our father's land.

international | politics / elections | opinion/analysis Saturday November 29, 2003 18:31 by espatachín - (spanish word lovely someone else uses it as a writer name) so I must declaim impersonation!

How northern ireland voted and ·not voted·

The Free Presbyterian Church stands firmly in the old Presbyterian faith. They are strictly separated from the apostasy of the hour and hold to the Authorized English Bible. The Free Presbyterian Church was founded in 1951 in Northern Ireland. There are 17 of these congregations in North America and roughly 100 in the world.

It's leader Rev. Dr. Ian Paisley is the only European Political Party leader to also be a leader of religious sect. His party the DUP has just won the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections.

Presbyterianism holds great value in voting. It is a central tenet of organisation and indentity of the dissenter protestant faith, that elders of the community take decisions relating to the affairs of the kirk.
Also of principle importance is the exat interpretation of the letters of documents be they testament, scripture or psalter. Paisley is author of many pamphlets defending the King James Bible translation which is indeed the most popular with various protestant denominations around the world. Paisley in 1989 turned down luncheon with Billy Graham, the U.S. evangelical (presently minister of religion to the White House) with these words: "I will have no fellowship with those who deny the faith". The previous year, at the age of 62 years, Big Mon Ian, stopped the European Parliament which next year will move to present it's common constitutional expression of Christian roots to our culture, with a big red plackard red painted in black letters with the words “John Paul II ANTICHRIST.” The Pontiff of Rome was addressing the EU parliament at that time calling for the need for peaceful resolution of international disputes amongst other thingys. Paisley MEP, MLA repeatedly heckled Karol Wotyla with these words " “I refuse you as Christ’s enemy and Antichrist with all your false doctrine.”
Incidently these words were a quotation from Archbishop Cranmer just before he was burnt at the stake for heresy.


The last idea came from my cookies yesterday, I happened by chance to look upon the psalter, and find the same ditty that the Paisleys' daddy and wee bairn sang in jubilation, but as today's Belfast Telegraph noted, it could not drown out the sound of Sinn Féin's celebration. I presume Ian Paisley Jr and his father Rev Dr Paisley sang an ulster scots version. It is a curious psalm, of indeterminate lineage from David, and one well set by a variety of Psalter composers, nuns and monks throughout European History. Most notably by the Irish Celtic monks of Down and those of Paris. Recordings are available from Hyperion records a reuptable multi-national-corporation "theoretically" based in the republic of France. The singing of the Psalter was discouraged in 15th century Europe, and when Calvin arrived in Geneva one of his first petitions of the Cities authorities was for permission to assemble in the public street and sing from the Psalter. But in 1537 the Council of Geneva rejected Calvin's proposal. They did not consider the time to be ripe for such a radical change.

In 1538 Calvin, father supreme of Presbyterianism was expelled from Geneva and moved almost "Hegira" like with his followers who were fortified by a publication of 17 Psalms of the Psalter, ten commandments, the Apostolic Creed and other later to be excised religious songs set to the melodies of Greiter and Marot, French poets, composers, mystics and men of extraordinary hidden influence.

Thus was the European Tradition of Protestantism that stretches from the Alps through the Low lands to the Highlands of Scotland and to the pasture of South Fermanagh to the shade of the dreary long dead industries of Lisburn begun.

Paisley and his kirk, face not only those who voted against them, but the majority of Europeans whose values, ethics, and interpretation of letter, psalm, hymn, testament and scripture have given the World a markedly different intepretation of "what really happened". It is yet uncertain whether or not those who have voted for Paisley have voted for his kirk. It is sadly difficult to say where Kirk ends and Party Politics begin. And this is lamentable mroe so than at any other time in European History, as the greater good or evil of our common world shall be decided not in Mid Ulster where 74.9% of the electorate voted nor in Strangford where only 51% voted.

There was another northern ireland which voted yesterday, as there is undoubtedly a northern ireland that has not voted. The counties of Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan, Louth for example are in this Europe as part of the continuing hope for prosperity on the North as is Strathcylde. It is very significant that Dr. Neeley won his seat, and we must remember that just over the "border" of his constituency is a fellow doctor (Dr. Ilona duffy) to run on a "health ticket".
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=61724


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The Paris Psalter: Psalm 100
Verse Indeterminate Saxon/Frankish words.

Mildheortnesse and dom mihtigan drihtnes
singe and secge, and soð ongyte
on unwemmum wege, hwænne þu me wylle to.
Ic mid unbealuwe ealre heortan

5
þurh ðin hus middan halig eode.
Ne sette ic me fore eagum yfele wisan;
ealle ic feode facnes wyrcend,
næs me wyngesið wiðerweard heorte.
Ic awyrgde fram me wende and cyrde;

10
nolde ic hiora andgit ænig habban,
þe tælnessa teonan geneahhige
wið heora þam nehstan nið ahofan;
þara ic ehte ealra mid niðe.
Oferhydegum eagum, unsædre heortan,

15
nolde ic mid þæm men minne mete ðicgean.
Ofer geleaffulle eorðbugende
eagan mine georne sceawedun,
hwær ic tirfæste treowe funde,
þa me symble mid sæton and eodon;

20
he me holdlice her ðegnade.
Ne eardað on midle mines huses,
þe oferhygd up ahebbe
oþþe unriht cweþan elne wille.
Ic on morgenne ofslea manes wyrhtan

25
ealle þe unriht elne worhtan
and fyrena fela gefremed habbað;
ealle ic þa of drihtnes drife ceastre.
see: http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/library/oe/texts/a5.100.html

It is most curious that Calvinism has always sought to control the life and culture of prmarily urban areas, a facet which hhelped it's ghettoisation and undoubtedly effected the style of it's colonial adventures and subsequent post-colonial misadventures, from the Transvaal to East Timor.

I find it _very_ significant, that alone amongst the imperialist powers, only the Calvanist outlawed inter-racial and inter-ethnic marriage. In one small corner of our island, there is a tradition of hatred, bigotry that is almost diametrically opposed to another tradition of hatred and bigotry that to be honest never had it's true home in Ireland.

The MEP who took the banners from Paisley in 1988, was one Dr Von Hapsburg. There are less than two hundred Von Hapsburgs in the phone directory in Europe, so you may presume that ancient traditions clashed that day.

If you're interested in "getting inside the head" of the meglamaniac read the official history of that day:
From:www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=docs

Meanwhile, let us all try, in the Irish community, the European community to recognise the DUP for what it really is, and to stop thinking of the "Unionist" problem as one just of relations between the States of Ireland and the United Kingdom as regulated by International Treaty within the European Union. For the "Kirk" means more, and it's enemies are not just catholic, nor Irish, nor papists.