Introduction

Abstract

Racism has a deterministic belief system to reinforce racial divisions based on claims about biological science rooted in the nineteenth century; sectarianism on claims about Scripture based in the sixteenth century. Despite the passage of time, claims about biological science are still common-sensically used today in folk notions of ‘race’, and anti-Catholicism is still claimed to be scriptural as we enter the third millennium. These claims about Scripture are particularly important in Northern Ireland, where they form part of the dynamics to Northern Ireland’s conflict. The belief that anti-Catholicism is scriptural is part of the self-defining identity of certain Protestants and inhibits reconciliation between the two communities by suggesting that divisions are immutably upheld by theological doctrine. The roots of sectarianism thus lie partly in claims about theology four centuries ago.