Studies of the relationship between religion and Unionism tend to focus on the role of what gets called "Fundamentalist" or "Evangelical" Protestantism, that sort of religion which is associated with the name of Ian Paisley. It is a form of belief that has been described as taking, "...its Puritanism from the rigid beliefs of the seventeenth century Scottish planters, its separatism and elitism from their feeling that they were a small band of civilized Christians surrounded by barbarian hordes, its hatred of Catholicism from fears going back to the 1641 massacre...., its religious enthusiasm from the 'Great Revival' of 1859." This is a demonstration of the most common error made about Paisley's beliefs. Despite the name of his Free Presbyterian Church, his religion does not derive from that of the "seventeenth century Scottish Planters" ; it belongs to a quite different tradition. The distinction is important because Scottish Presbyterianism has a quite different emphasis and has constituted a distinct influence on Unionist culture of its own. The confusion arises because of an oversimplified equation of the sort of contractarian theory of political allegiance which Paisley promotes with an anachronistic understanding of the Covenanting tradition in Scotland in the seventeenth century.
An understanding of the main divisions within Protestantism is needed to get to grips with the nuances of Protestant influence on unionist culture. The first big division within Protestantism, a division which is almost as old as the reformation, was between Lutherans and Calvinists. Luther rejected all those aspects of medieval Catholicism which he regarded as being incompatible with the Bible. The Calvinist churches rejected everything which was not specifically ordained by the Bible. Then the Calvinist churches split over the question of the relationship between church and state. Reformers based in Zurich agreed with the Lutherans that the church should be coterminous with the state and subordinate to it. They believed in national churches, and that church polity was a matter of indifference. Calvin believed that the church should have complete control over religious matters and that the Bible set out correct church polity. This is the origin of Presbyterianism.
In the second half of the sixteenth century, Elizabeth I reformed the church of England to make it theologically Calvinist, but for political reasons she wanted the church to look like a catholic one. The prescribed church service retained certain aspects which caused controversy early in Elizabeth's reign, such as the vestiarian controversy over what priests should wear. But the more enduring problem was caused by the retention of hierarchy. Calvin taught that all ministers were to be regarded as equals and that this should be reflected in the institutions of the Church. When Presbyterians led by Thomas Cartwright tried to force the pace of the English Reformation, which they felt was incomplete so long as the Bishops remained, the movement was ruthlessly suppressed. Instead, English Calvinism developed within individual congregations developing the idea of the 'gathered church' whereby individual ministers would collect a congregation of Calvinists alongside performing his duties as an Anglican priest. Within this tradition developed a literature which sought to define the visible signs of 'election'. Orthodox Calvinism taught that no individual can do anything to earn a place in heaven, one is either saved or one is not and this is decided by all powerful God, not by insignificant Man. This is called the doctrine of Predestination. Mainstream Presbyterians regarded the Church as a means of ordering and disciplining the entire society. They did not believe it possible for one man to judge whether another was elect or not and they didn't need to find a way of judging whether someone was or not. Since the separatist tradition did believe that such a judgement was possible, they needed visible signs with which to make that judgement. In order to join the gathered church, a professor had to give evidence of his conversion as worked out by a number of writers, most notably William Perkins. The idea was introduced to America where a wave of settlers to New England in the 1630's where it gained great influence in the absence of a strong established church, giving American Puritanism its distinctive emphasis on the 'New Birth' which fitted neatly with their image of the New World. These are the origins of what is known as 'Born Again' Christianity, and it is this tradition to which Ian Paisley belongs.
Presbyterianism in Ireland originated in the Scottish Reformation, which was a quite distinct process from its English counterpart. The Church of Scotland was established as one of the results of a coup d'etat by an alliance of Lowland nobles against the French influenced Catholic Queen Mary Stuart. John Knox was closely associated with the rebels, but although he was an unequivocal Presbyterian, they wanted to have good relations with Anglican England, so they adopted a form of low episcopacy. When the Plantation of Ulster began, the Church of Ireland barely existed in the Province, so much so that ministers had to be recruited from England and Scotland. Many of those who were recruited in Scotland were members of a faction which had developed in opposition to episcopacy, and they set about establishing Presbyterianism in Ulster. They included Josiah Welch, whose father had been married to one of John Knox's daughters, Robert Blair and John Livingstone. The Sixmilewater Revival of the 1620s was the first manifestation of a distinct religious community amongst the Scottish Settlement, although the first formal Presbytery was not established until the 1640s Munroe's Scottish Army arrived to put down the 1641 Rebellion.
