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Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism

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There are cultural divisions in American society which mark nearly every modern political issue. For those of us who were born in the 1950's and later, and even for some older folks, these divisions may seem confusing, even incomprehensible. How did we get here? What is all the fuss about? Where did all these "conservative wackos" come from? Just who do they think they are?

We may recognize that we are divided, but many Americans don't actually understand just how deeply divided, as a nation, we really are. Nor do we understand the underlying issues that divide us, the issues which are finally at the core of many of our debates.

This book provides one way of understanding these important issues, from the inside out.

Marsden argues that the political and social conflicts we all see today were born out of certain features of the American religious life. He proves his case admirably, and succeeds in providing his readers with a deeper understanding of contemporary conflicts than they will ever receive from contemporary newspapers and magazines, or even from their high-school and college American history classes. All of these other sources tend to ignore religion as a factor in political and social life. For Marsden, it is central.

Marsden is able to show that our conflicts have their roots in the historical encounter of American Christians with the emerging "modern world." When American Christianity began to encounter "Modernity" -in all its many forms: developments in science, politics, academic scholarship, industry, economics, and city life- its own internal conflicts formed the patterns for the larger social and cultural divisions which are now so familiar to us all all. Because he brings alive the religious dimension of American history, not just as a conflict of the religious with the secular, but of the relgious with the religious, his treatment has the feel of something which makes the incomprehensible finally comprehensible. His scheme for understanding our history and our conflicts comes as nothing short of a revelation.

This book documents, issue by issue,movement by movement, and personality by pesonality, what happened, where, and when. It covers developments in the Christian religion in America from the end of the 19th century to the latter half of the 20th century, clearly illuminating how, in America, Christianity became divided between "mainline" and "evangelical" branches, in the process, dividing American society as a whole.

Marsden writes elegantly and clearly, and he has the special ability to make history come to life as an exciting story. He writes for the layperson, so any college-educated and mildly curious reader can profit from this book. A respected Evangelical Christian himself, Marsden is also a historian of superior academic credentials. _Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism_ thus acheives something special because of who its author is: it is a book both sympathetic to its subject, and a piece of very responsible and balanced scholarship.

I recommend it most highly.

This book was broken into two main parts; history, and interpretation of history. The history, of course, concerns Christian fundamentalism and evangelicalism. While I was familiar with many of the names involved in recent American Protestant history, I was not familiar with their circumstances and the prevalent worldviews of the cultures that they lived in. This book was very interesting and helped to better understand the fundamentalism and evangelicalism that we have today.

I really enjoyed the first part of the book (history). In the second part of the book, there were essays written about two main subjects; politics and science. These essays tried to explain how fundamentalism and evangelicalism reacted to and changed these two areas. I especially enjoyed the essays pertaining to science because the issues that they faced in history are some of the same issues that Christians face today. The essays on politics were hard for me to follow, maybe because of my ignorance of political history. The last chapter was an essay trying to understand J. Gresham Machen. This essay was very insightful and very interesting.

I read this book for a class on `History of Fundamentalism', and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It took me five days to read the book and I spent almost twelve hours reading it. I would recommend the book to anyone interested in understanding the roots of `Conservative Christianity' and I would also recommend it as a `fun' read (except for chapters 3 and 4, they were not fun).

How i got to this book is important about how i read and review it.
Started with a directed study of creation and evolution from a Christian viewpoint, see my webpage at fastucson.net/~rmwillia for more detail. After a few months of watching and participating in online debates i became interesting in what i saw to be a common element in the young earth creationist people. That was an elevation of the CED issue to one of a salvation issue. Frankly i was surprised and a little dismayed at this theological development. So i asked for help on trying to get a handle on fundamentalist theology. This was one of perhaps 5 books recommended by lots of people.

