Scripture in Stormont: Incidental reference to the Bible in Northern Irish politics

Abstract

The Bible has long permeated Northern Irish culture and politics and continues to play a role even today, as politicians appeal to the words of Scripture in reference to their position on social policy issues such as equal marriage and abortion. In this article, however, I will show that the Bible also appears incidentally in Northern Irish politics, employed in discourse to demean, console, or entertain, and not to direct policy decisions. I discuss examples of reference to the Bible in the Northern Ireland Assembly and show that by comparing others (or oneself) to characters from the Bible, members are mostly engaging in criticism or mild attack of political opponents, but not without a certain role for humor in what might be designated “biblical banter.” I thus illuminate one aspect of the cultural role played by the Bible in the everyday language of politics in Northern Ireland.

Introduction

When Terence McDonald, John Hume, and Brian Hannon produced a film about emigration from (London) Derry in 1963, they called it A City Solitary, a quotation from Lamentations 1:1: “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!” ¹ The Bible has long permeated Northern Irish culture and politics and continues to play a role even today, as politicians appeal to the words of Scripture in reference to their position on social policy issues, most notably on equal marriage and abortion. In this study, however, I will show that the Bible also appears incidentally in Northern Irish politics, employed in discourse to demean, console, or entertain, and not to direct policy decisions. ² I will first consider research on religious identity and the Bible in Northern Ireland and discuss three examples of reference to the Bible outside of Stormont. ³ I will then examine eight instances of reference to the Bible in the Northern Ireland Assembly and two in comments made to the media following the Assembly election in 2022. Analysis of these examples will afford some insight into the cultural role played by the Bible in the everyday language of politics in Northern Ireland.

Research on Religious Identity and the Bible in Northern Ireland

Sociological research on religion in Northern Ireland has (inevitably!) a tendency to focus foremost on religious identity (e.g., Hickey 1984; Fulton 1991; Ruane and Todd 1996; Jordan 2001; Mitchel 2003; Mitchell 2003, 2006, 2010; Ganiel 2008, 2022; Elliott 2009; Brewer, Higgins and Teeney 2011; Todd 2018; Lloyd 2021; O’Dowd 2021; Altglas 2022). ⁴ Because the role played by the Bible tends to be much greater in Protestant and evangelical communities, there is (again inevitably!) more discussion of the Bible with regard to these groups. The Ulster Scots ⁵ —with their Ulster Covenant of 1912—have often been described in terms of the “Old Testament” (e.g., MacIver 1987, 361; Akenson 1992, 117; Brewer and Higgins 1998, 146). The flag of Northern Ireland features a Red Hand of Ulster but replaces the shield in the background with a six pointed star (perhaps indicative of the six counties in the newly formed state) and in recent decades Northern Irish loyalists have come to identify with the state of Israel, not only due to republican identification with Palestine but with a sense of being God’s chosen people under siege (cf. e.g., Lloyd 2021, 327–328). The Orange Order certainly sees the Ulster Scots as God’s people in God’s land (Mitchel 2003, 148–156), while “the politics of [Ian] Paisley ⁶ could never be severed from an Old Testament mentality that was given to adopting either a Joshua-like militancy or a Jeremiah-like lamentation” (Southern 2007, 180). Thus, “Biblical texts [...] are interpreted within the overarching narrative of Ulster’s tragic fall from glory and the urgent responsibility to fight for her rightful restoration.” (Mitchel 2006, 211) Brewer and Higgins (1998, 129–174) describe three “modes” of anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, to two of which they give biblical names (the “covenantal mode” and the “Pharisaic mode,” the third being the “secular mode”). Use of the Bible permeates the “covenantal mode”: “Irish Catholics are Ulster Protestants’ Canaanites and Hittites, the evil outsiders to the covenanted community, from whom land was taken at the behest of God” (Brewer and Higgins 1998, 140). According to this thinking, “Catholic forms of devotion replicate Baal worship [and] Catholicism represents the Babylonian system referred to in Scripture, the Harlot, the Whore, the Beast and the abomination described in the Book of Revelation” (Brewer and Higgins 1998, 141). They refer to the following example:

