be the Windsor Framework versus the future long-term stability of the EU.
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Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online

Windsor Framework Can Be Poisoned From The Inside!

Dr John Coulter ✍ The new Stormont Sister Act of Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill and the DUP’s Emma Little-Pengelly needs to seriously politically outshine the past Chuckle Brothers routine of the late Rev Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness if the Assembly is to avoid another life-threatening collapse.

The words of my headline and intro may sound like a musical critique, but simply because Stormont is back in business after yet another lengthy suspension does not mean the future of devolution is secure in Northern Ireland.

The Chuckle Brothers was an affectionate term for a short period of devolved government beginning in 2007 when firebrand fundamentalist preacher, Rev Ian Paisley, the founder of the DUP, in his role as First Minister, teamed up with the former Provisional IRA commander in Londonderry, Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein, a man responsible for giving the nod to numerous IRA atrocities, and who served as deputy First Minister.

In spite of their vastly differing ideological backgrounds, the Chuckle Brothers delivered one of the most stable periods of devolved government in Northern Ireland, not just since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, but historically since the formation of Northern Ireland in the 1920s.

Setting aside all the fancy speeches, soundbites and snuggly rhetoric from Saturday’s first restoration of the devolved institutions in two years, the blunt challenge for the Sister Act of O’Neill and Little-Pengelly is - can they politically outshine the Chuckle Brothers?

In the short-term, it will be the social communication skills, not just of these two women, but of all members of the newly formed Stormont Executive to work together as human beings which will guarantee that the Assembly remains in business.

Long-term, the Good Friday Agreement will require a radical political MOT to ensure that no one party can again use a veto to collapse power-sharing. Bluntly again, devolution in Northern Ireland is at the political Last Chance Saloon.

If the Assembly collapses again, just as when it was prorogued in 1972, that will be the end of a Stormont Parliament for at least a generation.

During the past seven years, Sinn Fein has collapsed the Assembly for three years and the DUP for two years. The question is - can this scenario be avoided? As an eternal political optimist, my answer is Yes.

For the DUP, in spite of the verbal spats on Saturday with North Antrim MLA Jim Allister, the leader of the hardline Traditional Unionist Voice party, and the threat of street protests from loyalists, the Donaldson Deal - aptly entitled Safeguarding the Union - with the British Government must be seen to be working.

The pro-deal DUP faction has squeezed every pip it could out of the British Government using the Stormont boycott tactic. Whatever view is taken on whether the so-called Irish Sea border exists in reality, the final political bullet to the head to the Windsor Framework can only be delivered by the DUP from inside the Stormont Chamber.

To use a soccer analysis, the winning penalty (in this case a political coup de grace to terminate the Windsor Framework’s effects) can only be scored by the player on the pitch, not the supporter yelling from the stands.

The real worry for the DUP is that unionist grassroots anger at the party restoring Stormont could manifest itself at the next Westminster General Election this year, with anti-deal candidates costing some DUP MPs their seats in a split unionist vote.

That could be one reason why surprisingly during the Executive ministerial selection, the DUP opted for the education and communities portfolios. Both ministries give the party ample opportunities to both mix with the people on the ground and implement popular policies. Both portfolios are potential mega vote winners in the event of any forthcoming bruising election campaign.

As for Sinn Fein, why would the political wing of the republican movement want to see a so-called partitionist parliament remain stable when O’Neill has already hinted she would like to see an Irish Unity border poll within a decade?

Again bluntly simple - Sinn Fein needs to convince voters in Southern Ireland that it can be a responsible and mature party of government and not simply a loud-mouthed protest movement against the establishment parties of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

Sinn Fein has no credible track record in government in Dublin’s Leinster House. The last time Sinn Fein had such a Stormont-style mandate on the island was in 1918 following the Westminster General Election when it clinched around 70 of the 105 Commons seats on offer when Ireland was all one under the flag of the British Empire.

But what did Sinn Fein do with that mandate? Certainly not stable governance after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in the 1920s. Sinn Fein started the bloody Irish Civil War which saw republican butcher republican in a manner which made the notorious Black and Tans seem like a respectable regiment of the British Army!

Sinn Fein has an historical credibility problem. By taking the economy and finance portfolios in Saturday’s Stormont carve-up, it hopes to convince Southern voters that Sinn Fein can become a worthwhile party of government following the next Dail general election in the republic.

Sinn Fein needs Stormont to work to this end. Before that general election, it will have the chance to test if the republican movement’s strategy is working with European elections in the republic later this year.