The book is unusual in the mix of tone and levels of sophistication between the chapters. It stems from the fact that this small volume is primarily a collection of essays from the author's much larger multiple volume work(_fundamentalism and the american culture) on the same topic. As a collection of essays, not particularly held together by design they are certainly representative of his thought, and probably the best of his work on the topic. But the chapters are not sequential or connected in a discernible way, other than the general chronological. In this case however this is not a criticism, the book flows fine anyhow. But what it does do is to make it possible to read chapters that you are primarily interested in, out-of-order, a nice feature.

What is the history of fundamentalism in america and why should i care? It's a big movement 25-45% of the population by most measurements. But more importantly it represents a criticism of modernism that is hard to miss. With abortion, evolution in the public schools, gay rights etc being just tip of a huge iceberg where the movement hits the political sphere, inescapable for any one with current issues interest.

The book is well written, the chapters are concise and gently lead you to see what the author sees in the movement. You know from the beginning that the author is sympathetic with the fundamentalist's but at the same time you don't feel that his religion is interfering with his studies. You can see places he is saddened by events, disappointed at roads not taken but at the same time he comes across as a feeling competent historian. So much so was i impressed at his abilities as a historian that i ordered his larger work despite it's 1980 copyright date.

The real strength to me is the 5th chapter on the "evangelical love affair with enlightment science". He presents two men, bb. warfield and abraham kuyer as evangelicals with very different ideas of the relationship of science to religion. Warfield's position is classic science yields truth in its researches of the real world and ought to be seen as the study of the general revelation in nature. Kuyer is far more sophisticated and sees Kuhian themes 75 years before, in his analysis that different types of people have very different presuppositions and these necessarily led to a different science.

This insight as well as an extended discussion about the origin of the science and religion at war metaphor is worth the time to read this book. If you have any interest in the field this is a good introduction plus a reference to point further down the road of study. Oftentimes scholarly apparatus detracts from the overall readability of books like this one, but in his case your eyes and mind are often drawn to the footnotes, i several times yellowed book titles which he interested me in reading to learn more about his arguments. This is a great asset and indicative of a very well argued book.

thanks for listening.
richard williams

Among his fellow religious historians, George M. Marsden is widely recognized as the leading expert on the long history of the Christian fundamentalist movement in America. In 1991, the year before he became the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, Marsden published an edited collection of his essays on the principle subjects of his expertise entitled, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.). As Marsden wrote in his preface, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (hereafter, UFE) is intended to provide non-experts interested in these subjects with "an overview of American fundamentalism and evangelicalism" (vii), as well as Marsden's own well-considered interpretations of several recurring themes.

UFE's 208 pages are divided into two parts. Part one, "Historical Overview' (pp. 7-81), documents from 1870 onward the ideological rift in American Protestantism that spawned what came to be known as "fundamentalism," a species of evangelicalism determined to confront secularism and all manner of Christian apostasy--and in no uncertain terms. Part one of UFE is divided into two chapters. The first chapter (9-61) chronicles the growing dissatisfaction of conservative, evangelical Protestants with their "modernist" brethren who appeared ever willing to sacrifice any and every long-cherished Christian belief and practice on the altars of academic and political correctness. Chapter two (62-82) focuses mainly on fundamentalism's complicated relationship since 1930 with that much broader subcategory of Protestantism known as evangelicalism, a multi-denominational group characterized by its belief in "(1) the Reformation doctrine of the final authority of the Bible, (2) the real historical character of God's saving work in Scripture, (3) salvation to eternal life based on the redemptive work of Christ, (4) the importance of evangelism and missions, and (5) the importance of a spiritually transformed life" (4-5).

