“Church claims pupils called ‘bullies’ over homosexuality views”, so ran a headline of a BBC online news report here in Northern Ireland. It was a report on a meeting between representatives of the ‘Transferor Representatives’ Council (TRC)’ and MLAs on Stormont’s Education Committee. The chair of the education committee is Alliance MLA, Nick Mathison.
In the ‘Belfast Newsletter’, the report on the same matter was headlined: “Presbyterian and Methodist churches defend sex education (RSE) in Northern Ireland controlled schools to Sinn Fein and Alliance Party MLAs”.
The ‘Transferor Representatives’ Council’ (TRC) represents the three largest Protestant denominations, which handed some 500 schools into state care from the 1920s-50s, thus creating the controlled sector.
Dr Andrew Brown and Dr Rebecca Stevenson represented the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and Dr Anita Gracie the Methodist Church in Ireland.

The BBC news report served to highlight the depths of the acceptance of the corruptions of false doctrine within ecumenical denominations here, while the ‘Belfast Newsletter’ emphasised, ‘Sinn Fein and Alliance MLAs have pressed Protestant church representatives to justify why a Christian perspective should be valid in sex education in controlled schools.’
Both Sinn Fein and Alliance parties would be most happy to see every last remnant of Bible truth removed from state school classrooms.
Stormont’s Education Committee
The representatives from the TRC were there at Stormont to give evidence about Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) before Stormont’s Education Committee.
If the Government has its way, it will soon be compulsory for all post-primary schools in Northern Ireland to teach pupils about access to abortion and prevention of early pregnancy. Such is the result of former Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris laying regulations on RSE in Parliament in 2023.
Methodism
The report contains the comments on the matter by a the Methodist ‘minister’ Dr Anita Gracie. The apostasy from the Word of God of that denomination was thus immediately set forth. The Bible states that a “bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach,” 1 Timothy 3:2. There is in these words a total ruling out of a woman holding the office of a bishop or elder. A New Testament minister is but an elder who labours “in the word and doctrine,” 1 Timothy 5:17.
This unscriptural ‘minister’ made plain her departure from the truth of God.
“Dr Anita Gracie from the Methodist Church said that teachers were trained not to allow ‘homophobic remarks’”. “The ethos of the school is care for the pupil and for them to be at the heart of everything we do,” she said.
Sinn Féin MLA, Pat Sheehan, asked: “If the ethos of the school says that homosexuality is wrong, it’s sinful and it’s an abomination how does that make a young gay person in a school feel?”
Dr Anita Gracie replied, “Our schools have a non-denominational Christian ethos. So that teaching that you’re outlining there, that homosexuality is wrong – an abomination – is not the teaching of all of our churches completely, every single Christian church,’ she added.”
Thus, for the Methodists, Dr Gracie repudiated the teaching of the Bible and indicated that as far as she was concerned, such teaching has no place in the State school!
Christian parents, please take note of that. Here is one church which does not support the teaching of God’s Word on Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) in schools.
Presbyterian Church
Dr Andrew Brown, who sits on the TRC representing the Presbyterian Church, said that while RSE was “vital” they shared “concern over the content mandated by the former secretary of state for Northern Ireland”.
Dr Brown’s contribution, in keeping with the views of his denomination on morality, sodomy and its allied evil practices, was a mixture of ‘iron and clay’!
The teaching of ‘RSE’ is anything but vital. It is an evil imposition by those who are the “enemies of the cross of Christ”.
It is an attempt to infuse into the minds of children notions and views to which they ought not to be introduced in a school. The Law of God is the only guide children need. The lesson is simple in the face of today’s profligate promiscuity! “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” Exodus 20:14. The Shorter Catechism says of this, the seventh commandment: “The seventh commandment requireth the preservation of our own and our neighbour’s chastity, in heart, speech, and behaviour. Furthermore it states: “The seventh commandment forbiddeth all unchaste thoughts, words, and actions.”
Such exhortations are supported by verses from God’s Word.
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret,” Ephesians 5:11-12.
“Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace,” 2 Timothy 2:22.
“Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient,” Ephesians 5:4.
“Fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you,” Ephesians 5:3.
RSE flies directly in the face of these truths and seeks to justify immorality, unnatural relationships, the murder of the unborn and unchaste behaviour and to make such a part of the common discussions of the classroom!
RSE is the devil’s attempt to take over the classroom to a greater degree than he has already accomplished through impure books in literature classes and the teaching of evolution in virtually every curricular subject!
Having endorsed RSE to a measure, Dr Brown then waffled on in a placatory manner. He said: “It was important to teach ‘critical thinking’ as RSE was ‘more than facts, it’s more than biology, it’s more than the law’. It is about world views and examining those world views,” he said.
The world rather than the Lord
Yes, the world’s present ‘lawless’ thinking, in complete opposition to the Word of God, is what is directing this evil agenda! The RSE classroom will have no place for the truth of God.
Dr Brown rightly observed: “One of the things that people are slightly scared of in today’s society is that they’re potentially only allowed to say what is current. They’re scared to be able to voice their own opinions in case they’re perhaps politically incorrect.”
He then gave an example of this: “Dr Brown said he had been contacted about a workshop run by an outside organisation in a school during anti-bullying week, which takes place every November.
They had a group of sixth formers together,” he said. The pupils were all asked to raise their hands if they thought that homosexuality was wrong, and some of the pupils raised their hands.
The person who was leading that workshop turned to them in front of everybody else and said: ‘You’re bullies’.
He said they were ‘told quite categorically by a visiting group, who would also be involved in the delivery of RSE, that believing something made them wrong or made them bullies.”
This is nothing more than a revealing of the ‘heart’ of those pressing for the teaching of RSE in the State school.
That being so, how can Dr Brown complain about such a spirit and yet claims inexplicably that the teaching of RSE was ‘vital’?
Dr Brown, like all evangelicals in the Ecumenical Churches, is a ‘Mr Facing-Both-Ways’!! He wants to ‘run with the hare and also to hunt with the hounds!’ Such are of the spirit of the Laodiceans to who the Lord said: “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth,” Revelation 3:16.
I can but pray that the Free Presbyterian Church will have a chance to tell the Stormont Education Committee what the Bible says of RSE and it is for this reason that we reject its evil programme.
NSPCC
It should be noted by those who support charities, that earlier in the hearing, “the NSPCC gave evidence and said it was firmly against any parent being able to opt their children out of any part of RSE.”
A charity with such a view as the NSPCC should not be supported by any Christian! The initials NSPCC might well stand for ‘The National Society for the Corrupting Children’!
The organisation also said that it was “very keen to access all home schooled children in Northern Ireland with its education package.” It also stated that “there were only 10 schools in Northern Ireland which appeared to be resistant to allowing it access to pupils, but that it was working to gain access.”
Let Free Presbyterian Church Independent Christian Schools take note!
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
11th October 2024