Thinking back over the opportunities I’ve had to preach the Gospel made me also reflect on my late dad’s (Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE) time in full-time ministry in PCI in the north Antrim hills, which was a theological linchpin in the north east Ulster Bible Belt in the Sixties and Seventies.
Like me guaranteeing confidentiality in journalism with sources, the same is true of pledging confidentiality to people seeking dad’s advice as a Presbyterian minister.
Apart from the one occasion when I snooped on a married man who’d had an affair with his sister in law and who confessed this to dad in the privacy of the Manse study, dad always kept the confidentiality of his spiritual counselling very close to his chest and took the overwhelming majority of people’s secrets to the grave.
But there were some incidents at the Manse which I witnessed which opened a window slightly ajar to life in the north east Ulster Bible Belt, and especially what could be classified as a ‘spiritual predicament’ for dad.
One of the most bizarre moments came when a rich farmer arrived at the rural Presbyterian Manse in a very foul temper. Those were the days when advertisements could be placed in newspapers and these was much less rigorous checking as to the validity of the content.
The rich farmer’s son was getting married to a local lass and it was certainly to be billed as one of the ‘grand weddings’ of that rural section of the Bible Belt.
If ever a wedding would be a display of the wealth of the agricultural community of the Bible Belt, it would be this one. No expense would be spared.
The furious farmer arrived at the Manse, brandishing a newspaper. Through his anger, the farmer pointed to a small advert asking for baby materials, such as a pram and cot and gave the farmer’s address.
The clear implication was that his son was having to marry this lass as he had put her ‘in the family way’ - a situation which the farmer emphasised was simply not true.
What should have been a farming ‘celebrity wedding’ in the Bible Belt, because of this advert, would be viewed as a ‘shotgun marriage’ - something which was very heavily frowned upon in the north east Ulster Bible Belt in those latter decades of the 20th century.
The farmer through his rage was demanding that my dad initiate a witch hunt to track down the culprits who had placed the advert which was seen as a terrible slur on the character of the farmer’s family.
Given the status of the role of the Presbyterian minister, quite often, no matter what the crisis, dad was always viewed as the first port of call. In this set of circumstances, my dad’s first priority was to calm the farmer down before he blamed someone and took the law into his own hands!
Ironically, it would be years later before an alleged suspect was named! Indeed, I sometimes got the impression that some folk in that Bible Belt regarded the role of the Presbyterian minister as some kind of Middle Ages Puritan Witch Finder General. That was certainly not how dad viewed his calling in the Christian ministry.
And seeking dad’s guidance or wanting him to dish out some kind of Puritanical retribution was not limited to Presbyterianism in that Bible Belt.
On one occasion, members of another denomination arrived at the Manse demanding that my dad take action because a young single female, who had had a baby ‘out of wedlock’ had decided to return and live in the Bible Belt.
What did these Puritan bigots expect my father to do - organise a public burning of the young woman at the stake? I often got the impression that the biggest challenge my dad had to face in parish life was calming the hot tempered Puritans rather than praying and counselling troubled ‘sinners’.
Quite often, too, counselling was not limited to spiritual matters. The vast majority of dad’s Presbyterian flock were farmers. Farms are, and always were, potentially dangerous places to work. So when the phone went one day at the Manse and a sobbing farmer’s wife was on the other end, dad feared the worse.
Dad did not observe the rural speed limit as he raced to that particular farm to be confronted by the farmer standing in the middle of his yard, ‘bawling his eyes out’ like a new-born baby. Dad feared the worst; that a member of the family had either been seriously injured or killed in a farm accident.
But through the snatches of conversation with the deeply sobbing, well built farmer, the accurate picture emerged. His prize pig had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and would have to be put down. The farmer simply could not bear to shoot his prize pig, and had asked his wife to phone my dad to get the Presbyterian minister to execute the pig by firing squad!
Dad was shown into an upstairs bedroom where farming clothing was laid out. He changed into the provided dungarees, was handed the rifle. The farmer - still sobbing uncontrollably - was allowed a few moments to say goodbye to the precious pig, before dad entered the shed and promptly dispatched the prize animal into eternity! After showering and dressed again in his Presbyterian clerical clothes, he was then treated to traditional tea and Presbyterian tray bakes as a reward while the farmer continued to sniff and gently sob at the dining table.