Fears of what a Sinn Fein government in Leinster House might unleash on Southern Ireland were abundantly clear after the past Dail general election where in spite of gains by Sinn Fein, the rival establishment parties formed an historic coalition to keep Sinn Fein out of government.

Opinion polls suggest Sinn Fein is on course either to have a majority government or form a coalition with either Fianna Fáil or Independent TDs.

In the coming weeks, how Sinn Fein Stormont ministers spend the British budget will dictate the outcome of the next Dail battle.

The real fear on both sides of the border is that Sinn Fein hands on the purse strings will economically bankrupt both the Assembly and Southern Ireland.

Is this a price the unionist community and Dublin establishment is prepared to pay to confine the republican movement’s influence to the dustbin of history?
 
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Stormont Sister Act Must Play Pitch Perfect To Outshine Chuckle Brothers!

Dr John Coulter ✍ No matter what side you take on the British Government’s deal to the DUP to kickstart Stormont, Unionism should read up on the history of republicanism when the Dail voted on the Treaty terms in the early 1920s.

In that era, Sinn Fein split into two clear factions - the pro and anti-Treaty elements which simply could not come to an accommodation on the Treaty terms which partitioned Ireland.

The end result was a bloody Irish civil war between the anti-Treaty IRA and the pro-Treaty Free State forces which saw more IRA members executed by the Free Staters than were killed by the Black and Tans in the previous War of Independence against the British.

More than a century later, that post-civil war bitterness is still to be found in Southern Irish politics. While the civil war spawned the big two Dublin establishment parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, these bitter rivals came together after the last Dail General Election to keep Sinn Fein out of power in Leinster House.

As for the DUP in 2024, party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson finds himself in yet another Yes/No confrontation over the current deal as he did in 1998 in the UUP during the Yes/No confrontation over the Good Friday Agreement.

While the UUP went into the Stormont Assembly in 1998, the political seeds were sown in the party which ultimately led to both the leader, the late David Trimble, and the party’s demise. The UUP lost its place as the lead party in Unionism to the rival DUP in the 2003 Assembly poll.

Put bluntly, Trimble personally and the UUP politically paid a heavy price for endorsing the Good Friday Agreement in spite of effective devolution returning to Northern Ireland for the first time since the original Stormont Parliament was prorogued in 1972.

The key question which the pro-deal supporters in the DUP must answer - what price will the party have to pay if it decides to accept what the Government has offered, in spite of the Irish Sea border still in place?

In 1998, in spite of a split party, Trimble put the best interests of Northern Ireland first and kick-started devolution. That split sparked a very significant realignment in Unionism.

While the majority of the UUP MLAs in 1998 were in the Yes camp, the Unionist family’s No camp included UUP dissidents, the DUP and new Stormont movements such as the United Kingdom Unionist Party and the United Unionist Assembly Party.

The Yes/No divide in Unionism over the Belfast Agreement also bled into the Protestant religious denominations. Generally speaking, many in the mainstream denominations - the Church of Ireland, Irish Methodism and the Presbyterian Church - backed the Agreement.

However, in hardline evangelicalism and fundamentalism, there was a move to rally a number of the smaller denominations behind the No camp.

Fronting this was a movement launched in late 1998 called the Caleb Foundation, named after the Biblical Old Testament Israelite spy, Caleb.

While the Caleb Foundation was initially an attempt to rally fundamentalist opposition to the Evangelical Prayer Breakfast movement, the participation in Caleb of leading members of the Independent Orange Order gave the perception that Caleb was nothing more than the No camp at prayer.

For example, Caleb’s first chairman was the late George Dawson, then in 1998 the Grand Master of the Independent Orange Institution, and later an East Antrim DUP MLA at the time of his death in 2007.

Practically, can the DUP accept the current deal, kickstart the power-sharing Stormont Executive and ride out the realignment storm within Unionism.

Pro-deal Unionism does not have a good track record historically. As well as the demise of the UUP in the years after the Good Friday Agreement, pro-Sunningdale agreement Unionism was comprehensively defeated in the two Westminster General Elections in 1974.

Two years earlier, liberal Unionism under Northern Ireland PM’s Terence O’Neill and James Chichester-Clark could not save the original Stormont Parliament.

The unpalatable reality which Unionism must now face is that it is already split. All that needs to be decided is who will win the realignment battle and how bitter that fight will be.

