Critics form new Orange Order group
A NEW traditionalist movement has been formed within the Orange Order as prominent dissenters from the Institution's modernising strategy seek to make their voice heard.
Leaflets promoting the Orange Reformation movement were distributed at 12 of the 17 Twelfth demonstrations on Monday and the Rev Stephen Dickinson, one of the Orange Order's Grand chaplains who has been heavily involved in the group, outlined its aims in a Twelfth speech.
The Rev Dickinson, a former Deputy Grand Master, told the News Letter that he and a number of other Orangemen all of whom are at district or county level officers and include representatives to Grand Lodge had been meeting for around a year to discuss launching the movement.
Under the banner 'Putting Protestantism Back Into Orangeism', the Orange Reformation leaflet handed out at demonstrations said that the movement would focus on spiritual, political, cultural and social aspects of the Order and set out 11 aims, among which are:
* 'Restoring the centrality of the Protestant faith'
* 'Retain the traditional Twelfth demonstration'
* 'Attract new members into the Institution who adhere to the qualifications of an Orangeman'
* 'Operate to give a clear voice to those discouraged by the current direction being taken on key issues'.
Last night a spokesman for the Orange Order said: "The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland has received no official notification of this movement and is unable to comment at this time."
However, a senior Orange source said that there were "strong feelings" within the Institution's leadership that the Order's future should be debated within "the privacy of Grand Lodge meetings and not in public".
The Rev Dickinson, a Presbyterian minister in Glenarm, told the News Letter that the new movement would be primarily spiritual, rather than political and said that an information evening would be held in Ballymena's Braid Centre on September 4.
Addressing the crowds at Monday's Twelfth demonstration in Coagh, the Rev Dickinson launched a ferocious attack on the Orange Order leadership.
He denounced it's "modernisers" as "compromisers", using Biblical language to compare them to Old Testament idolators.
It is understood that there is a rift between the Rev Dickinson, a former Deputy Grand Master, and both Grand Master Robert Saulters and Grand Secretary Drew Nelson.
In his public speeches at the weekend and a letter to the News Letter last week, Mr Saulters attacked dissenters and on Monday told the Ballymoney demonstration that "the sun or the idea of the Twelfth seems to bring out the soap box argument" among some Orangemen.
But, speaking at the Coagh demonstration, the Rev Dickinson said: "We have got all sorts of other groups formed, Ulster Scots groups, community groups that are a cover up for the Orange Order to get funding from agencies that won't give funding directly to the Orange Order, that's why we need a movement called Orange Reformation to challenge more effectively the compromising modernisers."
Later in his remarks, the Rev Dickinson said: "We will seek to reclaim the Orange Institution for God and we will endeavour to put Protestantism back into Orangeism.
"After the Battle of the Diamond in 1795, the Protestants formed a circle, joined hands and declared their brotherhood in loyalty to the crown, the country and the reformed faith, brethren that's why we need Orange Reformation today, to reform the circle, to rejoin the hands and to oppose the betrayal of Protestantism within Orangeism today."
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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