Scottish Presbyterianism before the 1640s had been a programme for transforming not just Scotland, but the whole world. It developed in a mood of apocalyptic expectancy and met the individual's need for assurance of salvation with the sense that he himself was an instrument in the imminent deliverance of the world around him - this sort of millenarianism was common in the post-Reformation upheavals. After the 1640's, the Scots became convinced of the futility of such hopes and settled for Presbyterianism in one country, with quasi-established status in Ulster. They developed a preoccupation with doctrine I which they believed that they were making a stand against the profane. In contrast to English Calvinism, the emphasis was prophetic, not conversionist, The true church was defined not by individual experiences but by intellectual assent to the propositions of a confession of faith which embodied the norms of doctrine and polity which were agreed by the whole community,
Another thing which needs to be clarified is the term, 'evangelical Protestantism'. This is what Steve Bruce identifies as the basis of unionism, but it is not an unambiguous term. In the wider Protestant world, it has three main characteristics; an interest in social improvement, an eagerness to prosteletyze and an emphasis on the experience of conversion. This last idea, the knowledge of grace, is the major characteristic which distinguishes what we would call evangelical Protestantism from what evangelicals would call formal Protestantism. The first organized evangelical church in Britain was the Seceeder Church in Scotland which broke away from the Church of Scotland in 1740. The Secession developed at around the same time as Methodism in England and the Great Awakening in America. All three emphasized that grace was knowable. Any comparison of America, Scotland , England and Ulster will show that Ulster was the least receptive of the four to Evangelism in the eighteenth century. The first half of the nineteenth century saw a rise in evangelism throughout the British Isles which can be explained as the churches response to the growth of secularism. The Presbyterian Church in Ireland can look like it adopted evangelism in the 1820s, but this is misleading. The Church was split by the Arian controversy and Presbyterian 'evangelism' was associated with the Arians' opponents, the orthodox Trinitarians. But the secular pressures which had prompted the English evangelical endeavour were also felt in Ireland. The Presbyterian Church experienced the 1859 'Great Revival' in response. But without any Pentacostalist Theory, physical manifestation of grace did not become part of regular worship. What the revival did do was to break the Presbyterian monopoly on Protestant Nonconformity in Ulster. The growth of the Congregationalist Churches such as the Plymouth Brethren and the Baptists, and of the gospel halls, resulted.
So Evangelical Protestantism is not an idea which is intrinsic to Ulster Presbyterianism. It uses ideas which were pioneered in England and more especially in America, and it has generally been resisted by the Presbyterian Churches. It is an important influence on both wider Protestantism and on Unionism, but it is clearly not the only influence or even the greatest one. To say so would be to ignore the contribution of the other denominations, and to ignore the diversity of evangelicalism which includes such diverse groups as the Methodists, the Baptists and the Free Presbyterians. Recognizing that Protestant influence on Unionism is in fact a number of sometimes conflicting influences is an important step to understanding the culture of unionism. The diversity of Protestantism must always be born in mind when discussing the influence of religion in unionism
PRESBYTERIAN POLITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Presbyterianism places heavy emphasis on polity, that is to say church government. It takes the Protestant concept of the priesthood of all believers seriously. It also places heavy emphasis on doctrine as being the thing which unites the church. To reflect these things, it has developed a complicated polity which gives all the members of the church a say in the government of the church, in the formulation of doctrine and the public policy of the church. The only body which expresses the mind of the church in a definitive way is the General Assembly, a body which is made up of as many as twelve hundred elders and ministers. The elders are elected by their congregations. Ministers, although ordained by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland are chosen by their congregations. The Moderator is elected by the General Assembly and becomes the principle representative of the Church for his year in office, after which he returns to his previous responsibilities. Beneath the General Assembly, a significant amount of responsibility lies at the levels of the Kirk Session which governs the individual congregation, the presbytery which is made up of all the ministers of a locality plus an equal number of elders, and Synods which are constituted in a similar fashion to the General Assembly. It is an enormously cumbersome and inefficient system, but this is regarded as being less important than its functions in ensuring local involvement in decision making, avoiding allowing too much power to be concentrated in the hands of any individual and protecting the rights of minorities. This last function is ensured by the rule that a majority in the General Assembly is not enough to change the constitution of the Church. Those decisions must be sent to the Presbyteries for approval before requiring a second vote in the Assembly. It is a system which embodies such ideals as the suspicion of the misuse of centralized power, the importance of accountable and democratic institutions, the right of minorities not to be overwhelmed by democratically elected majorities and to receive fair treatment and the need for people in positions of responsibility to be accountable for their actions.
