On Monday 18th September, I received the following email at 8.03 am.
Hi Rev Foster,
Long time, no speak.
Rodney Edwards here, now the Editor of The Impartial Reporter.
I would be very keen to feature you in the paper this week regarding your comments on the DUP and a ‘United Ireland’.
Would you care to expand on those thoughts in a 900-word piece?
At 11.29, I sent in the requested article. However, unsurprisingly, it was not received with enthusiasm by the ‘Impartial Editor’.
I set forth excerpts from his response.
Thanks, Rev. Foster.
The term ‘sodomy’ is pejorative and, indeed, offensive to very many. Can I change this to homosexuality?
I have a responsablity, (sic) you will understand, to be careful with our use of language and not to cause offence.
I defended my position and refused to allow any substitution of the Bible term ‘sodomy’.
Today, Mr Edwards enlarged upon his reasons for rejecting my article. Again I give an excerpt from his email of this morning.
I must address some concerns regarding the proposed article you submitted. When I initially approached you, the focus was on further expanding your remarks regarding the DUP’s role in the United Ireland debate. Regrettably, the article you provided delves into areas that were not part of our original discussion.
Specifically, I noted two aspects that present complications for me as the Editor:
- Your use of the term “sodomy” in reference to homosexuality.
- The inclusion of comments that could be perceived as sectarian in relation to the number of Catholic individuals in Northern Ireland.
I want to clarify that I did not request either of these viewpoints, and their inclusion in the article would put us in violation of our editorial policies. Such content could be construed as homophobic and sectarian, which goes against the principles of responsible journalism and respectful discourse that we uphold.
As the Editor, I cannot proceed with publishing the article in its current form. However, I respect your right to express your opinions, and I believe there are two possible ways forward:
- You could edit the article to remove the problematic points, focusing solely on your perspective as a founding member of the DUP. I would be more than willing to publish this revised version.
- We could consider using a modified version of the article in our Letters page, perhaps as a shortened version that emphasises your perspective on the DUP. This could provide a platform for your viewpoint without violating our editorial policies.
Neither of these offers were acceptable to me, as they entailed a withdrawing the essence of what i wrote in my original article.
Therefore I replied as follows.
Dear Mr Edwards,
Your response does not come as a surprise, as I am sure you will recognise.
I can only say that you follow hard in the footsteps of your predecessors, especially Mr McDaniels, who very publicly seemed to glory in extolling his perceived glories of Roman Catholicism.
Such a view is the product of the influence of the teaching of ‘Ecumenism’, with its repudiation of the doctrines of the Bible and the Protestant Reformation.
I am no more ‘anti-Roman Catholicism’ than are the foundational creeds and confessions of the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches. Every minister of these aforesaid denominations made a commitment to, at least some degree, teach these ‘official’ articles of faith and that in order to ‘draw their wages’! And yet in truth, the pulpits of these denominations daily ring with denials and repudiations of the doctrines that were publicly avowed!
Your newspaper carried an article about one of your guest columnists, Bernadette McAliskey, one of the most hostile anti-unionist agitators this generation has known. In the article you happily reported her glorying in her infamous physical assault in Westminster upon Government minister, Reginald Maudling, highlighting her wish that she had been more effective in her attack and also the assault upon another MP by her fellow nationalist, Frank McManus, who she says ‘hit Biggs Davis an uppercut.’
You printed that without any hesitation, correction or curtailment!!
You claim that my article was outside the remit you set for me. May I remind you of what you emailed to me, unbidden, on Monday 18th September?
“I would be very keen to feature you in the paper this week regarding your comments on the DUP and a ‘United Ireland’. Would you care to expand on those thoughts in a 900-word piece?”
It was a ‘short-lived’ keenness! Just how did I stray from these two issues?
I leave that for others to judge.
You set forth in your latest email my infractions of the parameters you set for the article. You wrote:
“Specifically, I noted two aspects that present complications for me as the Editor:
- Your use of the term “sodomy” in reference to homosexuality.
- The inclusion of comments that could be perceived as sectarian in relation to the number of Catholic individuals in Northern Ireland.
I want to clarify that I did not request either of these viewpoints, and their inclusion in the article would put us in violation of our editorial policies. Such content could be construed as homophobic and sectarian, which goes against the principles of responsible journalism and respectful discourse that we uphold.”
I contend that both my references are a legitimate enlarging on the topic you set me! One deals with the departure of the DUP of late from its former views to that of support and sympathy for the sin of ‘sodomy’ and the other a fact regarding the prospering of the nationalist population in Northern ireland, while maintaining an unremitting tirade of unjust criticism and widespread support of terrorism on the part of many in that community!
The use of the word ‘sodomy’ is entirely proper and Christian. Those offended by it are so because it reminds them of what happened to those predecessors whose wickedness they follow when God damned the cities of the practicers of this perversion. (Genesis 19:24-25, Jude 1:7).
Just how is it sectarian, as you claim, to state statistical data regarding the nationalist population in Northern Ireland?
In truth Mr Edwards, if you could honestly assess yourself, it is clear that you live in fear of upsetting any of a Irish nationalist persuasion lest it affects the circulation figures of your newspaper and thereby your future employment.