A daily prayer for deliverance was printed in the church page of the Belfast Telegraph during the furore over the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985, invoking a verse from Isaiah 14, that no weapon could prosper against those to whom God had promised the blessing of the land. (Brewer and Higgins 1998, 136–137)

Brewer and Higgins’ seminal study thus demonstrated some ways in which the Bible was employed in anti-Catholic rhetoric among evangelical groups. ⁷ But as Claire Mitchell and Gladys Ganiel highlight, even within the “evangelical subculture” (Mitchell and Ganiel 2011, 29–36), there is considerable “diversity” (cf. Jordan 2001; Mitchel 2003, 2006; Mitchell and Tilley 2004; Mitchell and Ganiel 2011, 22–29). ⁸ Thus Joshua Searle (2018, 156) speaks of “the complex way in which the Bible is used in the shaping and formation of evangelical identities.” Searle examined evangelicals’ use of Revelation (2014) and the Bible more generally (2018) during the Troubles and found that “the appropriation of biblical symbols and their application to the events of the conflict was a standard feature of evangelical perceptions of the Troubles” (Searle 2018, 169). Nevertheless, while some used the Bible “as a terminological arsenal of hostile epithets with which to denounce their enemies,” ⁹ others “drew on similar texts in order to facilitate dialogue and understanding” (168). ¹⁰ The Bible provided “a framework within which to interpret the deplorable events that were happening,” and thus emerged “a biblically shaped apocalyptic narrative” (164). Now the Troubles are over, ending either with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 ¹¹ or the St. Andrew’s Agreement of 2007, depending on one’s perspective on the matter(!). ¹² Yet the Bible continues to influence the language of politics in Northern Ireland. ¹³

Use of the Bible in Political Discourse in Northern Ireland

The use of the Bible in political discourse would be surprising or embarrassing in some cultural contexts and unimaginable or pointless in others. In the USA, there is clearly a role for the Bible in politics (see especially Berlinerblau 2007). While there has to my knowledge not as yet been any study on the use of Bible with regard to social issues such as abortion and equal marriage in Northern Ireland, the material would be considerable and require extensive work. One might also include, for example, issues pertaining to ecology (creationism) and adoption and blood donation for non-heterosexuals. As I am interested primarily in the Bible as a cultural artefact in political discourse, ¹⁴ I have chosen deliberately to avoid reference to the Bible with regard to policy decisions and instead to examine instances in which incidental reference is made to the Bible in any given context. This will show the extent to which the Bible permeates political discourse in Northern Ireland, appearing in discussions in the Assembly where it could hardly be expected. I will show that the (purported) level of “biblical literacy” among many Northern Irish politicians and the electorate means that characters and themes from the Bible can appear incidentally in ad hominem attacks or attempts at humor within the walls of the legislature. While it may of course be argued that all parliamentary discussion is concerned with policy and thus the wording of the contributions—including potential reference to the Bible—is always a factor in framing legislation, the examples I have found indicate that this is not obviously the case, as a connection to decision-making is tenuous at best, and it is rather the portrayal of political rivals in Northern Irish politics that often draws on biblical characters and motifs. The phenomenon can be illustrated by the following three examples from outside of Stormont.

On October 12, 1988 at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Northern Ireland MEP Ian Paisley interrupted a speech by Pope John Paul II, calling out, “I denounce you, antichrist! I refuse you as Christ’s enemy and antichrist with all your false doctrine!” ¹⁵ As Brewer and Higgins (1998, 138) observe: “The pope’s appearance at the European Parliament in 1988 represented for Paisley the recurrence of an age-old threat.” The term antichrist is used only in 1 & 2 John, where it is a term for people whose appearance marks the end time (1 John 2:18), who deny that Jesus is the Christ (1 John 2:22 and 4:3), and who do not acknowledge that Jesus has come in the flesh (2 John 1:7). While the latter two criteria can certainly not be said to apply to the Pope as representative of the Roman Catholic Church, and speculations as to the end of the world remain moot, the idea of the Pope as the antichrist has a long history in Protestant theology and politics starting with Martin Luther himself (see Russell 1994), though identification is usually made with “the beast from the sea” in Revelation 11:7, 13:1–19, and 17:7–18, 19:18–20, even though the term “antichrist” does not appear in Revelation. Paisley was forcibly removed from the parliament and the incident garnered much media attention. In the same year he published Antichrist (Paisley 1988). ¹⁶

