Presbyterian Church In Ireland Research Articles

Creation, Evolution, and “The New Cosmic Philosophy”: William Todd Martin's Critique of Herbert Spencer

AbstractThis article explores the religious response of one neglected writer to the evolutionary philosophy of Herbert Spencer. William Todd Martin was a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and in 1887 publishedThe Evolution Hypothesis: A Criticism of the New Cosmic Philosophy. The work demonstrates the essentially contested nature of “evolution” and “creation” by showing how a self-confessed creationist could affirm an evolutionary understanding of the natural world and species transformation. Martin's approach reflected a transatlantic Presbyterian worldview that saw the harmony of science and religion on the basis of Calvinism, Baconianism and Scottish Common Sense philosophy. Martin's critique is also relevant to issues that continue to animate philosophers of science and religion, including the connections between mind and matter, morality and consciousness in a Darwinian framework, and the relationship between subjective conscious experience and evolutionary physicalism. Martin was able to anticipate these debates because his critique was essentially philosophical and theological rather than biological and biblicist.

Presbyterians and conscience

This essay explores the nature and role of conscience in the history of Scottish and Irish Presbyterianism. It sets out an account of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in relation to conscience arguing that, with regard to present debates, Presbyterianism needs to reflect more deeply on the renewing power of the Spirit. It concludes by reflecting on conscience as a possible means to approach healing the rift between the Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland over the issue of same-sex relationships.

High or Low? Writing the Irish Reformation in the Early Nineteenth Century

The Irish Reformation is a contentious issue, not just between Catholic and Protestant, but also within the Protestant churches, as competing Presbyterian and Anglican claims are made over the history of the Irish reformation. This chapter looks at the way in which James Seaton Reid, (1798–1851), laid claim to the Reformation for Irish Dissent in his History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. It then examines the rival Anglican histories by two High Churchmen: Richard Mant (1775–1848), Bishop of Down and Connor; and Charles Elrington, (1787–1850), the Regius Professor of Divinity in Trinity College, Dublin. It is clear that, in each case, theological and denominational conviction decisively shaped their history writing. Equally, however, significant advances were made by all three scholars in unearthing important new primary sources, and in identifying key points of controversy and debate which still represent a challenge to eccleciastical historians, of whatever denomination or none, today.

Ambivalent Imperialism: The Missionary Rhetoric of Robert Boyd

Postcolonial Studies has directed much of its critique of British Imperialism at those informal agents responsible for the cultural crimes of colonial exploitation. Missionaries have routinely been charged with cultural annihilation and for conjuring up images of different and distant peoples and places. In keeping with a growing trend in historical studies, this article revisits the complexity of missionary involvement in colonialism, and its rhetorical construction of otherness. But I do this in quite a different way by examining as literature writings produced by missionaries themselves. Specifically, I analyse the works of Robert Boyd, a missionary in India in the early 20th century and later convener of Foreign Mission for the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. By bringing the tools of rhetorical analysis to bear upon such ‘non-literary’ texts, I hope to intervene in a debate dominated by historians and theologians. I argue that the relationship between mission and imperialism is one of ambivalence, an ever complex dynamic, which refuses the cliché of the bible and the gun as the dual tools of empire.

Evangelicalism and National Identity in Ulster, 1921–1998. By Patrick Mitchel. Pp. xii + 362. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. isbn 0 19 925615 2. £60

Patrick Mitchel is Lecturer in Theology at the Irish Bible Institute, and his study of Evangelicalism in Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1998 is as much a contribution to theology as to history. His ultimate aim is to suggest how Christians, and especially Evangelical Christians, should behave in this intensely political situation. At the heart of the book is a protest against the popular identification of Ian Paisley as the representative figure of ‘Evangelicalism’ in Ulster. The Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Mitchel says, has lost its traditional social and religious dominance and faces a daunting challenge in regaining a distinct, independent identity. He admits, with regret, that ‘the evidence suggests that the [Presbyterian] Church has been shaped by the conflict between Unionism and Nationalism more than it has been shaped by an alternative to that conflict’. Twentieth-century Presbyterianism had to struggle against both ‘liberal theology’ and against the political attractiveness of the Orange Order. Mitchel distinguishes between what he calls the ‘closed’, fundamentalist Evangelicalism of Paisley's Democratic Unionism, which is, he says, attracted by the ‘tribal nationalism’ of the Orange Order and willing to legitimize nationalist objectives with its own version of Evangelical belief and imagery, and an ‘open’ style Evangelicalism, less obsessed with fundamentalism and prepared to accept the Good Friday agreement as a positive step towards political and religious peace.

