Man with a moderating mission

Profile - Rev Dr Ken Newell: He angered fellow Presbyterians by inviting Archbishop Seán Brady to the church's General Assembly, but Rev Dr Ken Newell is still highly respected by many, writes Patsy McGarry

There has to be something good about a man labelled "Judas" by the Rev Ian Paisley. That angry old man added "traitor" and "perjurer" as he and a band of like-minded followers protested outside the Presbyterian Church's headquarters in Belfast last Monday. The object of such generous denunciation was Rev Dr Ken Newell, the new moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. He invited "Anti-Christ" Pope John Paul's representative on Irish earth, Archbishop Seán Brady, to his installation this week.

However, and not as intended, Rev Paisley did Dr Newell a very great favour. By the extremity of his language and behaviour outside Church House in Belfast on Monday, he silenced those would-be critics-within of Newell, for inviting Archbishop Brady.

Three presbyteries - of the church's 21 - had expressed "hurt" at the invitation prior to this week's general assembly and Dr Paisley's protest. Other presbyteries too were uneasy at the invitation but refrained from expressing this out of respect for the office of moderator - held in high esteem by all Presbyterians.

It was expected the matter would be raised at Tuesday morning's session of the general assembly. There wasn't a murmur. No matter how deeply some delegates felt, none wanted to be associated with Dr Paisley's sentiments. They chose silence, and a little cunning, instead. The "cunning" was evident in a ham-fisted amendment to a resolution proposed by Rev Andy Kerr, nephew of the moderator, on Wednesday, which many delegates believed was out of order. Posited as a call for consideration of how the church's doctrine of justification by faith might be "proclaimed relevantly" in these days, it was a veiled criticism of Archbishop Brady's presence on Monday. The amendment was passed, 163 in favour, 161 against.

Nothing quite illustrates as well as that vote just how Ken Newell is seen by his church. In a deeply conservative institution, he makes very many people feel uneasy. It explains in part why he became moderator by the skin of his teeth. Last year he tied with, then lost on a second ballot to, Rev Dr Ivan McKay, who stood down as moderator on Monday.

In a vote in February this year he tied again, this time with Rev Harry Uprichard, and won the second ballot in March, by three votes. In reality it was much closer.

Two presbyteries changed sides from February. Monaghan, which was the only presbytery to vote for a third candidate (Rev Alastair Kennedy) in February, changed to Rev Dr Newell in March. And, most intriguingly, Derry/Strabane presbytery changed from Rev Uprichard to Rev Dr Newell. No one knows why. Few in the church expected the outcome.

This rather "graceless" conferring of the moderatorship on Dr Newell is related to a perception of him within the church as something of a maverick, prone to playing ducks and drakes with its carefully wrought theology. For very many Presbyterians he is too much his own man, illustrated for them again this week by that invitation to Archbishop Brady - the first time a Catholic primate has been asked to a session of the general assembly.

The protests of "hurt" at the Archbishop Brady invitation by presbyteries in advance of the general assembly and the vote on the Kerr amendment last Wednesday are being seen as warning shots to the new moderator, alerting him to the fact that he is being watched.

A man with a startling abundance of the whitest hair, Newell is not unlike a taller, stockier Dermot Morgan, but he takes no pleasure in being addressed as "Father Ted". A warm personality, liked even by those wary of him, he was described this week by one influential church figure, who disagrees profoundly with his theology, as "a lovely fellow, a Barnabas - an encourager, always there to support". Another spoke with similar affection and drew attention to the new moderator's penchant for blunt, direct, working-class speech.

The new moderator also has an excellent sense of humour, as evidenced on Wednesday when, during a pause for prayer in the general assembly proceedings, a mobile phone went off with a ring-tone of Bach's Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring. It reverberated through the silence. "We will come to the new hymn book later . . ." he quipped. Delegates laughed uproariously before returning to silence again.

Dr Newell is 61 and was born on Belfast's Shore Road. Educated at Belfast's High School, Queen's University and Ridley Hall Cambridge, he served in Bangor, Co Down before spending three years in Indonesia, which were to have a radical impact on him. As he wrote in this newspaper last Monday: "The three years my wife Val and I spent as missionaries in Indonesia with the Timor Evangelical Church broadened our horizons. We were able to enjoy the company of a local Muslim family who invited us to their daughter's wedding, a Hindu-Balinese doctor who kept a check on our health, a Catholic priest from Dundalk who would join us for dinner, and a vibrant church of one million members.

"Instead of viewing such diversity negatively, we learnt to look for the best in other people's faiths and attitudes. We also prayed that they might see the best in us - the love of God and the light of the risen Christ. On returning to Belfast, we made a conscious decision to retain a similarly open lifestyle."

He did just that at Fitzroy Presbyterian Church in south Belfast, where he has ministered since his return to Ireland then. He formed a friendship with Father Gerry Reynolds, parish priest of Clonard Redemptorist in Belfast, resulting in the formation of a Fitzroy-Clonard group with Protestants and Catholics undertaking Bible study, especially in relation to the Troubles, the growth of community and dissipation of sectarianism. Also, with Father Alex Reid, Newell developed influential contacts with both republican and loyalist paramilitaries in the early 1990s, a time when this was seen as unacceptable as well as risky by so many.

Although the number of those who lay claim to a role in the North's peace process is now rapidly approaching the number who claimed to be in the GPO in 1916, there is no doubt that this reaching out "to the devil", as some saw it, played a major role in bringing paramilitaries on board. It was during these years he developed personal friendships with many church leaders, including Archbishop Brady.

The Fitzroy-Clonard relationship was recognised in the Pax Christi International Peace Prize awarded to them in 1999 for "exemplary peace work . . . often done quietly away from the limelight". The openness encouraged by Dr Newell at Fitzroy led to politicians such as Lord Molyneaux, Ken Maginnis, Mark Durkan, John Hume, Monica Williams and others being invited to address the congregation there. Many within the church deeply disapproved of such lay preaching. In October 1997 the first Presbyterian service to be held entirely in the Irish language in the 20th century took place at Fitzroy. Dr Newell described it at the time as a historic occasion which would contribute to the "rediscovery of this ancient but living language".

Such "reaching out" has upset many of the hardcore within his church, while making even its more liberal elements uncomfortable. It is unlikely church colleagues will allow him forget that, particularly during this coming year.