Paisley's 30,000 books
It's a sizeable personal collection of books by any standards. I'm not long back from my meeting with the First Minister and he confirmed that he has a library of about 30,000 volumes. Most are religious histories and theological texts and the books are located in three places, including the Paisley family home in east Belfast. Dr Paisley re-reads the Bible at least once each year, marking up the text with notes and various colour-codes. He has also read about a hundred times. We'd a lot of fun wondering what kind of names Bunyan would have assigned to some of our current Stormont politicians. I'm not going to tell you any more about the interview, except to say that there are a couple of revealing comments in there that will make you raise an eye-brow or two.
After the interview, we chatted over coffee for about half an hour and found ourselves discussing the relationship between theology and science -- we compared reading notes on Charles Hodge, B.B. Warfield, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins. He even -- gently -- took me to task on some of my radio interviews with leading creationists.
The First Minister, as ever in these personal interviews, was the embodiment of charm and good humour throughout, and I was very impressed by his knowledge of 18th and 19th century American theology in particular. As he was showing me out of his office at Stormont Castle, he said, "It's a long time since a conversation like that was had in this room!" Then he chuckled and told one his assistants to show me "carefully out" of the building making sure that I didn't get my hands "on any of the family silver".
Comments
When does this interiew go on air William?
William,
Given your crusades against all things Evangelical, I think you did well to get a foot into IP's office.
This should be an interesting interview! Ive always wondered if Paisley at home relaxing is the same one we see at rallies etc etc. I personally have always thought he was more intelligent than people think he is. But I have no respect for many of his positions!
Also if William reads these COULD YOU PLEASE POST THE NEWLY RELEASED INTERVIEW BETWEEN MCGRATH AND DAWKINS DO THAT PEOPLE CAN COMMENT! MCGRATH SAYS SOME REMARKABLY CONTRADICTORY THINGS AND EVEN APPEARS STUMPED BY MANY OF DAWKINS QUESTIONS!
rubberduckie- You're an idiot. Crawley is a journalist, reflecting the concerns and interests of a reasonably intelligent listening audience. If you think that makes him anti-evangelical then you're welcome to your short-sighted, narcissistic, highly ignorant opinion, but many of us may beg to differ.
Sounds hilarious. I get the impression that Will got on like a house on fire with Paisley!
Yes, but who is (cough) "Dr" Paisley?
Either Will belives Paisley had a real PhD or he's extracting the Free Presbyterian p*** here by calling the big man Dr P. If you know what I mean. Ahem.
John Wright,
The quote at the end of this post was taken directly from your own blog and was written by you.
I offer the following observations-
1. On your own blog you actually state that the vast majority of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ journalists reveal themselves to have a centre/left wing bias and that conservatives would be given a rough time at the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳. This makes your reaction to my post appear somewhat ironic.
2. You have a very high view of journalists (what job do you do again?). I am also a thinking and highly educated person, even though, believe it or not, I am not a journalist.
3. If you look at William's entry in Wikipedia, you will find by looking at the section on controversies that I am not alone in believing that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ is pushing an anti-Evangelical agenda.
4. You resort to personal abuse far too frequently without engaging your enormous journalistic intellect.
Kind regards,
rubberduckie
The quote from your blog...
"The dominant trend among more educated, thinking people in Britain - the kind who are journalists - is to identify more with leftwing European politics. If you were to take a poll of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ journalists, perhaps using a quiz of this nature, you'd find that the vast majority will reveal themselves to be centre/left, to some degree. In some of the newsrooms I've been in, a 'conservative' would have a tough time. They'd be a minority."
I have to support Rubber Duckie here in ref to JW's comments.
Why is it John that William neve reflects the concerns of those people who take a concervative view on;-
-the causes of homosexuality
-the political agenda of environmentalism
-the rightness of abortion
-the bible as the word of God
JW- wise up, William's questions and blogs always but always but always challenge a conservative Christian viewpoint.
Just try and find one entry on homosexuality that does not challenge only ONE side of the debate. ok?
If he ever needed a significant audience to justify refltecing such concerns he would not find anywhere better than N Ireland.
Two recent polls by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Nolan Show found 66% of listeners backs Ian Paisley Jr's comments on homosexuality and also a Derry Pastor who condemned young women wearing bikinis, flashing their breasts and carrying inflatable penises on the streets of Derry.
Conclusion; Around 66per cent of Listeners (who can text) to Radio Ulster are quite conservative; William and Nolan both openly acknowledge this.
Ironically, if they were running commcerical programmes their advertisers would soon ensure they reflected true public opinion.
You of all people know this JW as you slam the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ subsidies so often.
PB
PB
"young women wearing bikinis, flashing their breasts and carrying inflatable penises on the streets of Derry."
that's it, I'm going to Derry! PB were you hired by the tourist board of the Maiden city?
And again this worrying obsession with homosexuality...
The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ isn’t pro-evangelical, their policy is that of an ecumenical one, when did the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ first give a spot to the Free Presbyterians on thought for today? Maybe somebody in the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ could answer that question which in turn would throw light on to the matter of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳’s stance regarding their negative outlook towards Protestantism. BTW I’m not a Free P.
rubberduckie & PB- Thanks for your replies. I was too quick to throw out the "idiot" comment, though the rest of my criticism remains.
The point is that, as well as being very critical of the way the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ is funded and remaining certain of the centre-left bias at the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, I'm also a broadcaster. I know that there's no way we'd make a program on ethics that simply props up the conservative position. It wouldn't be a story. Conservatives, by definition, wish to keep some kind of status-quo in terms of belief.
If there were no liberal or progressivist challenges to 'status-quo' belief, there'd be no need to do any programs on ethics, because there'd be nothing to report! Imagine William's Sunday morning broadcast in that scenario: "Welcome to Sunday Sequence. Today we're discussing how Ian Paisley Jr believes gays are evil, and how five members of our studio panel agree with him."
You can't look back at the entries on this blog on religion or ethics and claim that the fact that they contain challenges to conservatism inherently reveals William's anti-conservative bias. The simple fact is that only when there are debates and discussions to be had is there a story worth blogging or broadcasting about. What William thinks about it is irrelevant in this regard, though he has opinions on all of it.
A topic is raised because it's a story: period. rubberduckie's comment #2 was ridiculous in that it ignored the plain facts of this post and used the word "crusade" which any broadcaster (and, frankly, the vast majority of consumers) knows is garbage.
Stories on ethics don't happen without debates, and reporting those stories does not a crusade make.
John Wright,
Thanks for your response.
I'm not expecting William to 'prop up' the conservative position, merely give it equal status, time and respect on Sunday Sequence.
I'd also appreciate it if he would try harder not to become a contributer himself - surely you'd agree that this is best practice?
I'm confused. I've just read this post by Will in which he says nice things about Ian Paisley and then these comments from people saying Will is unmittigatingly nasty to conservatives. Bizarre.
I read last week that Sunday Sequence currently has a bigger audience than its ever had before, in something like a 25year history that's not unimpressive! What do you think is happening PB? Is it possible that you don't represent the views of quite as many people as you imagine?
I'm a regular listener and I can tell you this programme would be ruined if PB was running it! I listen for the debates, the arguments, and the programme's willingness to take on some of the big ideas of he day and the big guns too and challenge them. We need more of that kind of programme, not less.
I don't agree that Will turns into a contributor. He asks the tough questions and it's a shame if conservatives have such trouble defending their views. If you want to see an opinionated presenter, you'd be better to look at Nolan. Crawley is balanced and avoids going too far. Others could learn from that.