The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 1770-1840

Abstract

Until now, scholars of Ulster Presbyterianism have focused upon internal theological debates, institutions, and the political implications of Presbyterian theology as a way to explain the origins of the United Irish movement and the swift conversion of Presbyterians to support for the Union with Great Britain thereafter. This book breaks new ground by considering the religious beliefs and practices of Presbyterians in their own right. It examines the various forms of public and private religiosity in order to determine how the community should be characterized. By stressing the integrity and importance of religious motivation, this book examines the dynamic relationship between the beliefs and practice prescribed by the church and those held by the laity, the rise to prominence of evangelicalism and its roots within the Presbyterian theological tradition, and the variety of Presbyterianism in terms of theological belief, social standing, gender, and regional location. During this period, Presbyterian belief and practice was shaped by three principal influences: tradition in the form of the doctrinal standards of the church and also those beliefs and customs of long continuance held by the laity; the forces of reform, particularly evangelicalism, that attempted to transform the structures and beliefs of the church and remove the popular accretions upon official Presbyterian belief and practice; finally, the programme of reform evangelicals embarked upon from the 1820s was stimulated by a broader revival of religion from the 1790s, entailed a revival of traditional Presbyterian practice as laid down in the Westminster standards, and would act as a stimulus to a further revival of religion within the denomination. Rather than seeing evangelicalism as a byword for religious enthusiasm and unbridled individualism, this book defines it as a movement for reformation and revival within Presbyterianism that had its roots in the Presbyterian religious tradition and which ultimately produced the 1859 revival.