In voting terms, could contests between pro- and anti-deal Unionist candidates at the next Westminster General Election cost Unionism seats, with traditionally Unionist constituencies returning either Sinn Fein or Alliance MPs on a split pro-Union vote?

In reality, pro-deal Unionism must starting preparing for a Plan B after the latest so-called Ulster Says No campaign inevitably fizzles out. Historically, in spite of the so-called monster rallies at Belfast City Hall in 1985 and 1986 and across Northern Ireland, the Ulster Says No and Ulster Still Says No campaigns did not halt the workings of the Anglo-Irish Agreement or the Dublin-run Maryfield Secretariat near Belfast.

Remember the Union flag protests? A lot of marching and stomping about as in 1985/86, but to no avail.

Pro-deal Unionism must be prepared to face down the No camp, whether that be at the ballot box, in the Assembly (if there is one!), in the council chambers, and even in the church pews.

Pro-deal Unionism must come up with a constructive ideological way forward for the pro-Union community in Northern Ireland.

It has one small advantage over the No camp. The latter will always be ‘agin’ anything and everything; they will moan, huff and puff, but ask them what they are prepared to offer in terms of something constructive - and the silence will be deafening!

Then again, has pro-deal Unionism the political courage to face down the No camp splitters, or worse still, like the late Sixties and early Seventies when the Paisleyites were lambasting O’Neillite Unionists, the latter withdrew from politics completely.

The last thing pro-deal Unionism needs is its supporters and thinkers walking away from the political arena, leaving the field open to the Pan Nationalist Front of Dublin, the SDLP, Sinn Fein and Alliance.
 
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Unionists Must Learn Lessons From Republican Treaty Split

Dr John Coulter ✍ With an inevitable realignment in Unionism on the cards should any Stormont settlement be agreed, there needs to be a similar realignment within Irish Christianity if the faith is to have real relevance not just in 2024, but for the remainder of this decade.

Given the massive support for what was effectively a national strike day last Thursday across Northern Ireland and the return of Stormont kicked further down the political road, Christians of whatever denomination need to get a grip on the situation.

Put bluntly, Christians need to stop back-stabbing each other over petty theological issues and focus on how the Christian Church as a body can become a very significant force for good within the community.

Ironically, as a starting point, the Church must come up with some solution to combat the influence of the so-called judgemental gossips which plague so many places of worship, congregations and fellowships.

For generations, church gossips have been unofficial power brokers within places of worship, largely because of the perception that it was ‘unChristian’ to sue a church gossip for defamation.

In reality, folk tended to settle their differences behind closed doors, or swept the issue under the carpet, or forced the people at the centre of the gossip to leave the place of worship.

The power of the church gossips is not necessarily the accuracy of their accusations and allegations, but the speed with which these gossips can get their information around a place of worship.

The majority of gossiping content in places of worship generally starts like a traditional game of Chinese Whispers - with a legally unsubstantiated rumour coated with copious amounts of exaggeration and embellishment until the original situation is blown well out of proportion.

In journalistic terms, imagine publishing or broadcasting a story about someone’s private life without first checking facts, observing legal codes or adhering to media ethical codes? There would be very serious consequences for the journalist if even poor punctuation changed the meaning of the story.

Church gossips, when caught out by inaccuracy in their information, generally speaking deploy an ‘opt out’ clause. They demand mercy, compassion and forgiveness, quoting the famous New Testament passage from St Matthew’s Gospel where Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive someone who had wronged him.

Peter suggested seven times, but Christ said it should be seventy times seven. Imagine a journalist trying to use Matthew’s Gospel as a defence in a defamation action in court. Any judge with a titter of wit would either hold the journalist in contempt of court for cheek, or recommend that the journalist seek serious psychiatric counselling as a matter of urgency.

In reality, we journalists do not enjoy the same immunity under the defamation laws which church gossips have enjoyed for generations. In practice, there needs to be an even playing field between journalists and church gossips.

To use a secular proverb - what’s sauce for the goose, should be sauce for the gander. There has to be equality between journalists and church gossips. If a journalist can end up in court for defamatory reporting, then more church gossips should be brought before the courts for defamatory gossiping.

Ironically, with the crises over the Rwanda Bill, and the conflicts in Yemen, Gaza and Ukraine along with the electoral threat to the Tories from the Right-wing Reform UK party, the current Conservative Government - like a misfiring soccer Premiership team - is pushing Northern Ireland further down the league of importance and into the danger zone of political relegation.

