Atheist Ireland Forum

In addition to his leadership of the DUP, he is a founding member and current Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster.

Paisley promotes a highly conservative form of Biblical literalism, which he describes as "Bible Protestantism". The website of Paisley's public relations arm, the European Institute of Protestant Studies (ianpaisley.org), describes the Institute's purpose as to "expound the Bible, expose the Papacy, and to promote, defend and maintain Bible Protestantism in Europe and further afield." Paisley's website describes a number of doctrinal areas in which he believes that the "Roman church" has deviated from the Bible and thus from true Christianity. These include the doctrine of transubstantiation, which Paisley claims on his website has given rise to "revolting superstitions and idolatrous abuses", the veneration of saints and the Virgin Mary (excessive and not Biblically supported, in Paisley's view), and the institution of the Papacy, which Paisley believes has no biblical foundation.

He preaches against homosexuality and supports laws criminalising its practice. He and his organisation have publicly spoken out against what he views to be blasphemy in popular culture, including criticism of the stage productions Jesus Christ Superstar and Jerry Springer: The Opera. On at least one issue, Paisley shares views with his Catholic counterparts; he opposes legal abortion.

Though often at political odds with the Republic of Ireland, he has some religious followers in the Republic. It was specifically in his religious capacity that he first agreed to meet the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. Paisley revised this stance in September 2004, when he agreed to meet Ahern in his political capacity as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. Known for a sense of humour, at an early meeting with Ahern at the Irish embassy in London, Paisley requested breakfast and asked for boiled eggs; when Ahern asked him why he had wanted boiled eggs, Paisley quipped "it would be hard for you to poison them", much to Ahern's amusement.

Paisley, an ardent teetotaller all his life, has sometimes asked journalists and nationalist politicians "let me smell your breath" when they asked him tough questions, insinuating that they had taken on board some alcohol, or "devil's buttermilk" as he often puts it.

He undertook theological training at the fundamentalist Barry School of Evangelism (eventually renamed the South Wales Bible College which was later replaced by the Evangelical Theological College of Wales), and later, for a year, at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Hall in Belfast.

[edit] Founding of the Free Presbyterian Church

In 1946 he was ordained at a ceremony in the independent Ravenhill Evangelical Mission Church on the Ravenhill Road, Belfast. Four ministers from four different denominations performed various roles in the service but some have questioned whether they had ecclesiastical authority from their churches to participate. In the early 1950s permission for Ian Paisley to use Lissara Presbyterian church in Crossgar, County Down for a Gospel Mission was revoked by the local presbytery. In conjunction with the Lissara Kirk session Ian Paisley helped to establish the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster at Crossgar, County Down. Following a vote in his own church he joined the Free Presbyterian Church and was subsequently elected the second moderator of the new denomination, a post he has held for several decades.