Robert Lusk

Who was Robert Lusk?

Robert Adam Holliday Lusk was a Reformed Presbyterian or Covenanter minister of the strictest sort, in a century which, according to Presbyterian historian Robert E. Thompson, was marked by increasing relaxation into less stringent manifestations of doctrine and practice amongst all branches of Presbyterianism. His career crossed paths with many prominent ministers and he was involved in numerous ecclesiastical courts at pivotal moments in the history of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. Amongst Reformed Presbyterians, he was an "Old Light," and amongst "Old Lights," he would lay claim to be an "Original Covenanter." He was descended from a long line of Scotch-Irish. The Lusks were people of Scottish descent who, due to both civil and religious persecution, fled Scotland to the northern counties of Ireland. They were Ulster Protestants of the Presbyterian persuasion, a persuasion characterized by fastidious religious observance mixed with an aversion to authoritative persecution. Many of these Lusks settled in America prior to the American Revolutionary War.