So now is the time for the Christian Churches to step up to the mark, put on hold their petty bickering about whether women should wear hats to worship, what instruments to play in praise, and put pressure on politicians to find a workable solution to the Stormont impasse.

As I said on my live analysis piece on GB News television on Thursday morning as the national NI strike got underway, history will not look kindly on any party or politician responsible for flushing devolution down the political toilet.

As I prepared to go on air shortly after 6 am that day, my thoughts were of my late dad, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE, who was a North Antrim UUP MLA for 13 years from the Assembly’s first mandate in 1998 until his retirement in 2011.

What crossed my mind were the chats at my parents’ home between dad and another 1998 mandate UUP MLA, the late Sir John Gorman of North Down. Those bay window conversations, as I dubbed them, would often continue into the wee small hours about how devolution could be made to benefit the citizens of Northern Ireland.

Dad and Sir John must be spinning in their graves at the politically cataclysmic scenario which has now unfolded at Parliament Buildings.

It’s no use the Christian Churches merely organising a united Day of Prayer for political stability - they need to put words into action and apply as much pressure as possible on the political representatives.

Sinn Fein currently has a two-seat majority over the DUP entitling the former under present rules to the First Minister’s post. Might the DUP be secretly hoping the Secretary of State pushes the election button and triggers a fresh Assembly poll to give the party its three needed target seats to outgun the republican movement in the Chamber?

Whilst a snap election is one option, given the cost of living crisis and the severe winter weather, many of the political parties will not want to hit the campaign trail, especially if they have to prepare for a snap Westminster General Election if the Sunak administration loses any potential vote of no confidence.

During yet another failed attempt to get a Stormont Speaker elected last Wednesday, a number of MLAs in their speeches were hinting that the lifetime of the current Assembly mandate - even devolution itself - could be running out.

Later this week, we should know for definite what the Secretary of State’s mind is for future governance in Northern Ireland. Given the crisis in the Tory Party, he is most likely to kick the political can down the road and bring in emergency legislation to extend the status quo in the hope the DUP will sign up to his pre-Christmas deal.

If not, he has the option of introducing a hybrid Direct Rule, whereby he gives more financial powers to senior civil servants, especially the permanent secretaries at the various departments, leaving the Secretary of State as a final decision maker.

Perhaps Unionism’s Plan B in this scenario is to resurrect former UUP boss, the late Jim Molyneaux’s model for Direct Rule - with Northern Ireland elected MPs and peers taking on the ministerial roles.

That would certainly place Sinn Fein in a political pickle as from its foundation in 1905, the party has continued to operate its outdated policy of abstentionism and refusing to take its Commons seats.

But ever since Sinn Fein entered the electoral arena seriously during the 1981 hunger strikes, the party has voted to drop abstentionism in both the Dail and Stormont. It’s only a matter of time before the British Government can create a scenario or agenda whereby Sinn Fein MPs will walk into the Westminster Commons Chamber.

In the meantime, if tens of thousands of workers can show the strength of their opinion in last Thursday’s strike, surely the tens of thousands of Christians can get out of their pews, too, and lobby the politicians for a successful resolution?

If Jesus Christ can take positive action against the money changers in the temple by overturning their tables, then Christians have the perfect example to take positive democratic action to get good governance restored in Northern Ireland.
 
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Christians Need To End Back-Stabbing To Make Church Relevant In 2024

Dr John Coulter ✍ The Pensive Quill has an impressive reputation of providing well-written obituaries for people who have died, many of them written from a deeply personal perspective.

God Willing, I will both clock up 46 years in journalism and see my 65th birthday in 2024. But every year seems to be one of anniversaries marking the passing of either loved ones, or folk I knew from my teenage days as a preacher’s kid in the north east Ulster Bible Belt.

One such person is Bertie. This is not his real name given the tragic circumstances of his death four decades ago this year. I knew him from my days in the Boys’ Brigade and Christian Youth Fellowship in that part of the Irish Bible Belt.

Even today in 2024, I still pause for a few moments at his grave to say a heartfelt thanks for a piece of advice he gave me in the 1970s. His grave is located in the same cemetery as my late parents’ and no visit to mum and dad’s earthly resting place is complete without a respectful nod to Bertie’s grave.

Bertie and I became born again Christians in the early Seventies during one of the great Presbyterian evangelical missions of that era. We joined the Boys’ Brigade together as well as a local Sunday evening Youth Fellowship.

I was a cross country runner at Ballymena Academy in my teenage days and on Tuesday afternoons after training, I would meet Bertie outside a sweet shop in the town centre, purchase our soft drinks and crisps and ‘go up the town for a chat’.