On September 27, 2011, the Trinidadian pop star Rihanna was filming the music video for her song “We Found Love” on a farm near Bangor (Co. Down). The owner of the farm was councilor Alan Graham, who had initially given permission to the production crew to film on his land but then stopped filming when he saw Rihanna in a state of undress. The Telegraph (Singh 2011) reported:

Mr Graham instructed her to brush up on her Bible reading before sending her on her way. “If someone wants to borrow my field and things become inappropriate, then I say, ‘Enough is enough,’” he explained yesterday. “I wish no ill will against Rihanna and her friends. Perhaps they could acquaint themselves with a greater God. […] I had a conversation with Rihanna and I hope she understands where I’m coming from. Everybody needs to be acquainted with God and to consider his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his death and resurrection. I hope she understands where I’m coming from. We shook hands and parted on good terms.”

Although there is no direct quotation of a Bible verse or a term from the Bible, the death and resurrection of Jesus are fundamental aspects of Christian doctrine which permeate the New Testament, from the gospels to Acts and the letters, and—according to the report—Graham explicitly encouraged Rihanna to read the Bible.

Finally, on April 2, 2020 the Newsletter reported on a Facebook post by Ballymena councilor John Carson in which he linked the COVID-19 epidemic to recent legislation on abortion and same-sex marriage. The report (Quinn 2020) quotes:

I said when abortion was legalised that our nation would be judged by God because of its departure from his word and the legalisation of the murder of the unborn child as well as same sex marriage. I was laughed at and mocked by some but as I said at the time they laughed at Noah until the rain started.

I include this as an incidental reference to scripture because the reference is made with regard to the claim of mockery and not directly to policy on abortion or same-sex marriage. Carson claims, “They laughed at Noah until the rain started,” an idea not found in the Bible (cf. the accounts of Noah in Genesis 6:9–7:24; Matthew 24:37–39; Hebrews 11:7) but attested in ancient Jewish and Christian literature (e.g., Midrash Tanhuma Noah 5; Sibylline Oracles 1.213–214) and—presumably a stronger influence on religious discourse in Northern Ireland—in the children’s song: “Mr. Noah built an ark, the people thought it such a lark.”

These three examples, none of which occurred within the context of the Northern Ireland Assembly, demonstrate how reference to the Bible can arise in political discourse in Northern Ireland. Denouncing the Pope as the antichrist, preventing Rihanna from filming a music video, and comparing oneself to Noah have no direct relevance to the task of legislating, and indeed none occurred within a legislative context. And as will become clear in the examples from Stormont discussed below, such incidental reference to the Bible can occur within the chamber of the Assembly without any direct application to policymaking.

Incidental Reference to Scripture in the Northern Ireland Assembly

While there are many parties active in Northern Ireland, the examples that follow contain reference only to the following major parties (here in alphabetical order): the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (Alliance), the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), Sinn Féin, the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). ¹⁷

References to the Bible in Stormont can be gleaned from “The Official Report”:

The Official Report of the Northern Ireland Assembly, also known as Hansard, is the authoritative record of the proceedings of the Assembly. The Official Report is a substantially verbatim transcript of the proceedings; it records what was said as well as what was decided. (http://aims.niassembly.gov.uk/officialreport/officialreport.aspx)

The record of proceedings can be searched for key words. This allowed me to search for terms associated with the Bible, for example Moses, Deuteronomy, apostle, Jesus, Isaiah, Judas, epistle, etc. However, there are certain Biblical terms which do not lend themselves to a text-based search of such a database because of their double-meanings (for example “Numbers,” “Judges,” “Job,”) or because they are names shared by politicians (for example “Paul,” “Peter,” “Joshua,” and—perhaps surprisingly—even “Elisha,” as Elisha McCallion (Sinn Féin), served as Member of the Local Assembly (MLA) in 2017 before becoming an Member of Parliament (MP) at Westminster).

The following ten cases will be presented and examined in chronological order. I have included related comments from other occasions in the discussion and footnotes. Further research would of course surely reveal more incidental references to scripture in Northern Irish politics and might include a detailed reading of the Official Report or interviews with politicians themselves. The examples I have found by searching for key terms can thus only form an initial stage of research but should prove illustrative of the phenomenon in question.

