The Caleb Foundation
"At every point where such issues are touched upon by the curriculum equal status must be given to creationist belief and evangelical Protestant thought."
- The Caleb Foundation attempting to impose its views on every child irrespective of parental belief.
In this report we take a look at the Caleb Foundation, the people involved in it and their connections. It is a fundamentalist protestant organisation in Northern Ireland which, amongst other things, is promoting the teaching of creationism in schools.
For further background on creationism in the province see our section on Creationism in Northern Ireland
The Foundation came to our attention after comments made on a BBC Radio Ulster programme by David McConaghie, one of its founding members. However, in researching it we soon found extensive links to other organisations in the province and, indeed, on the mainland of Britain.
David McConaghie is rather a frightening person. He was one of the founding members of the fundamentalist Caleb Foundation (http://www.calebfoundation.org). He was minister of Maghaberry Elim Church but appears to have switched to Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church. He is seen in some circles as one of the contenders to replace Ian Paisley as moderator or the Church.
I find it really annoying when I hear ecumenists saying that people like me are fostering hatred.........Ecumenists, say they are tolerant, but they apply a double standard. They have to accuse me of being anti-Catholic. They can't see me as acting out of conscience, of adopting a rational, intelligent, mature position. They criticize the tenets of the faith that I hold, yet they say they are not anti-evangelical or anti-Protestant. – David McGonaghie
According to the Evangelical Protestant Society (where he is a member of the council) he is “currently a student for the ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church.”
The Evangelical Protestant Society is seen as a hardline organisation. There is some interesting background here. It is well connected to the main Orange Order as well as the smaller Independent Orange Order.
The Caleb Foundation is riddled with creationism – it even publicly endorses teaching of creationism in school science lessons – see http://www.calebfoundation.org/page13.htm. Indeed, there is a statement there (as at 4th January 2006) that a “A new Creation Lobby Group is being formed in Northern Ireland. More details to follow!” Caleb also dislikes William Crawley (BBC Radio Ulster presenter who is highly authoritative on and critical of creationism) as can be seen from this page on its web site - http://www.calebfoundation.org/page8.htm. Crawley does not suffer creationist fools gladly.
This is McConaghie’s position in teaching creationism in schools (notice the comments we have put into bold type) -
Some twenty years ago in ‘O’ Level Biology my teacher began his teaching of evolution by saying that there are two basic theories of how everything came into being – first that God made everything. He said that no one believed that any more and he would show us what really happened. Recently I have been contacted by parents whose children have been subjected to disturbingly similar teaching methods.
Children from an evangelical background have their faith denigrated in the classroom. Evangelical teachers find themselves having to teach things contrary to their consciences. This is because evolutionary thinking dominates education.
This is indefensible and fundamentally wrong. The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is explicit – children have the right to be educated in accordance with the religious and philosophical convictions of their parents (Article 2 of Protocol 1): not those of the Department, the Board of Governors, or the Curriculum authorities – but those of their parents.
The Caleb Foundation has met with the Education and Library Boards, the Dept of Education and Head of Education at CCEA. The Education Officers and Departmental civil servants appeared willing to seek for ways to resolve this scandal. Regrettably the CCEA’s Head of Education’s attitude could only be described as evolutionary fundamentalism. His mind was closed to anything but evolution.
Thus our children suffer indoctrination and attempted social engineering. They are told that the origin of the universe occurred independently of God. They are told that the earth, the processes that have shaped the world and the origins of life are the product of billion year old processes and blind chance.
What can we do?
The Caleb Foundation has again written to CCEA. We have requested a meeting with the new Direct Rule Education Minister and have already met with the former Chair and Vice Chair of the Assembly’s Education Committee. Our demand is simple - At every point where such issues are touched upon by the curriculum equal status must be given to creationist belief and evangelical Protestant thought.
You too can help.
Write to CCEA (Clarendon Dock, 29 Clarendon Rd. Belfast BT1 3BG) and complain about the curriculum, demanding equality of time and legitimacy for creation.
Write to your local MP/Assemblyman and do the same. If your children are taught evolution complain to the Board of Governors of the school. If needed we shall be willing to accompany you. Contact your local Independent Methodist Pastor.