Bertie had a strong Christian faith and I regarded him as a stalwart of the Youth Fellowship. But as I moved through my teens, life as a Presbyterian minister’s son became increasingly more challenging.

Primarily, there were a number of assholes in that north east Ulster Bible Belt who thought they could demonstrate to their peers that they were ‘the big lads’ by making an example out of me as a preacher’s kid.

Mostly, the abuse was verbal, but for some, the abuse was physical. I vividly remember a Presbyterian elder punching me in the face when I had just been a born again Christian for a few years just to make an example out of me in his Sunday school class.

Among our peers in that north east Ulster Bible Belt, the born again Christians were a significant group - the so-called ‘in crowd’. However, there was one thug who clearly wanted to set up a rival alternative to the born again believers.

It soon became clear that the only way you could become part of this thug’s clique of mates was to recant your Christian faith and give the impression you were a hard-cursing, ‘hard man’.

It did not take long for this thug to target Bertie. Within a matter of months, Bertie stopped coming to the Youth Fellowship and ended our meetings at the sweet shop.

When a born again Christian recants their faith, it is known as back-sliding. One by one, I watched as the thug bullied or cajoled born again believers into giving up their faith.

We were at a BB event in the mid Seventies. I knew the thug would soon target me as he had already been ‘mouthing off’ to my face.

During that BB event, I’d had the chance - albeit a few moments - to chat to Bertie alone as to why he’d given up his faith. He simply told me he was afraid of the thug. Other lads had told me the same thing.

After the event, I found myself in an amusement arcade. Bertie came over to me and checking over his shoulder to ensure the thug was not watching and using the excuse of asking me for the loan of five pence for a game, he warned me that the thug was out to get me.

It was not said in a threatening way, merely a very strong piece of advice. I would have to alter my routine radically if I was to avoid getting a beating from this thug, who merely wanted to give the minister’s son a battering just to send a message to others - if this is what I do to the preacher’s kid, what will I not do to you!

What many folk took for granted, especially among my peers in the Seventies, I had to plan very carefully - namely, walking from the front seat of my dad’s car to my pew in church without getting a kicking from the thug. It did not matter to this thug that the kicking would be administered in God’s House; it was to be a severe lesson for the preacher’s kid.

And so my routine was simple on Sabbath mornings - dash from dad’s car into his minister’s room and hide there until the opening devotions for Sunday school and Bible class in the church hall and then walk with dad into the hall. There would be no way the thug had the courage to blazingly walk into dad’s minister’s room and batter me.

For a number of months this strategy worked perfectly. Bertie’s advice had been sound and I felt safe in church on Sunday mornings. Bertie maintained the thug still had me in his sights, but my weekly routine in church seemed to be working.

After a few months, I felt the coast was clear. It was just after the Hallowe’en school holidays when I decided that Sunday in the Seventies that rather than hide in the minister’s room, I would go directly into the church hall, take my seat, and await the opening devotions.

I did not see the thug sneak up behind me. During my life, I have felt the pain of tonsillitis, a broken toe playing church football, and an abscess in a tooth. But that single kick to my lower back on the left hand side - whether by accident or design - was so well placed by the thug.

This was agony on a whole new level. I looked around to see the thug sneering at me; Bertie had been spot on in his warning. For the rest of the opening devotions - which although only lasted minutes, they seemed to go on for an eternity - I simply prayed that in spite of the painful spasms, God would not let me collapse in front of the thug.

As the minutes passed, the pain got worse; there was no way I could make it into the Bible class. Imagine the delight on the thug’s face if I collapsed in the class?

After the devotions, I walked coolly as if I was Hollywood icon John Wayne in one of his famous Westerns. I headed for dad’s minister’s room - and safety. I had only just entered his room, when my legs gave way and down I tumbled, the soft carpet in the room breaking my fall.

Minutes later, dad found me on the ground, in tears and in tremendous agony. I didn’t want a doctor, ambulance or to be taken to Ballymena’s Waveney Hospital because that would give satisfaction to the thug as to how badly he had injured me. It was one of the very few occasions in church life that I had witnessed my dad really angry.

Ironically, my thoughts were not about getting hospital treatment for my injury, but on how this physical assault by the thug would affect my training routine for the forthcoming BB cross country championships.

I kept thinking - if only I’d listened to Bertie and kept up my safety routine, this wouldn’t have happened.

