Westminster Fellowship should not be disparaged as it is acting for the good of Presbyterian Church

A LETTER on January 15 continued the discussion about the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and hazarded a guess that the Westminster Fellowship might be the group to which Alf McCreary and others had referred in previous pieces.

I believe that this is incorrect. The caricature of the fellowship given in the letter does not match my experience. I first encountered the Westminster Fellowship in my teens, when I went with my mother to a meeting it had organised in Belfast, at which the guest speaker was the Rev Eric Alexander of the Church of Scotland.

After I became a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, I began to attend the Westminster Fellowship’s conferences. I have found them a source of help and encouragement, and always in keeping with the fellowship’s primary aim of the renewal of the Church of Jesus Christ and, in particular, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

I am looking forward to the two-day conference arranged by the fellowship in February, at which the speaker is Dr Bryan Chappell, senior pastor of Grace

Presbyterian Church, Peoria, Illinois.

I have never been asked to be part of a block vote at the General Assembly, or to agitate for a particular view on ordination. I am grieved to read the fellowship inaccurately described as proudly boasting. I am sure your correspondent of January 15 will recognise that their comments disparage some who have conscientiously sought to serve the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

ADRIAN MOFFETT By email