Evangelical and Ecumenical? Irish Presbyterianism in the United Kingdom, 1938–47

From 1938 to 1947, a period of escalating international tensions and armed conflict, Christian intellectuals in Great Britain formed and engaged in various discussion groups, debating responses to such challenges as totalitarianism, warfare, peacekeeping, international and domestic social order, and the place of the church in society. Although neglected in the historiography of such groups, Christians in Northern Ireland engaged in similar discussions, most notably through the “Davey commission,” a group of Presbyterians under the leadership of J. Ernest Davey. By examining the work and findings of that group, this article contextualises Northern Ireland in the historiography of British Christian thinking during the Second World War. Until recently, historians of twentieth-century Protestantism in Northern Ireland have emphasised the region's disconnectedness from Christianity in Britain and interpreted its development in terms of binary opposition between evangelicals and ecumenists. The article evaluates recent scholarship which has suggested the limits of these earlier perspectives, showing that, at least in terms of Presbyterianism, mid-twentieth century Protestantism in Northern Ireland was indeed closely connected to British Christianity and characterised by evangelical and ecumenical co-operation. In so doing, the article also suggests new directions for the study of Christianity in mid-twentieth century Northern Ireland.