Reading this in 2024, you may be thinking - Coulter, this happened when you were a teenager in the 1970s; surely you need to ‘man up’ and put it behind you? I wish I could, but twice a day, I still have to take my medication for my back as a result of that Sunday assault.

It has led to some embarrassing incidents. It’s as if I am transported back in time to that fateful Sunday and suddenly a spasm will shoot across my lower back, triggering the collapsing legs. One of my sons christened it “Daddy’s Falling Down Trick!”

I’ve had numerous hospital visits, scans, X-rays, pumped countless powerful pain killers into me and had physio treatment for the injury and had the embarrassment of collapsing shortly after a relative’s graduation ceremony.

It has been a challenge, too, on my Christian spiritual journey. It is very hard to echo the words of Jesus Christ in St Matthew’s Gospel when asked by Peter how many times he should forgive someone, and Christ replied ‘seventy times seven’.

It is especially difficult to think of these words of our Saviour in the wee small hours when you are lying in bed and those spasms are shooting across your lower back and you are struggling to get your bedside lamp on to get the water and medication.

The last time I saw Bertie face to face was at a BB Ballymena Battalion parade in the Seventies. He gave me ‘the fingers’ as the car in which he was a passenger drove past. Had he been told to do it by the thug, or was he giving me a message - I told you so!

I was never to see either Bertie or the thug again once I started my journalist training in the late Seventies. Several years would elapse. I kept the extent of my back injury a secret from all but close family for decades. It only leaked out into certain sections of that north east Ulster Bible Belt when my parents died.

In the Eighties, I remember I was covering a UUP Press event in Ballycastle involving my late dad, the former North Antrim MLA Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE, the former Mayor of Ballymoney and former Northern Ireland Forum North Antrim member the late Joe Gaston, and the former UUP MEP John Taylor.

A radio news bulletin detailed an incident involving someone with Bertie’s real name. When I got home, my mum confirmed that it was Bertie who had died.

Even though he had become a friend of the thug who injured me, I hoped Bertie found his Christian faith again before he died. I guess I will never know until we meet again in eternity.

I don’t know if the thug is still alive. I hope he becomes a born again Christian if he hasn’t already, then the severe pain of my back injury will have been worth it.

In the meantime, I will remember the good times at BB and Youth Fellowship I enjoyed with Bertie and will continue to pay my respects at his grave every time I visit my parents’ resting place.
 
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Ode To Bertie

Dr John Coulter ✍ Dublin’s latest political incursion into the United Kingdom’s internal affairs must be dismissed for what it really is - an electoral double whammy to hopefully spike the guns of the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein.

Just before Christmas, in what many in the Westminster establishment and Northern Ireland Unionism viewed as a totally irresponsible act, Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach of Southern Ireland, said that Dublin would launch an inter-state case against the UK’s so-called legacy legislation under the European convention on human rights.

This latest political gauntlet came a matter of weeks after Dublin unveiled a multi-million pound package to assist all-Ireland projects inside Northern Ireland. That move was unveiled by Varadkar’s predecessor as Taoiseach, Micheal Martin, now the Tanaiste, as part of the Shared Island Fund.

Taken in tandem, these two announcements reek of political hypocrisy - a pat on the back from Shared Island, followed by a stab in the back from the legacy move. The latter has plunged Anglo-Irish relations to a new low not witnessed since before the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.

But Dublin’s latest move against the UK over legacy should really be seen as part of Southern Ireland’s internal political crisis that in the next Dail general election, Sinn Fein could emerge with its best election result since the 1918 Westminster General Election when the movement won over 70 of the 105 Commons seats for Ireland when the island was all part of the British Empire.

After all, it’s been less than 40 years since the IRA’s political wing voted at a special conference in 1986 to allow its elected TDs to take their seats in Leinster House.

And the last time Sinn Fein had such an electoral mandate in the 1920s, the movement split over the Treaty which partitioned the island sparking a bloody civil war between the new pro-Treaty Free State Army and the anti-Treaty IRA. Sinn Fein may be an expert in protest politics, but it has an atrocious historical record as a party of government.

Taken in this light, and given that opinion polls suggest Sinn Fein will probably emerge as the largest party in the Dail after the next Southern general election, really all that has to be decided is will Sinn Fein have enough TDs to form a majority government, or will it need the help of Independent TDs or a coalition partner, such as Fianna Fáil, to form a stable government?

