I received an email just this evening, just an hour ago to be exact, with these photos, copied from FaceBook with a comment:
It has been very discouraging for us to see the downward spiral of the FPC, considering one of the main reasons we moved to Ulster was to be in a strong separatist church.
As I commented in response to the email: ‘This is what wearing the harness of the Orange Order brings about!’
The Orange Order demands of its members that they follow its rules, irrespective of God’s Word.
Solemn Oath
Graham Middleton took an oath at his ordination to carry out the following undertakings:
Will you maintain at all cost to personal reputation and vain worldly popularity the distinctives of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and the three fundamentals of the faith as set out by Dr. Henry Cooke:
a. The Trinity.
b. The Vicarious atonement of Christ.
c. The necessity of the work of the Spirit to originate faith and repentance in the heart of man?
Will you maintain with all the strength God shall give you the position on Biblical separation from apostasy as taken by the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster in 1951 at the time of its secession from the Presbyterian Church in Ireland?
As God helps you will you expose and resist the continued apostasy from Christ manifested within Irish Presbyterianism, Methodism, Episcopalianism and other visible church bodies; exhorting God’s people to obey the teaching and commandment of 1 Timothy 6: 3-5?
To engage with members of an ecumenically controlled organisation like the Orange Order and to fellowship with a member of the apostate Church of Ireland is surely in total repudiation of the undertakings he swore to carry out at his ordination!
Here is the Episcopalian minister Revd Wayne Hawthorne in company with the woman who was ‘ordained’ alongside him.
He thus endorses by his membership of the Church of Ireland its most wicked apostasy and rejection of God’s Word and also the unscriptural ‘ordination’ of women!
The photos have every likeness to a ‘popish’ event!
The Bible says:
“A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife,” 1 Timothy 3:2.
“ . . . ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee:
If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, ,” Titus 1:5-6
I can well understand that these photos will vex and disappoint many faithful Free Presbyterians who will immediately see the compromise and the disobedience of God’s Word that is entailed in these photos.
One minister with whom I shared the email said:
‘IT JUST GETS WORSE’
And so it does when one who in the past raised his voice against compromise within the Free Presbyterian Church is now seen to have joined with that compromise.
I read just this morning, not realising that I would see a modern day example of what it was I read before the evening was out:
“But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation (hypocrisy, stage acting)” Galatians 2:11-13.
Just what is gained by a minister who deserts the cause of God that he was ordained to preach and protect, and join with the enemies of the gospel?
I am sure many in the Free Presbyterian Church know exactly how Paul felt at the shameful folly of Barnabas!
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
26th September 2026