On each occasion remind them of the ECHR. Remind them also of the requirement placed upon schools to provide a breadth of education and that this is not possible where one of two competing views is granted dominance.
Pray that God will grant us wisdom and success in our campaign.
Whilst the Caleb Foundation claims that it “is made up of representatives of a number of mainline evangelical denominations”, without exception, the opposite appears to be true. None of the members of its council of reference belong to mainstream evangelical churches. They are all members of tiny denominations some of which are virulently anti-Catholic (BCSE does not distinguish between anti-Catholic and anti-Catholicism because we fail to see the difference).
Whilst we can dismiss Caleb as representative of the majority of Protestants in Northern Ireland, it does not exist in a power vacuum. The organisation is exceedingly well connected in the Protestant community in the province.
Here are a couple of articles from a very Republican/Nationalist publication which provide an interesting insight into the political connections of Caleb –
1. http://lark.phoblacht.net/JC1605063g.html. This is written by Dr John Coulter. (Coulter is a well known unionist journalist in Northern Ireland.)
2. http://www.phoblacht.net/RM0506063g.html by Robert Mathews.
(An Phoblacht is the weekly newspaper of Sinn Fein/Provisional IRA. It is not noted for its liberal, non-partisan, cross-community views, to put it mildly.)
In essence, members of the Caleb Foundation are at the centre of the Protestant power structure in the province (weak as that may be) and set to be in a position to lead the province’s largest political party – the Democratic Unionist Party).
The Chairman of the Caleb Foundation until recently was George Dawson, an elected representative to the Northern Ireland Assembly (DUP, East Antrim). He was also Grand Master of the Independent Orange Order and a director (and Treasurer) of the Evangelical Protestant Society (http://www.ulsterbulwark.org). The latter has some bizarre views – see its web site at http://www.ulsterbulwark.org/page12.htm for example. It also displays Ulster paranoia – see here http://www.ulsterbulwark.org/page2.htm.
Here are a couple of links which provide some background on George Dawson: http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/members/biogs_03/dawson_g.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dawson_(politician)
Mr Mervyn Storey, Vice Chairman of the Caleb Foundation, is a heavyweight. He is a politician (Democratic Unionist Party led by Ian Paisley) and a member of Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church (Ballymoney). There’s some information on him at http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/members/biogs_03/storey_m.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mervyn_Storey. Storey is spokesman for Caleb.
Looking through the other names who are on the Council of Reference of the Caleb Foundation, we found a number of names we had come across before in researching the creationist movement in the UK. It would be wrong to state that all of the members are YECers even though the Caleb Foundation is explicitly a YEC organisation. However, many of them have other links to YEC organisations.
For example, the Rev Stanley Barnes is pastor at the Free Presbyterian Hillsborough Church. This is one of the churches of the Rev Ian Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church. Paisley is a YECer and YEC beliefs appear to be the norm amongst ministers within the church. His “Master’s” degree is from the European Theological Seminary, a diploma mill.
Pastor Stephen Boreland is Minister at Ballyclare Baptist Church and for a while in the 1990s was on the Council of Reference of the creationist Take Heed Ministries).
Boreland is also involved in the fundamentalist In Focus Ministries. However, he came to our attention through his association with the European Theological Seminary, a diploma mill for theological qualifications. In effect, Boreland has been re-selling the ETS courses through his own Emmanuel Baptist Bible College. He is Principal of the latter which is openly pushed as being fundamentalist. Indeed, more than a few of Boreland’s own qualifications appear to be of the diploma mill quality – according to Emmanuel Bible College’s web site, he “is a graduate of Belfast Bible College and holds a B.D., M.A., and Ph.D. from the European Theological Seminary.”
In fact, Boreland is not just re-selling the ETS courses and a “graduate” of said ETS, he is also closely involved in it as well. He is listed as one of the Adjunct Facility of the Seminary. As indeed is David Moore, Vice Principal of Emmanuel Baptist Bible College.
Moore is understood to be treasurer and a lecturer at Emmanuel Baptist Bible School. He is Pastor of Braehill Baptist Church in Northern Ireland. He holds a B.T. and M.Th. degree from the European Theological Seminary.