Ian Paisley (DUP): St. Patrick’s Day and John 3:16

On February 7, 2000, Ian Paisley (DUP) contributed to a debate on St. Patrick’s Day celebrations by commenting on Patrick’s religiosity and what he saw as the appropriation of St. Patrick by Irish nationalists:

Ian Paisley (DUP): I refuse to hand St Patrick over to the Roman Catholic Church and the embrace of the Pope, or to the IRA and nationalists. He is a figure to be honoured and remembered. He brought the Bible gospel. In his works—the Confession, the Epistle and the Hymn—one finds set forth the simple gospel of Jesus Christ: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” ¹⁸

The quotation is from John 3:16, among the most famous verses in the Bible. Paisley thus positions St. Patrick as an evangelist, essentially in line with protestant evangelical Biblicism, despite the risk of anachronism in attributing Reformation theology to a fifth-century bishop. ¹⁹ In any case, the verse will certainly have been easily recognized as a quotation from the Bible, here in the King James Version (KJV), as befitting Ian Paisley. ²⁰

John Dallat (SDLP): Brian Faulkner and Judas

On October 9, 2000, during a debate of no confidence in First Minister Peter Robinson, John Dallat (SDLP) criticized the DUP for hypocrisy in their previous treatment of Brian Faulkner (UUP), whom they had demonized for sharing power with the SDLP, while they themselves now shared power with Sinn Féin:

John Dallat (SDLP): Twenty-seven years ago they had no confidence in the Unionist Leader of the day, the late Brian Faulkner. To them he was a real Judas, sharing power with the dreaded SDLP—no Sinn Féin. ²¹

The figure of Judas is known from the Gospels, infamous for his betrayal of Jesus (Matthew 26:14–25 and 26:47–50; Mark 15:10–11.43–46; Luke 22:1–6.47–48) and his untimely end (Matthew 27:3–10; Acts 1:18–19). Although there are other men by the name Judas in the Bible—including the epistle which in English goes by the name “Jude”—the name “Judas” is strongly associated with betrayal. Dallat suggests that the DUP considered Brian Faulkner a traitor for sharing power with the SDLP in the 1970s, yet they now share power with Sinn Féin.

Gregory Campbell (DUP) and Alban Maginness (SDLP): 12 DUP Members as Apostles

On December 4, 2006, the following exchange took place between Alban Maginness (SDLP) and Gregory Campbell (DUP) concerning a statement issued by twelve DUP party members including Baron Maurice Morrow:

Alban Maginness: I ask Lord Morrow this question: if nothing happened on that day, as he had predicted, why did he and eleven of his colleagues, now infamously dubbed the “dirty dozen,” issue a statement?

[Laughter.]

Madam Speaker: Order.

Alban Maginness: Why, if nothing happened —

Gregory Campbell: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I understood that the term was the twelve apostles.

Alban Maginness: I suppose that that is theologically more sound.

[Laughter.]

Eugene McMenamin (SDLP): Look out for Judas.

[Laughter.]

Alban Maginness: Which one? Madam Speaker, if nothing happened on that day, why did those twelve Members go to the trouble of issuing that epistle, to use the biblical language of Mr. Campbell? ²²

Here there are three terms from the New Testament: “twelve apostles,” “Judas,” and “epistle.” Indeed, Maginness notes the use of “biblical language,” in changing the phrasing of his question from “statement” to “epistle.”

Ministers as “Pontius Pilate”

Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea (ca. 26–36 CE), is mentioned in Christian liturgies across the world as the man under whom Jesus was crucified. Yet perhaps he is more famous in everyday idiom for the act of washing his hands. This is how he appears in the record of the Official Report.