The kindness of that farming community should never be underestimated. On another occasion, I accompanied my dad while he visited a farmer to whom he had given spiritual counselling. The farmer was clearly in better spirits in coming to terms with his crisis.
He insisted dad and I inspect his magnificent flock of sheep. Out we trooped to the field adorned with what I can only describe (in my limited knowledge of sheep breeding) as a wonderful flock. As well as the farmer, we were accompanied by one of his sons.
As we admired the flock quietly grazing in the field, the soft-spoken farmer asked my dad: “Which one do you like, your Reverence?”
Now whilst my dad achieved five university degrees during his time and his early vocational skill was motor mechanics and he had even built his own light aircraft in the Presbyterian Manse, I’m sure my dad would not mind me writing that his knowledge of sheep breeding (like mine) was very limited.
Dad simply pointed to one of the sheep and replied: “That one!” Suddenly and without warning, the son produced a gun and promptly shot the indicated sheep through the head!
The farmer then told dad that the meat would be cut up for the Manse freezer within the week, and Mrs Coulter would have the sheep’s fleece cured and could be used as a rug in the Manse! While we always appreciated such generosity of those kindly Bible Belt folk, such spontaneous executions of livestock were thankfully rare!
Given the strict confidentiality which dad ensured when counselling people spiritually, apart from occasional nosiness by myself, there are only a few tales of the crises which folk faced in that Bible Belt.
The same was true of dad’s mother, my late Gran Coulter, who died in 1976. After my grandfather, her husband, affectionately known as Papa Coulter, died in 1970, Gran would spend some months of each year at the Presbyterian Manse rather than live in the family home in Stewartstown.
Gran was an old-fashioned Faith Mission stalwart and prayer warrior who believed passionately in the power of spiritual prayer. During her frequent times at the Manse, she would use the land line telephone to establish a prayer project where folk in the Bible Belt could phone her with their woes and she would pray with them over the phone.
Gran took this evangelical witness very seriously. However, on one occasion, I just happened to be passing the phone table just as Gran ended the call and could see she was very visibly distressed.
Off she scurried to dad’s study and in a clearly, almost tearful voice, said: “Bobby, I need to speak with you urgently!”
As Gran had just finished her daily prayer line, something was very clearly wrong. Gran made the mistake of not closing the study door, so nosey me could hear the conversation. Neither dad nor Gran knew I was at the door listening.
You would think I had learned my lesson from my previous escapade at being caught listening to a confidential conversation, but apart from Papa’s funeral in 1970, I had never seen Gran so distressed.
Then Gran outlined the ‘crisis’, which resulted in me having to stuff a handkerchief in my mouth to stop me laughing.
A woman had phoned Gran for a prayer request. She was a middle aged married Christian woman. Her ‘crisis’ was that her husband’s penis was too big and sex was painful. She wanted Gran to pray that God would shrink her husband’s penis so that she could enjoy sex.
Clearly, in spite of Gran being an experienced Faith Mission prayer warrior, she had never encountered a request like this and wanted dad’s advice on what she should say.
Needless to say, I was unfortunately at school when Gran phoned that woman back so I never got to hear the wording of Gran’s ‘Shrinking Penis Prayer’.
And, of course, I never asked her what she said as that would have been a clear indication I had been snooping at the study door. While I viewed myself as one of Gran’s closest grandchildren, there would be no way Gran would have approved of me breaking the confidentiality of her spiritual prayer line.
When Gran and I meet up again in Heaven, I fully intend to ask her what she said to the woman!
Weddings were always a time of great celebration in the life of a rural minister and even as the minister’s son I would get the occasional invite to ceremonies and a free meal.
However, some weddings in that rural area of the Bible Belt could be very lively affairs. In some cases, there was a tradition of the bride’s father firing a shotgun in the air before the bride left the family home for the church ceremony. It was traditional to let any wannabe suitors know that the bride was ‘spoken for’.
