Presbyterians Vote to Stay Put
The Presbyterian General Assembly voted this afternoon to retain its historic headquarters building in the centre of the city of Belfast.
The church had previously agreed to sell the Church House and Assembly Building site for £5m to the Thornton Trust, a Christian charity, and relocate its headquarters elsewhere, but subsequently of that sale (in still very mysterious circumstances).
Today's Assembly decision (passed by a margin of less than 30 votes) means that the Fisherwich Place site will continue to accommodate the administrative headquarters of Northern Ireland's largest Protestant denomination -- for the time being, in any case. This represents a complete U-turn on a previous Assembly decision to sell the Assembly Building, and was championed today by former Moderator Dr John Dunlop, who made a very compelling speech which clearly changed a lot of minds in the House.
It's a triumph for John Dunlop, who has been leading the campaign against the sale of Church House for some years now -- and whose face somehow managed to avoid communicating, "I told you so" during today's debate.
Comments
I think it surprised a lot of people when the sale was agreed last year, but confirmed to me what a lot of people know already: PCI, like a lot of traditional churches, are in trouble, due to lack of new members, unwillingness to change and overhead required to keep all their real estate maintained year after year. It was such financial worries that convinced the Assembly to sell Church House last year - Dunlop may have given a convincing speech but PCI still needs to address issues of how to survive the future.