On February 19, 2008, Mervyn Storey (DUP) applied the epithet to the then Minister for Education Catríona Ruane (Sinn Féin):

Mervyn Storey (DUP): The House has once again seen the Minister [Catríona Ruane (Sinn Féin)] try the Pontius Pilate exercise, in which she is now an expert, of washing her hands of all responsibility. ²³

And on March 12, 2013, Paul Given (DUP) did the same with reference to the then Minister for Justice David Ford (Alliance):

Paul Givan (DUP): Once again, the Minister of Justice, Pontius Pilate-like, seeks to wash his hands of one of the most serious issues facing our province. ²⁴

The designation reappeared recently (February 7, 2023) in the House of Lords (Westminster), where Lord William McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP) applied it in general to the attitudes of Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland:

William McCrea (DUP): In recent times, successive Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland have been happy to dip in and out of matters that were within the full competence of the Northern Ireland Assembly, but on an occasion requiring urgent action to alleviate suffering and anxiety within the community, they washed their hands in a Pilate fashion. ²⁵

The scene in which Pontius Pilate washes his hands before the crowd as a symbol of his abdication of responsibility is found only in the Gospel of Matthew (Matt 27:24).

Sammy Wilson (DUP): Declan O’Loan (SDLP) as Jeremiah

On March 22, 2010, Sammy Wilson (DUP), Minister of Finance and Personnel, referred to Declan O’Loan (SDLP) as “the Jeremiah of the Assembly”:

Sammy Wilson (DUP): I wish to address Mr. O’Loan’s points. Mr. O’Loan is increasingly becoming the Jeremiah of the Assembly. By his own definition, he is pessimistic. I think that he said that twice, and I was listening closely to hear whether he said it a third time. Mr. O’Loan is the Northern Ireland Assembly’s prophet of doom. ²⁶

Jeremiah is known as a prophet of doom given the prophecies and account of his life in the book that shares his name. The association of Jeremiah with pessimism is surely less well-known than that of Judas with betrayal, which may be why Wilson went on to explain that O’Loan is “pessimistic” and a “prophet of doom,” rather than simply leaving him with the epithet “the Jeremiah of the Assembly,” which may not have been enough. ²⁷

Sammy Wilson (DUP): Jim Allister as Elijah

Not yet finished with Biblical epithets for other lawmakers, on June 20, 2011 Sammy Wilson (DUP) referred to Jim Allister (TUV) as an “Elijah” figure:

Sammy Wilson (DUP): I now come to the typical contribution by Mr. Allister, who is the Assembly Elijah: everybody around is wrong and has some kind of devious, underhand agenda, and only he is left as the voice of purity in the Assembly. ²⁸

The designation appeared again the following week:

Jim Allister (TUV): Last week, in responding to the Second Stage debate, the Minister described me as the Elijah of the Assembly. If that was meant to be some sort of slight or insult from new DUP, I am afraid that I treat it more as a compliment because I am very happy to be associated with those who have not bowed the knee to terrorist-inclusive government. If, in my time here, I manage to slay—metaphorically, of course—a few prophets of Baal, I will be very happy with the work that that involves.

[...]

Sammy Wilson (DUP): I now turn to the Elijah of the Assembly, who has not bowed the knee to Baal and wishes to slay the prophets of Baal during his term here. I have to say that the sword that he uses to do the slaying is becoming more and more blunt every time he wields it. ²⁹

The references to Elijah as the last remaining true prophet who does not worship Baal and eventually slays the prophets of Baal, are all allusions to 1 Kings 18. Elijah reappeared the next day in an exchange between Allister and Wilson, this time with Job and Paul in tow (thus I was able to locate one reference to Job and to Paul through their proximity to Elijah in the Official Report).

Jim Allister (TUV): In the Budget debates, the Minister liked to refer to me as Elijah. Well, Elijah and Job probably had quite a lot in common. If the Job of the DUP Benches would like to volunteer as a Teller, I could give him some useful employment in a few minutes.

[...]

Sammy Wilson (DUP): Lots of biblical characters have been mentioned. We have had Job here and Elijah here, and we have Saul of Tarsus over here. They have had a Damascus road experience. They have been converted. I would have thought that Mr. Allister would welcome that and not condemn them for it. ³⁰

Besides the reference to Elijah from 1 Kings, here we have Job, who in the story named for him remains pious and loyal despite his suffering, and Saul of Tarsus (i.e., Paul), whose “Damascus Road experience”—which Sammy Wilson implies is a kind of “conversion”—is found in Acts 9:1–9. The exchange was mentioned at the TUV Annual Conference, where Sammy Morrison, Jim Allister’s personal assistant and press officer, explained:

