Welcome to Ulster Worldly, a blog about the history of Presbyterianism. Many of these stories come from my own family, many others come from my own denomination.
In 1957 Christianity Today editor Dr. J. Marcellus Kik sent R. J. Rushdoony, then known primarily as a promising young critic of modernism and secular education, a letter announcing the launch of a new venture. At the time, Rushdoony had not yet abandoned the mainline Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for J. Gresham Machen’s separatist Orthodox Presbyterian Church. If Rushdoony had done so, Kik would likely have never reached out to him because, as [Carl] Henry later recalled of his editorial strategy, "We solicited articles from evangelicals in mainline denominations, not because we were precommihted to ecumenism but because writers in the independent church might give the magazine an anti-ecumenical cast that would hinder our outreach."
Ulster Worldly is a blog about the history of presbyterianism.
I am a deacon in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and an arm-chair church historian. This site started with me making a digital archive of the writings of my grandfather and great grandfather who were PCUS (Southern Presbyterian) missionaries to Korea.
I am fascinated by American religious history broadly, and I am also particularly interested in the presbyterian controversy of the early 20th century.
The name “Ulster Worldly” is a silly combination of “other worldly” (in recognition that this world is not our home) and Ulster (for the Ulster Plantation in northern Ireland where many of my ancestors came from).
As stated clerk of the General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian church, Woodrow Wilson’s father Joseph Wilson was responsible for editing the minutes of the Assembly. He often called on young Woodrow for assistance. Woodrow said:
I remember that the Stated Clerks of those Presbyteries gave me gave a great deal of trouble. Some of them, particularly of the country Presbyteries would not consult the almanac. They would say that they Presbytery would convene on the second Monday after full moon, early at candlelight. My father exacted of me that I should find out which Monday that was and calculate the probable hour of early candlelight.
(From Woodrow Wilson in Church by Dr. James H. Taylor. Image from wilsonboyhoodhome.org.)
A man who loves the Reformed Faith with all his heart and believes that no matter what other churches or other individuals may think is true, will, I think, defend it whether it is popular or not and will carry his defence [sic] of it out into the public concils [sic] of the Church.
