New Presbyterian moderator speaks out on homophobia, Brexit, and more

The Rev William Henry made the comments during a wide-ranging press conference in the church’s headquarters in Belfast today, having been elected as replacement for Rev Dr Charles McMullan on Tuesday by a landslide.

He will formally take up the post of heading up the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in June, after 11 of the 19 Presbyteries backed him. His nearest runner-up was Rev David Bruce, with four votes.

He said he is “evangelical” when asked where he would be on the liberal-traditionalist spectrum.

He had also stood as moderator last year.

Hailing from Mallusk on the north-west edge of Newtownabbey, Rev Henry has a chemistry degree but eschewed a science career to pursue the Gospel.

In the roughly 20 years he has been minister in Maze Presbyterian Church, west of Lisburn, it has grown from about 100 Sunday worshippers to about 300.

At age 50 now, he will be one of the youngest moderators in history.

However, from 1930-31 a man called Rev Dr Gilbert Patton MC served in the role, at age 49.

Rev Henry lives in Lisburn, is married to Nora, and has three children – Bethany (20), Megan (18), and Connor (14).

Here are his views on a few topics he was quizzed about:

• Brexit:

“We’re an all-Ireland church [with an] all-island perspective. We’d be wanting to make sure there is something workable on both sides, in both jurisdictions...

“I’m not going to try and pretend I’ve an answer to the technicalities our politicians are needing to work through just now. If I’d an answer to that, Theresa May wouldn’t be up at Stormont – she’d be here listening to me.

“But certainly what I can do is I can encourage people to pray for a solution – because we need a solution, something that gives a degree of certainty for our people...

“There are of course deep feelings around the backstop, but I think as a church we’ve a responsibility to pray. So we’ll be praying for Mrs May, praying for Mr Varadkar, praying for the EU officials – particularly as there are discussions going on today and tomorrow there’d be a resolution that can get that broad consensus and bring real change.”

Asked by the News Letter whether he was a Remainer or a Leaver, he would not answer – with Presbyterian clerk Trevor Gribben chipping in to say “probably none of you as journalists would tell us what way you voted, either!”

He said it was “immaterial” how he voted, and pressed by the BBC on whether he would ever reveal his Brexit stance, he said: “I wouldn’t think so!”

• Homosexuality:

Last year the General Assembly adopted a position that children of people in gay relationships would not be baptised, sparking criticism from more liberal quarters.

“There are very few within our denomination that could disagree this has been a difficult year for our church. It has been deeply challenging,” said Rev Henry.

“Our present moderator Dr McMullan and others have expressed that sense of hurt many people will have experienced because of the decisions of our last General Assembly.

“We’ve a recognition that our denomination is a family. And sometimes when any family gets together there’ll be those fallouts, as it were. Maybe ‘fallouts’ is a bit extreme, but certainly a difference of opinion.

“We’ll be stressing of course that everyone is valued. Everyone is loved by God.

“We as a church would reject all aspects of homophobia – that’s clearly wrong in every situation.”

He went on to say that if gay marriage is legalised, “we’d accept that”, albeit “with a degree of sadness”.

However “it would not change the position of our church” – namely, that a Biblical perspective on marriage is exclusively between one man and one woman.

• Women moderators:

Rev Henry was asked at one point by the BBC: “Another year goes by and still no woman moderator – what is going on within the church?”

He said “realistically I do think it’s only a matter of time”.

“We’ve had women minister, women ministers who’ve been acting as moderators of Presbytery. It’s just that we’re dealing with a smaller pool... that’s why there are bound to be more men who are up for consideration.”

Women have been elders since the 1920s and ministers since 1976.

Currently about 6.5% of the church’s ministers, both retired and active, are women. Of the active ones, about 6% are women.

He does not believe there was any “anti-woman vote going on,” noting that a woman, Rev Mairisine Stanfield, was among the contenders in Tuesday’s gathering, garnering three votes.

“Even Mairisine I don’t think would necessarily see herself as a woman minister. She’s a minister who happens to be a woman.”

• Union Theological College:

The Presbyterian-run college has long been part of the Institute of Theology at Queen’s University Belfast, but the university recently suspended enrolment of undergraduates for 2019/20 after a review which voiced concerns over the “breadth and diversity of the teaching”.

“I’m certainly disappointed with the decision, because what that does is it denies some of our young people the choice to follow their dream, and to study theology at the highest academic level...

“My middle daughter had an 18th birthday just recently. Even at a relatively small gathering in our house... in that one social gathering, there were three 18-year-olds who wanted to apply to study theology at Queen’s this year and that’s been denied.”