Fairly early on in the Assembly term Sammy Wilson evoked what both Jim and I thought to be a rather strange Biblical image to describe our party leader. He called him the Elijah of the Assembly. Now there used to be a time when members of the DUP would regard being likened to Elijah as quite a compliment. Apart from anything else the thing about Old Testament prophets was that they tended to be right. But you see, friends, the DUP has changed and now when someone comes along championing the very policies which they a short time ago were so vocal in advocating the response is a very angry, ‘Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?’” ³¹

The quotation is from 1 Kings 21:20, when Elijah arrives at Naboth’s vineyard to find King Ahab following a tip-off from God. Again, the translation is that of the King James Version.

Paul Givan (DUP): Sinn Féin’s “Republican Plot” and Mordecai

On January 16, 2017, Paul Givan (DUP) compared himself to Mordecai given what he saw as personal attacks against him from Sinn Féin.

Paul Givan (DUP): Carál Ní Chuilín’s attack on me was just a continuation of the attempt to assassinate my character that has been led by Gerry Adams and taken on by Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, who made some outrageous comments on the radio about me as an individual. I will stand with my record for the public to decide on. I will not be pigeonholed by those sitting opposite me as to how I conduct myself on behalf of the people whom I represent. [...] I refer the Members to what happened to Mordecaiah [sic!] and the plot that Haman went about building the gallows in order to get Mordecaiah [sic!]. We know the republican plot; you are building the gallows. History shows what happened in that story. We are prepared; we will go to the country.

Deputy Speaker Danny Kennedy (Alliance): Order. I have to say I did not expect Mordecaiah [sic!] to feature, but anyway. ³²

Mordecai is the adoptive father of Esther in the book of Esther. He refuses to prostrate himself before Haman, the highest official in the court of his son-in-law King Ahasuerus. Haman’s plot to kill Mordecai results in his own death when he is hanged on the gallows he had built for Mordecai. Givan implies that Sinn Féin’s attempt to bring down the DUP will only result in a strengthened DUP following a new election (“we will go to the country”).

Paul Givan (DUP): COVID-19 and “Fear Not”

On March 24, 2020, during discussion on the COVID-19 bill, Paul Givan (DUP) provided some words of comfort and encouragement for Robin Swann (UUP Health Minister):

Paul Givan (DUP): We look to the Minister for leadership, and that is a heavy burden for him to bear. I know that, like me, he looks above for leadership, and our faith grounds us. Many people are searching for what really gives them support and structure. For me, it is my faith in God. It may not be the case for other people, even in the Chamber. I know that it is for this Minister and for other people. I have taken comfort, as the crisis has developed, from a number of verses in the Bible. “Fear not” is the most common phrase throughout the Bible — “Fear not. Fear not.” — because God knows that it is our nature to fear and to be anxious, and so we are constantly reminded: “Fear thou not, for I am with thee.” There are a number of verses that I want to leave with Members and with the Minister: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” ³³

The quotations are from Isaiah 41:10 and 2 Timothy 1:7, again in the King James Version.

The NI Assembly failed to form an executive following the 2022 elections. The final two examples come not from The Official Report, rather from interviews given to the BBC.

Colum Eastwood (SDLP): Election Results and Lazarus

On May 6, 2022 at the NI Assembly Election Count Center in Magherafelt, Colum Eastwood (SDLP), MP for Foyle, spoke with Tara Mills during BBC Northern Ireland’s Vote 22 NI coverage. In response to forecasts of poor results for the SDLP, Eastwood remains hopeful and says:

Colum Eastwood (SDLP): I think there might be a few Lazaruses … or Lazari maybe it is … before the count’s over. ³⁴

The reference is to the Lazarus of John 11 who falls ill and dies and whom Jesus brings back to life. “Lazarus” functions here as a metaphor for a politician who achieves re-election despite poor results in the initial rounds of counting. As with the references to “Judas” discussed above, so too in this case Colum Eastwood sees no need to explain the “Lazarus” reference but can engage in a bit of faux self-mockery in not knowing how to form a plural for “Lazarus.”