In the last Dail election, Sinn Fein was only kept out of government because of an historic pact between the two establishment rivals - Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

With Sinn Fein’s supposed New Year resolution of a border poll on Irish Unity by 2030, the Dublin establishment - and especially the FG/FF shotgun marriage - needed to show Southern voters it could provide an alternative to Sinn Fein’s sabre-rattling Irish unity rhetoric.

In short, the current Dublin administration needed to prove it was the real seekers of Irish Unity, not the republican movement.

Step one was Tanaiste Martin’s softly, softly carrot tactic of throwing millions at all-island initiatives from the Shared Island Fund. Step two, the stick; it came from the so-called political hard man act from Taoiseach Varadkar taking the UK to court.

But throwing all that cash at Northern Ireland stinks of the Dublin establishment trying to buy the next election by providing as much cash incentives as it can before Sinn Fein gets its hands on the Dail’s budget.

Sinn Fein has pledged a massive spending spree to alleviate the republic’s social housing crisis - a spree which could easily bankrupt the Southern economy within five years, leading to yet another crash in the Celtic Tiger … except, unlike before when the UK was in the EU, there will be no British millions to bail out the South’s economy.

Likewise, by flexing its political muscles against the UK over legacy, the current Dublin administration is showing it has the will to take on the British in the hope that wavering voters will stay with the FG/FF partnership rather than follow opinion polls and defect to Sinn Fein.

Whilst Unionism has branded the Shared Island slush fund as a ‘Trojan horse’, the real ‘Trojan horse’ will come if the European court supports the Dublin case against the UK, and legacy issues remain open to investigation.

Imagine the dilemma for a Sinn Fein-led government. Think of the number of attacks which the IRA and INLA carried out where the terrorists retreated to the territorial safety of the 26 Southern Irish counties.

How many unsolved murders as part of the republican movement’s ethnic cleansing of the Northern Ireland border county Protestant population during the Troubles would be open to serious scrutiny as to the role which the Irish Republic as a geographical terrorist springboard played in that slaughter?

Imagine the embarrassment for a Sinn Fein-led government in Leinster House having to provide detailed information on the IRA and INLA death squads which carried out the Tullyvallen Orange Hall massacre, the Kingsmill minibus massacre and the Darkley Mission Hall massacre.

It poses the serious question - is Dublin’s case against the UK really the current administration in Leinster House leaving a ticking political time bomb for any future government which contains Sinn Fein either as a majority party, or a coalition partner?

In short, has Sinn Fein - because of its lack of government experience - been set up by the old dogs in the Dublin establishment; a move which could confine Sinn Fein’s 2030 border poll dream to the dustbin of history for generations to come.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online

Dublin’s Legacy Move Is Ticking Time Bomb For Sinn Fein

Dr John Coulter ✍ Primarily, a very Happy New Year and prosperous 2024 to all the readers, editors and fellow contributors on The Pensive Quill.

I’ve been delving into my crystal balls to see what 2024 will throw at us. It’ll be a year of elections, with Labour winning a snap Westminster General Election after the Scottish nationalists imploded and gifted Sir Keir Starmer much-needed seats to guarantee him the keys of 10 Downing Street.

The Tories will go into free-fall in both the Westminster and local council polls leading to the toppling of current PM Rishi Sunak’s leadership with the Right-wing, eurosceptic European Research Group (ERG) (or what’s left of the Tory Right!) dictating who will be the next Conservative boss.

In the Irish Republic, the Shinners will manage to get a successful vote of no confidence in the present Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil administration, triggering an early Dail general election in which the Provisional IRA’s political wing tops the poll in terms of TDs elected.

However, Sinn Fein will need a partner to ensure Mary-Lou McDonald gets the Taoiseach’s post, probably with the help of a smattering of Independent and Hard Left TDs - or even Fianna Fáil turning traitor and climbing into bed with the Provos’ political wing.

In spite of Sinn Fein hopes of an outright majority, the FG/FF’s double whammy of throwing enough cash at Northern Ireland projects and taking the British Government to court over the latter’s legacy legislation will ensure that enough republican voters stay loyal to the FG/FF political shotgun marriage to deny the Shinners that coveted outright majority.

In Ulster, DUP boss Sir Jeffrey Donaldson will get enough votes in his party to ensure the Duppers end their Stormont boycott and trigger the power-sharing Executive.

This will result in a major realignment in Unionism with the UUP and pro-Assembly DUP in one camp, and the Hard Right of the DUP, TUV, Loyal Orders and loyalist paramilitaries in the new No camp.

