by Harrison Perkins
It’s no secret that Christians find themselves feeling increasingly further removed from our world, almost as if we are foreigners even in our native cultures. Does an Irish Archbishop from the 1600s have any relevance to our struggles today as we seek to be faithful in a contested world? Indeed, I believe he does.
James Ussher (1581–1656) grew up in Ireland, a Protestant in a country with a majority Roman Catholic population. He worked as a professor of theology at Trinity College Dublin, as a pastor in various roles around Dublin, and then rose through the ecclesiastical ranks, becoming the Archbishop of Armagh, the highest seat in the Church of Ireland, in 1625. His work in Ireland promoted the cause of Reformation, seeking to convert Roman Catholic citizens to the Protestant faith.
Still, this Irish context does not exhaust Ussher’s contested background. Growing pressures in the Church of England began to suppress strident Reformed theology within the established church. This affected Ussher’s ministry even while he was in Ireland. When the Irish Rebellion of 1641, another obvious point of contest, left Ussher stranded in England for the rest of his life, he found himself within the politically and theologically charged context of the English civil war. He carried out the rest of his preaching, teaching, and writing ministry against the background of a divided country, waging war against itself.
Politics and debates constantly change but Christians’ role to walk with God despite surrounding turmoil seems to stay constant. Ussher provides us a starting point for considering our ministry commitments as we labor in a contested world today.
Harrison Perkins (PhD, Queen’s University Belfast) is a pastor at London City Presbyterian Church, Online Faculty in church history at Westminster Theological Seminary, a visiting lecturer in systematic theology at Edinburgh Theological Seminary, and author of Catholicity and the Covenant of Works: James Ussher and the Reformed Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2020). Harrison is also speaking at a Greystone Theological Institute event, taking place at Ely Presbyterian Church, Cardiff on 30th October. Further details can be found here: Theological Ministry in a Contested World: James Ussher as Reformed Churchman — Greystone Theological Institute (greystoneinstitute.org)