Mervyn Storey (DUP): Loss of his Seat and God’s Providence

In an interview released on May 25, 2022 Mervyn Storey (DUP) speaks with Mark Carruthers for the BBC podcast Red Lines. In an almost stoic acceptance of the loss of his North Antrim seat, Storey quotes Colossians 1:17:

Mervyn Storey (DUP): “By him … by Christ all things consist.” ³⁵

Storey knows that the verse, again here in the King James Version, reads “by him,” but adds the referent “Christ” to help avoid any misunderstanding concerning to whom the pronoun refers. For Storey, the verse provides reassurance that everything in life is by God’s design, and thus he can accept the results of the election and the loss of his seat. Joshua Searle notes that Northern Irish evangelicals “read the significance of current events in the light of Scripture” (2018, 163) “by infusing everyday events with ultimate meaning and significance” (159). This “commitment to interpret one’s experience through the lens of Scripture” is found across a broad spectrum of evangelical literature (158). It therefore applies also to elections. Yet as Clifford Smyth (1986, 36) comments on the DUP:

“Every election victory is interpreted [...] as a special sign of God’s blessing upon a party which seeks to magnify His name and uphold the cause of Protestant Ulster. Electoral reverses suffered by DUP candidates have never prompted the opposite reaction amongst the more spiritually-minded party activists: that the rejection of the candidate should be adjudged as the disapproval of the Almighty.” ³⁶

For Mervyn Storey, the loss of his seat reflects not so much divine disapproval but rather an acceptance that God’s plan for him is other than he expected.

“Biblical Literacy”

The examples cited, described and analyzed above are by no means comprehensive, but they do provide an initial insight into reference to the Bible in Northern Irish politics. While many such references may go largely ignored and confined to the record of The Official Report, some are picked up either by the media or on social media, depending on the content and perceived public interest. The majority of exchanges come from members of the DUP and the SDLP. ³⁷ This does not mean that members of other parties are unfamiliar with the Bible, but perhaps does reflect a tendency to a certain sociolect (which includes use of the King James Version) and greater levels of “biblical literacy.”

“Biblical literacy” can be generally described as: “Knowing the Bible; Being familiar with popular Bible characters; Being able to recognize common biblical phrases; Being able to connect the knowledge to references in literature” (Wachlin 2005, 19), though “literature” should surely be extended to film and modern media and in this study also to political discourse. ³⁸ But “Biblical literacy” remains a disputed term and a disputed concept, as Katie Edwards (2015, ix–x) observes: “Biblical literacy, it seems, is a contested concept that is used frequently and agreed on rarely.” In the same volume, Máire Byrne (2015, 11–19) looked particularly at the role of the Bible in primary and secondary education in the Republic of Ireland. Her study appears to be the first and only examination of biblical literacy in Ireland, ³⁹ even though the Bible has an important historical legacy on the island (Byrne 2015, 7–11; see especially Anderson and Kearney 2018). Byrne (2015, 4) finds that Roman Catholic Ireland “has never embraced the Bible as an integral part of our cultural identity” and postulates (11) that “the idea that ‘Protestants read the Bible’ would have been prevalent throughout the history of tensions between Catholics and Protestants, and therefore reading or indeed studying the Bible would have been seen as academically and spiritually less important.” She concludes (19):

Despite its beginnings as a country that had immense respect for and devotion to study of the biblical texts, the historical events that have shaped Irish cultural and religious identities have caused knowledge of the Bible and hence biblical literacy to suffer to the extent that Roman Catholics have little biblical knowledge beyond what they encounter in an educational setting.

The examples discussed here require varying levels of “Biblical literacy.” At the one end, there are references to “Judas,” “the 12 apostles,” “Lazarus,” or John 3:16, which are more readily understandable than references to “Jeremiah” or “Elijah,” and at the other extreme end of the spectrum reference to “Mordecai[ah]” or the less well-known Bible verses quoted. That these references tend to come from DUP members is unsurprising, given the party’s historical links to the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster under Ian Paisley ⁴⁰ and connections to other evangelical churches. ⁴¹ As Joshua Searle (2014, 17) comments: “Unusually for Western Europe, evangelicals in Northern Ireland have also been well represented in major political parties, most notably the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).” While the evangelical Ulster Scots of yesteryear abstained from politics and saw “the exercise of voting as an expression of worldliness” (Smyth 1986, 34), Paisley and others brought “a literalistic hermeneutic of Scripture which assumes the ability to discern exact prophetic fulfilment in contemporary political events” (Mitchel 2006, 208), which led to a greater role for politics among evangelicals. Now political motivations among evangelicals are less likely to be theological and more likely to reflect “the increasing importance of moral conservatism” (Mitchell and Tilley 2004, 585; cf. 586). Yet one notable change in policy connected to religious belief was that of sabbatarianism (see especially Southern 2005), which included “the closure of civic amenities on a Sunday in DUP controlled council areas” (Southern 2007, 184). Neil Southern observes (2005, 141):