And although the UK is out of the European Union, well apart from Northern Ireland, there will be a strong campaign by 2016-style Remainers to rejoin the EU.

However, this campaign will run aground when the 2024 European parliamentary elections return massive gains for the Far Right. The EU make-up which the UK first sent its MEPs to in 1979 is no longer the EU which will emerge after this year’s poll.

The Israel/Gaza conflict worsens, but the Donald Trump 2024 Presidential election team proposes an interesting solution - that Israel withdraws from Gaza and a joint SAS/Delta force hit squad goes into Gaza and wipes out the Hamas terrorists - a move that will guarantee Trump the White House once again in late 2024’s election.

Sadly, in retaliation, what’s left of Hamas attacks the UK for the SAS adopting its ‘no prisoners taken’ policy in Gaza and in spite of the UK Government emphasising that ‘British boots were not on the ground’ in the region.

In a panic move as the body count of Hamas terrorists begins to climb, the United Nations will vote to send peace-keeping troops from the Irish Defence Forces into Gaza, sparking the occasional embarrassing incidents of so-called ‘friendly fire’ between the SAS and Irish UN troops.

On a lighter note, in sport, my beloved Gunners will secure their first Premiership title in two decades, and the famous Sam Maguire will be clinched by an Ulster county.

In religious terms, more councils will start to pass increasingly draconian laws to combat the menace of an irresponsible section of the theologically Hard Right fundamentalist street preacher movement, some of whom are nothing more than attention-seekers trying to get themselves arrested so that they can claim to be a modern-day St Stephen, viewed by many Biblical scholars as the first Christian martyr.

As these new draconian rules will apply to all Christians, responsible open air evangelists will have to take a tough stand against the militant fringe which is getting all open air witness tarred with the same irresponsible brush.

Likewise, 2024 will see a widening of the split which has already started in the pro-life movement in terms of their tactics as the distances imposed by the safe access zones are increased. Again, the overall pro-life movement has been infiltrated by hardline fundamentalists who in the past have used extremist ‘in your face’ tactics at health clinics and locations which deal with abortions.

What many of these militant pro-life activists fail to understand is that many of these health locations also deal with other issues, such as women who have lost babies through miscarriages, or are suffering from blood disorders.

Imagine the additional hurt, pain and tears heaped on women who have lost their much-wanted child through miscarriage having to run the gauntlet of militant pro-life extremists waving placards bearing images of unborn children on them? And many of these protestors will call themselves ‘Christian’? As with the street preacher movement, the responsible pro-life movement will suffer as a result of the street militancy of the movement’s lunatic fringe.

And we could see the Education Authority having to implement a similar policy of safe access zones outside our schools as this month sees the launch of compulsory lessons in Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) in post primary schools in Northern Ireland.

Many of these lessons focus on issues such as abortion, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Again, as with the pro-life movement, what happens if the anti-RSE movement gets infiltrated by militant fundamentalists who believe in protests outside schools which teach RSE?

Just as folk attending health clinics had to run the gauntlet of militant pro-lifers, could we see the horrific sight of pupils, parents and teachers having to run similar gauntlets by the anti-RSE fundamentalists outside many of our schools?

And returning to the political front, with Stormont back in business as a fully functioning power-sharing parliament with a Sinn Fein First Minister, and with the Irish Unity debate moving further up the agenda, we will see the Alliance Party ‘bounce’ fall flat as the party tears itself apart deciding which way to vote on a future referendum - Irish Unity or the Union? The same lack of direction, this time on Brexit, cost the Ulster Unionist Party its European seat; a seat the UUP had held since 1979.

Given the atrocious and unpredictable weather the Province has endured during last year, especially with the severe flooding, the new Stormont Executive will create a new department for weather with its own minister to help regions cope with the catastrophic effects of rain, hail and storms.

However, like the health portfolio at Stormont, which party or individual has the courage to take on such a challenging role?

The socially conservative wing of the Catholic Church will launch a counter attack to combat the Vatican’s ruling on allowing blessings for same sex relationships. Expect to see a sighting of the Virgin Mary somewhere in Ireland to rally the flocks behind traditional Catholic teaching on marriage, divorce, abortion and homosexuality. My money is on Ballycastle in north Antrim!

As for the Protestant Church, the overall Pentecostal movement will launch another contentious divine healing phenomenon akin to the Toronto Blessing and Florida Outpouring which will see North American-style healing meetings with so-called healers claiming they can raise the dead.

In the meantime, a happy Easter to everyone.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online

Coulter’s Crystal Balls For 2024