Emmanuel Baptist Bible College lists a Dr Rob Congdon and a Dr Graham Anderson as faculty members. Well, they appear to be involved in the European Theological Seminary as well.
Dr. Robert R. Congdon is founder and director of the Internet Bible Institute and holds a BSME from the University of Illinois at Urbana; an M. Div. from Grace Theological Seminary, Winona Lake, Indiana; and a Th. D. from Trinity Theological Seminary, Newburgh, Indiana. Grace Theological Seminary is where John Whitcomb earned his degrees and taught. We’ve come across Trinity before and it is detail in the section of our wiki website on Pastor Richard Turner. It’s unaccredited by any recognised accrediting agency.
It transpires that the Internet Bible Institute is another distance learning organisation in which Boreland, Congdon and Moore are involved. It appears to be run by Congdon (see http://internetbibleinstitute.com/index.html) and includes John Whitcomb (of creationist notoriety) on its council of reference.
Pastor Ed Bissett serves with Baptist International Missions in Northern Ireland and is a lecturer at Emmanuel Baptist Bible School. He holds a Th. G. degree from Tennessee Temple Schools, Chattanooga Tennessee.
Tennessee Temple Schools is accredited by the very questionable Transnational Association of Christian Colleges (TRACS). It is the agency that has accredited the Institute for Creation Research and thus its worthless degrees. The crackpot creationist Henry Morris was on the board of TRACS .
Pastor Tom Fittis is Pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Northern Ireland and a lecturer at Emmanuel Baptist Bible School. He holds a BA degree in Bible from Tennessee Temple Schools.
We raise the matter of Boreland in some depth because it shows that members of the Caleb Foundation are deeply involved in pushing diploma mill qualifications yet, at the same time, Caleb is lobbying to change the education system. We simply have no reason, therefore, to believe that the Caleb Foundation is a fit and proper organisation to be lobbying to change publicly funded education given the status of qualifications its members take as acceptable.
There are others involved in the Emmanuel Baptist Bible College that we would like to draw the reader’s attention to. Pastor Martin Wickens is listed as a member of faculty. His degree (i.e. his “qualification”) to teach is a bachelor’s degree in theology from Emmanuel Baptist Bible College. Wicken’s church, the Faith Baptist Church in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland, openly endorses young earth creationism – see http://www.faithbaptist.co.uk/2.html
Also listed as a faculty member is Pastor Billy Causby of Bethel Baptist Church, Belfast. It openly endorses creationism (see http://www.bethelbaptist.co.uk/links.html). We can find no trace of the other faculty member, Pastor Ed Bisset.
Rev Gareth N Burke is pastor at Stramillis Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland. He is believed the be a young earth creationist. The Evangelical Presbyterian Church is a small Northern Irish denomination. It has a web site here at http://www.epc.org.uk but the site was not, for the most part, working at the beginning of January 2007.
Rev P Campbell who is a minister with the Congregational church in Ireland. We can find no other trace of this person. The Congregation Church in Ireland is another very small denomination which has some 27 churches (or 29 according to Wikipedia). Individual churches within the denomination look like they have a strong tendency towards creationism.
The Rev Kenneth Elliot is Pastor of the Bethany Free Presbyterian Church in Portadown. Again this is one of the churches in Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church.
Mr Jim Irvine is a member of the Independent Methodist denomination – it openly endorses creationism on its web site. He’s based in the Republic of Ireland (Donegal). The Independent Methodist denomination in Ireland is not part of the mainstream Methodist movement either in Ireland or in Great Britain. It looks to be far more extreme. For example, it has an absurdly pretentiously titled “Public Morals Committee”. (see http://www.fimc.org.uk/News/Public%20Morals.htm)
The Rev Ron Johnstone is pastor at the Free Presbyterian Church in Armagh (http://www.freepres.org/church.asp?armagh).
Pastor Denis Lyle, a Baptist, is a very well known creationist (YEC) preacher in Northern Ireland. See http://www.denislyle.com. Lyle’s “MA” and “PhD” come from the European Theological Seminary diploma mill.
