Stormont Executive Founded on Secularism.

Stormont Executive Founded on Secularism.

May 1997 saw New Labour, infected by secularism, sweep into power; in a short space of time, the corridors of power and the cabinet office were awash with secularist ideals; reform of the House of Lords, removal of religion from the political establishment, implementation of equality legislation so as to undermine Christian values, the shifting of ethical values from the Word of God and pitching them upon human reasoning.

In a relatively short time GB has become the global hub of secularism and a spawning ground for secular humanism and atheism to the demise of Biblical Christianity. So it was in such an environment, that Northern Ireland’s peace process was evaluated by the British government. Mr Blair gathered our local politicians, along with the Irish government officials, around the negotiating table to manufacture an agreement that would, in theory, end Ulster’s troubles for good.

It must be remembered that Mr Blair’s spin doctor, Alister Campbell had said; ‘we don’t do God’; and it is precisely in this context that the Belfast Agreement was established. Good Friday was chosen, to give the pretext of religious significance, to suit the Ulster people; but there was nothing of religious or moral value, in a political agreement founded on secular and not Scriptural values.

This Agreement, based entirely on secularism, was a prototype, to install equality at the expense of morality, to provide political settlement without the endorsement of God’s Word; and to bring peace at any cost to Ulster. However, the DUP felt at that time, they could not sign up to the Belfast Agreement and so little progress was made for a few years. After a time, the local politicians, together with the British and Irish government officials arrived at St Andrews and formulated another political agreement which made it possible to include the DUP. Nothing had changed as to the secular foundation of the agreement, just a little air brushing of the secular language in the wording; the venue had a particular protestant connotation, but alas, there was no room for Scriptural principle, let alone precept.

What is so remarkable, is that the leader of the DUP and of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, Rev Ian Paisley, did sign up to this agreement, that was from the outset built upon secularism; one would have imagined, that if anybody would have objected to such and agreement built on any foundation other than God’s Word, then he would have. Remarkably this was not the case; after a referendum, Rev Ian Paisley took the seat of First Minister with Martin McGuinness as his deputy; the prototype no God political formula had finally worked; the irony being, that it took the expertise of an evangelical protestant gospel minister to make it happen.

The Ulster protestant had been deceived, what they had voted for, was a political agreement that they had taken for granted, was founded upon Christian values and principles, as one would expect in a Christian democracy; what they didn’t realise was that the agreement stood on the foundation of secularism without Christianity. There was no difficulty for the republican and nationalist voters of Sinn Fein to be identified with the agreement as their party is a self declared ‘secular party’.

However, for the unionists, there was a problem; while some considered the implementation of a political power sharing executive as necessary for stability and peace, they will be far from pleased when they discover that basic Christian foundational principles have been replaced with secular philosophy. While evangelical Protestants initially considered the agreement to be a sell out to Republicanism and an abandonment of their civil and religious liberty, they will be astounded to discover moreover, the executive at Stormont to be built on secularism to the exclusion of Reformed Faith values.

Indeed it is a sad day for Roman Catholics and Protestants in Ulster, to discover that secularism has triumphed to the extent that our political establishment is built solely upon a secular and Godless foundation; where basic Christian principles and values are removed from government. Our Westminster government, laden with secularism, imagined that religion solely was the root of Ulster’s troubles and acted decisively to have it removed; what do we have now?; a political establishment without moral authority and without a Christian foundation; this will ultimately lead to a Godless society, where wickedness and evil know no bounds.

Rev Mervyn Cotton (Heb13:6)