Letter: Presbyterian Church in Ireland has become dominated by fundamentalists

On March 13, 1990 the Irish Independent reported on Rev Robin MacDermott’s installation as moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland’s (PCI) Synod of Dublin.

In his address, Mr MacDermott declared there to be a “clearer and harder distinction now between ‘us and them’, the conservative and liberal; evangelical and ecumenical; traditional and radical, than there has been in the past”. And with “no respect for each other’s opinions”.

He warned of the danger of one group taking over, excluding the other, with church officials then representing only one viewpoint, thus alienating a substantial section of the membership, depriving it of the richness, breadth and depth of variety.

Mr MacDermott’s warnings have proved to be prophetic. In the intervening years, and especially during the tenure of the current Clerk of Assembly, PCI has become dominated by fundamentalists. This has manifested itself most notably in the policy adopted in 2018, excluding gays from full membership and denying their children baptism. Additionally, there is now a striking lack of support for women’s ministry.

Underpinning these policy shifts has been a crushing of dissenting voices. Local presbytery commissions have been used to expose and penalise individuals or perspectives deemed objectionable.

Too often matters have been escalated to PCI’s higher Judicial Commission, ensuring that proceedings were controlled by those with their hands on the levers of power. While all of this is mandated by the PCI’s ‘code’, many of the procedures used fall well short of modern day standards of natural justice, particularly in relation to current norms of human dignity and respect.

I became an early casualty of these new hardline policies and procedures when in 2019 I was dismissed as a church elder on foot of my same-sex marriage, following a quite unnecessary investigation process.

Over the subsequent six years there was what I consider to have been a campaign led by men who were afflicted by the sin of certainty. They shifted their attention to Rev Katherine Meyer, minister of my Sandymount congregation in Dublin.

They subjected her to three successive investigations, culminating on December 3, 2024 with her resignation from ministry after 37 years’ service. She said it had become impossible for her to cooperate with disciplinary processes "so flawed and destructive".

One of the charges levelled against Rev Meyer was that she attended a service led by a gay Christian group Amach le Dia (Out with God), which was broadcast on RTE TV, at which she read a lesson.

Did she promote homosexuality? No. Did she perhaps promote views at odds with PCI’s theology? Absolutely not. Church authorities accused her of contumacy, a stubborn refusal to obey authority. But more accurately, her ‘crime’ was to follow her conscience by responding pastorally to a marginalised group.

Since my own story broke in September 2019, former and current Church members have contacted me with tales of PCI church officials treating them appallingly.

This has included women subjected to misogyny by male complementarian ministers; claims of eldership elections rigged or manipulated to exclude women; complaints of being sidelined or even just ignored; church members being hounded out by false accusations of marital affairs. And when these matters have been taken up by church officials, inadequate investigations have silenced complainants.

A dossier outlining serious allegations of wrongdoing by PCI has been submitted to Northern Ireland’s Charity Commissioner by a former senior-ranking Northern Ireland politician. Additionally, cases have been brought to the Northern Ireland Employment Tribunal that comprise allegations such as bullying, racism and snooping.

On December 6 I was interviewed on BBC NI’s Evening Extra radio show about Katherine Meyer’s resignation, which ended with a similar invitation extended to PCI. Over the years there have been innumerable such invitations by both print and broadcast media which are met either with silence or the stock reply that “it would not be appropriate to comment, but there are two sides to a story”. Yet PCI always refuses to submit to questioning, thus dodging accountability.

Clearly, Rev Robin MacDermott’s predictions have all come to pass. Bible-literalists have created an intolerant institution, one brooking no dissent, and which is now devoid of any allowance for personal conscience. Prof Ruth Whelan, a Dublin Presbyterian and distinguished academic, was recently quoted saying that PCI was now reduced to being a “sect rather than a church”.

It is ironic that a Church whose democratic governance structures were founded upon dissent should now embrace some of the autocratic characteristics of the body it rebelled against.

Local presbyteries now take instruction from the ‘curia’ at Assembly Buildings in Belfast; presbytery and judicial commissions conduct ‘inquisitions’ to root out ‘heresy’; all presided over by the Clerk of Assembly as ‘supreme pontiff’, in practice answerable to nobody but God.

John Knox and John Calvin must be spinning in their graves.

Steven Smyrl, Rathgar, Dublin 6