James Haire, 1926, Belfast Presbyterian College
James Haire Haire was Professor of Systematic Theology at Belfast Presbyterian College. His accuser, James Hunter of Knock, was a member of the General Assembly’s College Committee. In the background was a growing reaction against critical approaches to scripture in Presbyterianism, albeit a century after its shoots had first sprouted in Germany. Haire was accused of fermenting schism by the conservative Presbyterian Bible Standards League ( Wiki ). The college was a particular focus of the League: “There have for some time past been murmurings in regard to the teaching in the Assembly's College”. (The Lurgan Mail Saturday 22 May 1926 p3 col1). Rev. James Hunter, Haire’s accuser, sat squarely in the conservative camp. Eighteen months earlier he had resigned his church stating “that there was a fearful evil eating away the life of their Church all over Christendom. It started in Germany, and nothing had been done in dear old Ulster to combat the evil. He felt that it had been laid