Rev William (Bill) Malcolmson is pastor at the Congregational Reformed Church in East Belfast. Yet again, we see further (indirect) connections into the creationist movement here as Malcolmson happens to be involved in the European Theological Seminary. Malcolmson is also active in the Evangelical Protestant Society (where he is President) and the Orange and Black Institutions.
Rev Eric McComb is Superintendent Minister of the Elim Pentecostal Churches in Ireland. The Elim Pentecostal Church is regarded to be generally YEC in outlook although individual churches take different positions. McComb does not like William Crawley - http://www.calebfoundation.org/page8.htm. MCComb has recently been in the news about his position on gay rights – see http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2079537.ece.
McComb is a senior person in the Elim Pentecostal movement in the UK. We understand that he still preaches virtually every week, through 40 plus churches in Ulster and more in the Republic of Ireland. He is a member of the National Leadership Team of Elim's 600 (approx) churches in the UK.
The Elim Pentecostal church is the largest Pentecostal movement in Northern Ireland - Assemblies of God has only a very small presence there.
Rev Robert (Bob) McEvoy is pastor at the Albert Bridge Congregational Church, Northern Ireland – again a small denomination strongly inclined towards creationism.
Rev C McFarland is believed to be a minister in the Congregational church in Northern Ireland but was can find no trace of him.
Rev Phillip Millen is minister of the Free Presbyterian Church in Randalstown and founder member of Caleb.
Pastor A Mullen is a Baptist. We can find no trace of this person
Rev William Park is pastor for the Independent Methodist Church in Enniskillen and Deputy Chairman of the Caleb Foundation. His church has hosted an AiG speaker event. Park is Deputy Chairman of the openly creationist Fellowship of Independent Methodist Churches and is editor of its magazine.
Pastor David Patterson is pastor at Down Baptist Church in Donaghadee. He is believed to be (or have been) a part-time teacher and former political researcher (for Patrick Roche, Northern Ireland Unionist Party – a splinter group from the UK Unionist Party) at Stormont. At one stage he was assistant Pastor and Banbridge Baptist Church – it appears to have endorsed creationism.
Rev David Silversides is pastor at the Reformed Presbyterian Church (aka the Covenanters) in Loughbrickland. This denomination has strong YEC tendencies. His church appears to have links to the creationist Emmanuel Church in Salisbury. That in turn appears to have been the sponsoring church for the Hyde Street Chapel – a YEC church in Winchester well connected to leading creationists. Silversides was involved with the Biblical Creation Society as far back as 1980 - see http://www.biblicalcreation.org.uk/bcs_publications/bcs072.html.
BCSE is not very familiar with the specific religious beliefs of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Ireland; it is a tiny denomination (about 2,500 adult members). However, from a statement on its web site, it looks to be arguing in favour for some form of theocracy:
"A distinctive witness to the nation is borne through an emphasis on the duty of recognising Christ as king, as was once done in the seventeenth century covenants. The church considers the repudiation of those covenants to be a sin, to be repented of and corrected, and Reformed Presbyterians will only support candidates for political office who promise to work for such a national recognition of the authority of Christ."
(We are experience some difficulty, btw, in figuring out the difference between the Reformed Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Reformed Church.)
However, it appears Silversides' denomination is closely link to the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) in which Maurice Roberts of Truth in Science is closely involved.
Silversides believes that the Pope is the anti-Christ - see http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~jbeggsoc/jbscatalogue2.html.
Rev Noel Somerville is pastor for Dromore Church which is part of the Church of the Nazarene denomination (claims to have 11 churches in NI) (See http://www.nazarene.org.uk/find.html). It is basically a deeply conservative fundamentalist evangelical church largely based in (and originating from) the USA.
Mr Wallace Thompson - Again we see the connection between the Caleb Foundation and the Evangelical Protestant Society. Thompson is part-time secretary for the EPS and edits its publication, Ulster Bulwark. He is Clerk of Session in Knock Evangelical Presbyterian Church in East Belfast. He is a member of the Independent Orange Institution.
The Rev S Watson is a pastor with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (strong creationist tendencies). That’s all we know about him.
Pastor I Wilson is believed to be Ian Wilson, former pastor of the Grove Baptist Church in Belfast NI. YECer Denis Lyle has spoken at the Church.
