Greg Daly
The new moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland has said that bigotry is common in his denomination and something he struggled to overcome in himself when asked to minister in Dublin as a young man. Speaking on Sunday Sequence on BBC Radio Ulster, Dr Frank Sellar, who was elected moderator in February but took over last week, said he had had to face his own bigotry towards Catholics when he was a young man.
“Quite early on, after I qualified as a teacher, I remember being given a challenge by the Lord to work and live in Dublin, and for me at that time, as someone from Coleraine, someone from a unionist Presbyterian background that was a very big ask,” he said.
Noting that his own bigotry was fuelled by fear, but was “passive” and never expressed “in an aggressive way”, he said he was grateful that God had given him the grace to overcome it.
Such bigotry is common among Presbyterians today, he said, noting “we’re all hypocrites” and stressing that “There’s not one of us who’s perfect – the Church is for people who are not yet perfect, and if anybody thinks the Church is a place of perfect people they’ve got it wrong.”
Warning against basing our identities in denominations, political philosophies or football teams, he said through finding their identity in Christ people can find the security to enable them to reach out to others.