The Presbyterian emphasis on accountability has clearly influenced the wider unionist political culture. It is easy to doubt that unionism values such things as the rights of minorities given its generally poor record on such things since partition, but the apparent discrepancy is easy to explain. The protection of minority rights is more easily achieved when the minority in question is playing by the same rules as the majority. In Northern Ireland, the minority is instead trying to change the rules, so that it becomes the majority in a differently defined territory. Thus, unionists have been put in a position where to champion reform as the ideal of British constitutional liberty risks empowering political nationalism which would use its new power to undermine their right to remain as part of the British political community. It is a philosophical Hobson's choice. They have slipped into a position of being a minority group which opposes greater rights for minorities. That said, the existence of a liberal strand within unionism is undeniable and Presbyterians have played an important part.
FUNDAMENTALISM
Some clarification of the term Protestant Fundamentalism is needed. It was first used in America to describe a revivalist movement which identified "Five Fundamentals', but has come to be associated with those denominations which are sectarian (in the literal rather than the pejorative sense), which emphasize Biblical Infallibility and which preach New Birth or Born Again Christianity. It has many aspects in common with the mainstream Protestant denominations and it would be possible to find many mainstream Protestants who are attracted to Fundamentalist beliefs. But there are things which characterize Fundamentalism despite the overlaps. Fundamentalists could be described as those who require a direct religious experience and who have developed techniques for cultivating such experiences.
Its main political role in Unionist culture is to provide an explanatory myth. Mythology is central to the process of cultural constructions. Before the Home Rule Crises effectively excluded unionists from proper participation in British political life, unionists had adopted the values and explanatory myths of the British Conservatives and Liberals. Presbyterian Liberals such as Sinclair and MacKnight shared the moral righteousness and crusading zeal of Gladstonian Liberalism while the Whig Constitutionalism of the British Conservative network attracted the advocates of the Protestant Union and fitted the Presbyterian's theory of government. But the Irish conservatives could not share in Disraeli's vision of a national Toryism recovering its Jacobite roots, preoccupied as they were by Irish Nationalism. The Ulster Liberals were faced with the familiar Hobson's Choice and were anyway abandoned by Gladstone's conversion to the cause of Home Rule.
Both strands of unionism have been unable to launch an effective counter attack against nationalism because both are part of a culture which regards anti-Catholicism as obsolete. Any defence against nationalism from these perspectives must involve concepts which are complicated and difficult to articulate. Protestant fundamentalism has no such problem and is therefore able to provide a political myth which is self-confident and compelling.
Fundamentalist Protestantism allows people to read back the events of Northern Ireland into a mythical reading of the Bible. It casts Protestants as the persecuted innocents, assuring them of their essential goodness. They are playing their role in a struggle against evil and they will ultimately be justified by divine retribution. Fundamentalism can articulate a rejection of unionism's threatening 'other' which appeals to many who are not theological fundamentalists. The reality of hostile republicanism seems to justify Paisley's vision. It is not central to unionism, however. For all the weaknesses of other explanatory visions in apparently hostile conditions, it should be remembered that Paisley's political party, the DUP, remains a minority party. It is important because the world-view of fundamentalism clearly provides an ideological focus when unionism comes under stress and its importance is magnified when such conditions exist. This is important because it ontololigizes Catholicism as evil, reducing the relationship between itself and Catholicism as a missionary one making coexistence difficult. The connection between such an ideology and anti-Catholicism is paper thin.