Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925

Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (1980)
By George Marsden

Synopsis: This book is a general history of the rise of fundamentalism in the U.S. from 1870-1925, and demonstrates the ways that cultural, religious, and intellectual currents transformed some American evangelicalism into fundamentalism. Argues that fundamentalism was essentially antimodernist, and could flourish in the U.S. because U.S. had a long history of religiosity. Fundamentalists ultimately came to feel that their worldview dominance was slipping away and threatened by the modernist paradigm, hence they sought to hold on to their "older" style, even though they felt outnumbered. Book is divided into four parts: Part One: Before Fundamentalism (U.S. in 1870 as "Christian Nation;" appropriateness of common sense philosophy); Part One: The Shaping of a Coalition (fundamentalists a very diverse bunch; they hated social gospel because it focused on social problems rather than salvation; WWI led to the decline of evangelicalism as a dominant force); Part Three: The Crucial Years: 1917-1925 (premillenialism seen as threat to national security as they did not believe political action or human efforts could solve the world's problems; 1920s-25 = rise of anti-evolutionism; fundamentalists all about unchanging truth, whereas modernists all about truth as shaped by cultural circumstances; Scopes trial of 1925 said to cement fundamentalism in the public mind as about the clash between rural and urban, 19th century and 20th); Part Four: Interpretation (post-WWII fundamentalists seen by many as anti-intellectual and paranoid, transferring good vs. evil dichotomous thinking to many realms; f not necessarily anti-science, but rather held to a different paradigm of science, a Baconian paradigm that was all about observation = proof, conflicted with modernist paradigm). Bottom Line: Fundamentalists believed in enduring truth, and this didn't fit with modernist belief in the influence of cultural circumstances.

Interesting Specifics:

Fundamentalism was in "fierce opposition to modernist attempts to bring Christianity into line with modern thought" (4).

William Jennings Bryan led the campaign to ban the teaching of Darwinism in schools (6). 1925 law in Tennessee had banned the teaching of Darwinism in any public school.

Finds three major themes within fundamentalism: Fs sometimes identified with the establishment, and sometimes with "outsiders;" is connected to earlier traditions and embodies ambivalence over the conflict between pietist and Calvinist traditions; fs embody a tension between trust and distrust of the intellect, and generally held to "common sense" views of the world (6-8).

Questions over whether to re-shape dominant culture or to separate completely from it (124).

Anti-evolution movement really kicked-off from 1920-25.

"By modernist definition fundamentalists were those who for sociological reasons held on to the past in stubborn and irrational resistance to inevitable changes in culture" (185).

Interacts With:
End of the World As We Know It, When Time Shall Be No More,