As an ‘award winning’ journalist writing for the the Dublin-based, ‘Irish Independent’ and the ‘Sunday Independent’, you obviously were well prepared to be the editor of the once Unionist ‘Impartial Reporter’, which presently exists it seems to repudiate its former viewpoint if not its very title!
I will be publishing my article on my ‘Burning Bush’ website along with some relevant extracts from our email exchanges.
Regards,
Ivan Foster. (23/9/23 – 11.08 am)
Here is the article I sent to Mr Edwards.
Some thoughts on the present direction of the DUP and the possibility of a ‘United Ireland’
by Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
The ‘Impartial Reporter’ was a familiar weekly visitor to our home in Keenaghy, some two miles east of Lisnaskea, where I was born, since ever I can remember. It has to be said that today’s publication would hardly have been recognised by the readership back then! However, I will be expressing in this article, views that would be familiar to its readers of old.
In a fluid and fluctuating world, some things do not change, despite those who agitate for revision and reconstruction. I became a Christian in April 1964, when I was just past my 20th birthday. From that moment I became of aware that were certain verities that were unchanging and unchangeable! I have sought to live my life by those divinely instituted maxims ever since.
For this reason, events within Unionism have been most unwelcome to me and I have sought to oppose such. I refer particularly to developments within the Democratic Unionist Party since 2006. That party was formed to counter the departure from traditional political dogmas which were manifested in the Ulster Unionist Party in the days of the late Terence O’Neill. Whatever may have levelled against him, I do not think he would ever have contemplated a coalition with Sinn Fein, especially when prominent members of that party made no secret of their part in the terrorist ‘troubles’ which began in 1968!
Since that selfishly motivated decision to join a ‘power-sharing’ regime with Sinn Fein in early 2007, the Democratic Unionist Party has experienced a steady decline into a sea of deceit and chicanery which in turn has cost it many of its most faithful supporters. Like many who foolishly dig a hole for themselves, the DUP have continued to excavate the ground from under their feet with decisions regarding such moral issues as abortion, sodomy and the ethical conundrum of the LGBT community!
The founders of that Party would not recognise at all the public position that it has adopted, all in an effort to retain support at the polls and have the approval of the ‘political influencers’ who abound today!
However, the fact remains that many of the political views adopted by the DUP of late are in total opposition to the unchangeable teaching of God’s Word. That being so, no matter how the changes may be welcomed by ‘the great and the good’ of the ecumenical world, they are an offence to God for which there will be dire consequences, in God’s good time, for the Party and all who go along with its innovations.
God is unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth (Shorter Catechism, Question/Answer 4). Such teaching is but a repeating of what the Lord has said of Himself. “For I am the LORD, I change not,” Malachi 3:6. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever,” Hebrews 13:8.
Men, in their desire for change, put away such truths, though they utterly fail to alter or change the sovereign providence that rules the affairs of the nations. This Ulster will yet learn.
Our Unionist forefathers combined together to oppose the British Government’s plan to give all of Ireland, ‘Home Rule’. The banners under which they mustered were ‘For God and Ulster’ and ‘Home Rule is Rome Rule’. I believe that the outcome of that controversy indicates that the ‘Sovereign Ruler of the Skies’, as John Ryland’s old hymn refers to the God of Heaven, was pleased to favour the stand taken by our Protestant forefathers.
If, as I believe, that Northern Ireland was born out of God’s intervention because of the desire of our Protestant forebears to preserve the witness to the gospel of Christ from corruption, then anything contrary to the objectives of our ancestors will not meet with Heaven’s approval and can only bring disaster.
A united Ireland faintly materialises into view in the distance. It may be denied but with all the ‘intermarrying’ of Dublin’s institutions with the structures of government here, the reality of the approach of that which our ancestors considered anathema, can hardly be denied!
If it does take place, then I believe that it will as a judgment upon Northern Ireland for its departure, both religiously and politically, from the position espoused by the Protestant men and women of the 1912 era. If, as I claim, that position was owned of God and resulted in the formation of Northern Ireland, then it stands to reason that an abandoning of the aspirations of 1912 can only bring a manifestation of God’s disapproval.
The fears of our Protestant forefathers as expressed in the slogan, ‘Home Rule is Rome Rule’, have been justified in the diminishing number of Protestants in the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland. It may be observed that the number of Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland has increased substantially. I will leave others to draw the obvious conclusion that such a fact suggests.
The essential element of Protestantism is ‘Civil and Religious Liberty For All’. Despite the relentless campaign of vilification of the northern Protestant, the atmosphere of Northern Ireland has been conducive to an increased Roman Catholic community, aided doubtless by the many generous grants and subsidies that community enjoyed, though without the slightest acknowledgement of them!
The more honest of that community know, even if they do not confess such too loudly, that the benefits will not continue in a ‘United Ireland’ except Great Britain offers a huge financial package whenever the ‘deal’ is done to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom.
Let it ever be borne in mind that whatever national circumstances are born of judgment do not bring any betterment to friend or foe of the changes that come about.