Editing Billy Wright (loyalist) (section)

==Born-again Christian==
Wright returned to Portadown and initially tried to avoid paramilitarism. He found a job as an insurance salesman and married his girlfriend Thelma Corrigan, by whom he had two daughters, Sara and Ashleen.<ref name="anderson27">{{harvnb|Anderson |2002 |pp=27–28}}</ref> He took in his sister Angela's son to be raised alongside his own children when she went to live in the United States. He was regarded as a good father.<ref name="guardian.co.uk"/> In 1983, he became a [[born again Christian]] and lay preacher in the [[Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster|Free Presbyterian Church]]<ref>{{cite web |last1=Maume |first1=Patrick |title=Wright, William ('Billy') |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/wright-william-billy-a9139 |website=Dictionary of Irish Biography |access-date=1 May 2023}}</ref> and began working as a gospel preacher in County Armagh.<ref name="anderson33">{{harvnb|Anderson |2002 |pp=33–34}}</ref> He had studied Christianity whilst in prison to pass the time.<ref name="herald">[https://web.archive.org/web/20140714131130/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-18988201.html "The State sanctioned the murder of my son". ''Sunday Herald''. Chris Anderson. 5 September 1999.] Retrieved 5 September 2011, via HighBeam.com</ref>

As a consequence of his religious conversion, Wright eschewed the highlife favoured by many of his loyalist contemporaries such as [[Johnny Adair]] and [[Stephen McKeag]], [[teetotalism|abstaining from alcohol]], tobacco and illegal drugs.<ref name="mad265">{{harvnb|Lister |Jordan |2004 |p=265}}</ref> He read a lot, including [[Irish history]] and [[theology]].<ref name="guardian.co.uk"/> In particular he studied the [[history of Protestantism]] in Europe.<ref name="dillon71">{{harvnb|Dillon |1999 |p=71}}</ref> Wright's religious faith had contradictory influences on his life. On the one hand, he argued that his faith drove him to defend the "Protestant people of Ulster", while at the same time, he conceded that the cold-blooded murder of non-combatant [[civilian]]s would ensure his [[damnation]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.irish-association.org/archives/stevebruce11_oct03.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090106193239/http://www.irish-association.org/archives/stevebruce11_oct03.html|url-status=dead|title=The Irish Association – Steve Bruce<!-- Bot generated title -->|archivedate=6 January 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Religion and violence: The case of Paisley and Ulster evangelicals |author=Steve Bruce |publisher=The Irish Association for cultural, economic and social relations |url=http://www.irish-association.org/archives/stevebruce11_oct03.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090106193239/http://www.irish-association.org/archives/stevebruce11_oct03.html |archive-date= 6 January 2009 }}</ref> He spoke of this dilemma during an interview with Martin Dillon:<ref name="dillon77">{{harvnb|Dillon |1999 |p=77}}</ref> {{rp|94}}

{{blockquote|You can't glorify God and seek to glorify Ulster because the challenges which are needed are paramilitary. That's a contradiction to the life God would want you to lead. If you were to get yourself involved in paramilitary activity in its present form, or the form in which it manifested itself during the Troubles, then I don't think you could walk with God...

...There's always the hope that in some way, someday – and there are precedents within scripture – your hope would be that God would draw you back to him. All those who have the knowledge of Christ would seek to walk with him again. People would say, 'Billy Wright, that's impossible,' but nothing's impossible if you have faith in God. I would hope that he would allow me to come back. I'm not walking with God.... Without getting into doctrine, without getting too deep, it is possible to have walked with God and to fall away and still belong to God.}}

When asked by Dillon whether or not the conflict was a religious war, he replied: "I certainly believe religion is part of the equation. I don't think you can leave religion out of it".<ref name="dillon64">{{harvnb|Dillon |1999 |p=64}}</ref>

Angela Wright later claimed that her brother had foreseen the [[September 11 attacks]] when he told her that as she was living in New York she was abiding in a "city of sin"; he then went on to predict that the [[World Trade Center (1973-2001)|World Trade Center]] towers would be destroyed from the air.<ref name="Dillon47">{{harvnb|Dillon |2003 |p=47}}</ref>