The retreat of sabbatarianism is a mark of the DUP’s acknowledgment that strong evangelical principles cannot be imposed upon an electorate which viewed them as politically and culturally anachronistic. ⁴²

In their detailed study of the DUP, Tonge et al. (2014, 159–160) conclude:

The DUP remains a party comprising a mainly deeply religious membership, whose political outlook is very markedly and unashamedly influenced by their faith. [...] There is some evidence of a dilution in terms of the post-1998 joiners, but a more secular DUP is a long way off [...]. The DUP has become a broader party, its religious ferocity now far less overt, but it remains resolutely and unashamedly guided by points of Protestant and Christian principle.

Nonetheless, as Véronique Altglas (2022, 24) reiterates, “the party’s demography is changing, and this certainly has implications for future political positions.” It is, for example, unclear how shifting attitudes towards homosexuality and abortion among working-class Protestants will have an effect on DUP policy on these issues. ⁴³ The same applies to the idea of “biblical literacy”: while the DUP has been able in the last twenty-five years to assume a high degree of “biblical literacy” among many (but by no means all) of its core electorate and thus can readily include such incidental reference to the Bible in parliamentary debate, future voters and indeed MLAs may be bewildered by references to Elijah or Mordecai, Haman’s gallows or the prophets of Baal.

Analysis and Conclusion

Examples (viii) and (x) provide Bible verses as words of comfort in times of difficulty, ⁴⁴ though while (viii) is directed to another member, (x) provides comfort to the speaker himself. ⁴⁵ Most frequent is associating someone with a Biblical figure: (ii) Judas, (iii) the 12 apostles, (iv) Pontius Pilate, (v) Jeremiah, (vi) Elijah, (vii) Mordecai and (ix) Lazarus. While this reflects the terms which I was able to search in the Official Report, it is interesting to observe that this tactic is not uncommon, and that while some characters require a bit more detail, for others the name alone appears to suffice as a reference (Judas, Lazarus). Furthermore, while examples (ii) [Judas], (iv) [Pilate], (v) [Jeremiah], (vi) [Elijah], and (vii) [Mordecai and Haman] are employed within a context of criticism and attack, examples (iii) [the 12 apostles], (v) [Jeremiah], (vi) [Elijah], and (ix) [Lazarus] all include a humorous tone and may essentially be described as “biblical banter.” This is especially the case for (iii) [the 12 apostles], during which exchange laughter is recorded three times in the Official Report. There may of course have been some degree of laughter or smiling on the other occasions, which is not recorded. It should also be noted that Danny Kennedy’s comment in example (vii) [Mordecai] (“I have to say I did not expect Mordecaiah [sic!] to feature, but anyway”) is also a humorous comment, though Paul Givan’s initial reference to Mordecai was not intended to be funny.

Incidental reference to the Bible within the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont can include words of comfort or reassurance, but a common tactic is addressing other members with the names of biblical characters, often as a criticism of their behavior yet in many cases not without a hint of humor. Such references may border on “pointless” in that they do not contribute to political debate and in some cases the reference may be so obscure as to elude other MLAs or the public, but in the case of those making the reference—mostly but not always members of the DUP — they are simply adopting the historical idiolect of their party and a considerable section of their electorate, and perhaps in doing so also demonstrating their credentials as “biblically literate” politicians. In this regard, incidental reference to the Bible is neither benign nor offensive per se; it is neither in itself a contributing factor to the conflict nor a means to peace. As with so many other elements of religious identity, it can be used to attack or to console. The major insight from this examination, however, is how it is used to humorous effect, often providing a degree comic relief in the serious business of the politics of conflict in Northern Ireland.