Quite often, the reception meal after the church ceremony would be radically delayed, because as the bride and groom stood on the church steps after getting ‘hitched’, the groom would be ‘kidnapped’ by some of his farmer friends and left - dressed in his wedding tucks - on an isolated road many miles from the reception hotel!
Worse could follow on the honeymoon night. On one occasion, on the morning after the honeymoon night, the newly married couple awoke to find two of the groom’s farmer friends crawling out from below the bed, having listened to everything which occurred during the wedding night.
On another occasion, after the honeymoon night, the bride opened the honeymoon suite wardrobe door to find one of the groom’s friends standing in the wardrobe, again having heard all the wedding night’s events.
Sometimes, ministers would exchange stories of the challenges which they had faced at weddings. Thankfully, this incident did not happen to dad. At a colleague’s ceremony, the minister read out as part of the religious proceedings - ‘let anyone with due cause as to why this couple should not be married, speak now for forever hold their peace’
From the back of the church, a young man shouted out: “I have!” Up to the front of the church marched this young man, a total stranger to all present. You could hear the murmur buzzing through the congregation - who was this stranger and what was he about to reveal?
The young man lifted the bride’s veil, and then shouted: “Oh sorry, wrong woman!” Before making a hasty escape from the church before the bride’s family and the groom could catch him.
In many Presbyterian churches in that Bible Belt, the pulpit was a central place in the church building. In my dad’s church, one past minister had insisted that when he died, he would be buried behind the pulpit.
The congregation duly carried out the minister’s wishes - then moved the pulpit to a different location in the church building. That minister’s grave and headstone can still be seen today outside Clough Presbyterian church, near Ballymena.
Until I passed my driving test and got my own car, taking a woman on a date was limited to the traditional Presbyterian church parties. But where could you take a girl if you wanted a ‘snog’.
For the minister’s son to openly kiss a girl in public was ‘not the done thing’ and would be heavily frowned upon, so where on church property could you go for some privacy at such parties? I recall once getting a severe telling off for sitting with my arm around a girl’s shoulder at a Presbyterian soiree!
The solution was simple. Take the girl through the minister’s room, and up the stairs to the pulpit. When one of my farmer chums took a girl outside for a ‘snog’, no one minded, but when the minister’s son disappeared from a church party with a girl, a full-scale search of the building would be organised!
For several years, no one thought of looking for me on the pulpit seat. Until one evening in my teens, a clever-thinking youth leader decided to actually check the pulpit - and my little ‘snog centre’ was discovered.
Needless to say, I got a dressing down for using the sanctity of the Presbyterian pulpit to satisfy my teenage sexual hormones. To spare blushes, I will never reveal the identities of the young Presbyterian lassies from the 1970s who joined me for some ‘Pulpit Passion!’
It is amazing the skills which a Presbyterian minister must acquire, especially in a rural congregation. In the early Seventies, the Clough congregation decided to renovate part of the church. The work involved the use of a bulldozer clearing trees.
However, when the vehicle arrived at the church, none of the farmers knew how to operate the bulldozer. Bedecked in his clerical collar, dad promptly climbed aboard the bulldozer and using his motor mechanical skills, proceeded to clear the ground driving the bulldozer as if he was a lifelong expert in using such a mechanical vehicle - much to the amusement of the assembled farmers.
In later life as a journalist, I was to report on the activities of the animal rights activists protesting against live hare coursing at the Crebilly ground near Ballymena.
However, as a young person I led a protest at dad’s church to protect the Presbyterian crows! Before the trees could be cleared for the renovation work at the church in those early Seventies, the crows’ nests had to be cleared.
This process involved farmers shooting at the crows nests. So I decided to lead a delegation of chums and we organised a ‘sit down’ protest under the trees as the farmers could not shoot at the crows’ nests for fear the nests would fall on us below. My ‘Save The Presbyterian Crows’ did not last long.
The Mexican-style ‘stand-off’ lasted only a few minutes as we were bluntly told to all get back inside the church hall and stop being a nuisance. But the point did not go unnoticed with me - as the minister’s son, I could encourage peers to start a rebellion!
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| Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter Dr Coulter has been a journalist since 1978 and is currently a political commentator with GB News. |