Developing Industry‐based Projects in Hospitality management

The quality of management is an important factor in relation to the economic growth of a country and although a number of organisations in Great Britain excel in performance criteria regarding quality and reliability, unfortunately many do not. One of the most recent initiatives to rectify this situation has been the Enterprise in Higher Education scheme. This article focuses on the implementation of aims of the scheme in the area of hospitality management and describes a project undertaken by undergraduate students from the University of Ulster on behalf of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. The work was carried out on a small group basis and the article evaluates this medium as a learning process.

A History of Congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland Edited by John T. Carson (Presbyterian Historical Society, Church House, Belfast. 808pp. £21)

A History of Congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland Edited by John T. Carson (Presbyterian Historical Society, Church House, Belfast. 808pp. £21)

Ulster presbyterians and Irish nationalism

The stubborn resistance of the protestants of Ulster to the Irish national movement is a notorious fact of modern Anglo-Irish history. Though such resistance to national movements by a minority is by no means a unique phenomenon in the history of nationalism, it may be, as Peter Gibbon claims, in hisOrigins of Ulster Unionism,that ‘nowhere else has such a movement encountered a rival of comparable effectiveness, popular support and staying power’. Much of that popular support and staying power came from the presbyterians of Ulster, for, as T. W. Moody has written:The stronghold of Ulster protestantism has always been the presbyterian church, rooted in the Scottish reformation and maintaining close and continuous contact with Scotland. Probably the most important social institution of protestant Ulster, it is the only church in Ulster whose members are concentrated in the province and whose structure and government are provincial.Significantly, until the formation of the general assembly of the presbyterian church in Ireland in 1840, the mainstream presbyterian body in Ireland was the synod of Ulster.

The presbyterian church in Ireland and the government of Ireland act (1920)

The government of Ireland act (1920) did not fall, like Athene, fully fledged from the head of Zeus, so its historical development has to be considered if the presbyterian attitude to it is to be understood.Presbyterians in Ireland had been second-class citizens up to 1780, and from then until the act of disestablishment in 1870 a tolerated church. This was a vital factor when they were called upon to face the issue of home rule in 1886. A second was that they were a minority, the majority of whose members lived in Ulster, whose community interests with Britain had been accentuated by industrialisation. They owed little or nothing to an irish parliament or Dublin so far as relief from legal disabilities and their standard of living were concerned. A third factor was the ‘vote tory manifesto’ of ‘catholic nationalism’ in 1885 which ended liberalism as a party in Ulster politics leaving presbyterianism without a political party of its own liberal ethos. Politically, presbyterians had now no option but to choose between the toryism of the former ascendancy and an aggressive catholic nationalism which at times resorted to force and violence against the union with Britain on which their standard of living and economic welfare depended.

Ireland’s debt to the Huguenots. By S.J. Knox. Pp. xiv, 86. Dublin: A.P.C.K. 1959. 5s. - A short history of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. By John M. Barkley. Pp. 138. Belfast: Publications Board, Presbyterian Church in Ireland. 1959. 3s. 6d.

Ireland’s debt to the Huguenots. By S.J. Knox. Pp. xiv, 86. Dublin: A.P.C.K. 1959. 5s. - A short history of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. By John M. Barkley. Pp. 138. Belfast: Publications Board, Presbyterian Church in Ireland. 1959. 3s. 6d. - Volume 13 Issue 50

A Short History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. by ProfessorJohn M. Barklay, M.A., PH.D., D.D., F.R.Hist.S. Publications Board, Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Belfast. Pp. 138. 3s.

A Short History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. by ProfessorJohn M. Barklay, M.A., PH.D., D.D., F.R.Hist.S. Publications Board, Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Belfast. Pp. 138. 3s.

Reid's "History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland."

Reid's "History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland."

Postscript. “The Year of Grace,” a History of the Ulster Revival of 1859, By the Rev W. Gibson, Professor of Christian Ethics, and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Edinburgh, 1860. Second Edition.

Postscript. “The Year of Grace,” a History of the Ulster Revival of 1859, By the Rev W. Gibson, Professor of Christian Ethics, and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Edinburgh, 1860. Second Edition.