Fundamentalism and American Culture

by Marsden, George M.

• ISBN13: 9780195300475
• ISBN10: 0195300475
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-02-23
• Publisher: OXFORD UNIV PR

Summary

Many American's today are taking note of the surprisingly strong political force that is the religious right. Controversial decisions by the government are met with hundreds of lobbyists, millions of dollars of advertising spending, and a powerful grassroots response. How has the fundamentalist movement managed to resist the pressures of the scientific community and the draw of modern popular culture to hold on to their ultra-conservative Christian views? Understanding the movement's history is key to answering this question. Fundamentalism and American Culture has long been considered a classic in religious history, and to this day remains unsurpassed. Now available in a new edition, this highly regarded analysis takes us through the full history of the origin and direction of one of America's most influential religious movements. For Marsden, fundamentalists are not just religious conservatives; they are conservatives who are willing to take a stand and to fight. In Marsden's words (borrowed by Jerry Falwell), "a fundamentalist is an evangelical who is angry about something." In the late nineteenth century American Protestantism was gradually dividing between liberals who were accepting new scientific and higher critical views that contradicted the Bible and defenders of the more traditional evangelicalism. By the 1920s a full-fledged "fundamentalist" movement had developed in protest against theological changes in the churches and changing mores in the culture. Building on networks of evangelists, Bible conferences, Bible institutes, and missions agencies, fundamentalists coalesced into a major protest movement that proved to have remarkable staying power. For this new edition, a major new chapter compares fundamentalism since the 1970s to the fundamentalism of the 1920s, looking particularly at the extraordinary growth in political emphasis and power of the more recent movement. Never has it been more important to understand the history of fundamentalism in our rapidly polarizing nation. Marsen's carefully researched and engrossing work remains the best way to do just that.

Author Biography

George M. Marsden is the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Jonathan Edwards: A Life.

Table of Contents

Introduction	3	(8)
PART ONE Before Fundamentalism
Evangelical America at the Brink of Crisis	11	(10)
The Paths Diverge	21	(11)
D. L. Moody and a New American Evangelism	32	(11)
PART TWO The Shaping of a Coalition
This Age and the Millennium
Prologue: The Paradox of Revivalist Fundamentalism	43	(5)
Two Revisions of Millennialism	48	(7)
Dispensationalism and the Baconian Ideal	55	(7)
History, Society, and the Church	62	(10)
Holiness
The Victorious Life	72	(8)
The Social Dimensions of Holiness	80	(5)
``The Great Reversal,''	85	(8)
Holiness and Fundamentalism	93	(9)
The Defense of the Faith
Tremors of Controversy	102	(7)
Presbyterians and the Truth	109	(9)
The Fundamentals	118	(6)
Christianity and Culture
Four Views Circa 1910	124	(17)
This Age Condemned: The Premillennial Extreme	125	(2)
The Central Tension	127	(5)
William Jennings Bryan: Christian Civilization Preserved	132	(3)
Transforming Culture by the Word	135	(6)
PART THREE The Crucial Years: 1917--1925
World War I, Premillennialism, and American Fundamentalism: 1917--1918	141	(12)
Fundamentalism and the Cultural Crisis: 1919--1920	153	(11)
The Fundamentalist Offensive on Two Fronts: 1920--1921	164	(7)
Would the Liberals Be Driven from the Denominations? 1922--1923	171	(5)
The Offensive Stalled and Breaking Apart: 1924--1925	176	(8)
Epilogue: Dislocation, Relocation, and Resurgence: 1925--1940	184	(15)
PART FOUR Interpretations
Fundamentalism as a Social Phenomenon	199	(7)
Fundamentalism as a Political Phenomenon	206	(6)
Fundamentalism as an Intellectual Phenomenon	212	(9)
Fundamentalism as an American Phenomenon	221	(8)
PART FIVE Fundamentalism Yesterday and Today (2005)	229	(30)
Afterword: History and Fundamentalism	259	(2)
Notes	261	(72)
Bibliographical Indexes	333	(5)
Index	338