Part two, "Interpretations," examines the long history of evangelicalism's involvement in American politics (chap. 3); the seeming ambivalence of evangelicals toward the affairs of this world, its modern epistemology and technology, and group dynamics, generally (chap. 4); the surprisingly close--even dependent--relationship of evangelicalism with Enlightenment science (chap. 5). Chapter six discusses how fundamentalism has succeeded in marginalizing itself by dismissing out of hand all but the Young Earth Creationist's (YEC) conclusions regarding paleogeology and biology. The concluding chapter, "Understanding J. Gresham Machen," briefly examines the personality and thought of the extremely controversial Princeton theologian generally agreed to have been the most academically-accomplished fundamentalist of his day (1881-1937). The below will examine and offer brief comment on all of UFE's seven chapters.

Chapter one, "The Protestant Crisis and the Rise of Fundamentalism" (9-61), describes how from 1860-1900 the traditional evangelical worldview and ethic lost a great deal of its power and prestige in America at the same time the major Protestant denominations were tripling in size. Marsden cites several factors capable of accounting for this paradoxical development: (1) a series of serious intellectual assaults on biblical reliability, particularly from German Higher Criticism and Darwinism; (2) immigration and its resultant religious pluralism, a phenomenon highlighted by the American Catholic church, which quadrupled in size; (3) the virtual disappearance of conservative evangelicals from the faculties and administrations of the oldest and most well-respected American universities; (4) fundamentalism's several public relations debacles in the second half of the 1920s, e.g., the infamous "Scopes Monkey Trial." Marsden details how the external success of the Protestant Church in America during the late 1800s as witnessed by its tremendous numerical growth as well as an unprecedented interest in Sunday schools and foreign missions masked a growing and eventually indefensible threat from a much larger and thoroughly disinterested segment of the American public. Summarizing the great reversal of fortune since 1870, Marsden observed that "[a]lthough rearguard actions were fought [after World War I] to keep America Protestant, the fact of the matter was that the age was over when the United States was in any significant sense a bastion of `Christendom'" (51).

Chapter two, "Evangelicalism Since 1930: Unity and Diversity" (62-82), describes evangelicalism's great diversity of opinion on numerous political and theological issues. Marsden observes that by the late 1970s the venerable religious coalition was so divided it was not possible to determine which wing of evangelicalism's ideological spectrum the great Dr. Billy Graham occupied (76). While so many "Neo-Evangelicals"--i.e., believers in traditional, fundamental Christian tenets who wished to avoid offending non-believers whenever possible--agonized over issues like inerrancy, the growth of the federal government, and the war in Viet Nam, their more pugnacious fundamentalist brethren spoke with comparative perspicuity. Charles E. Fuller, Francis Shaeffer, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, et al had their faults, to be sure, but a tendency to equivocate on highly controversial political/cultural/theological issues was not among them. This is not to say that since 1930 fundamentalism has spoke with one voice on every hot button issue (Marsden cites Falwell's devastating rejection of Robertson's '88 bid for the presidency [81]), but fundamentalism's place on the theological and political spectrum could usually be easily located--on the right.

In chapter three, "Evangelical Politics: An American Tradition" (85-97), Marsden discusses at some length the long shadow evangelicalism has cast over American politics. Marsden notes the anti-Catholicism of evangelicals in the 1850s; Republican nominee Blaine's 1884 claim that the Democratic party of Grover Cleveland was the party of "rum, Romanism, and rebellion;" the evangelical split over Democratic fundamentalist W. J. Bryan's three attempts to win the presidency. Marsden's point--that evangelicalism's interest in politics did not begin with Jerry Falwell--is well made. Conservative evangelicals have had and continue to have an enormous amount of clout in American electoral politics, as prominent Massachusetts politicians like Senator John Kerry and former governor Mitt Romney can well attest.

Chapter four, "Preachers of Paradox: Fundamentalist Politics in Historical Perspective" (98-121), recounts the ongoing discussion within evangelicalism as to what the Gospel of Jesus Christ has to say concerning the numerous difficult issues confronting contemporary American society, and how it should say it. Marsden cautions that making generalizations about the views of Evangelicals on political and theological issues are "particularly hazardous" (110). Marsden also takes issue with the time-honored myth that evangelicalism is inherently anti-intellectual. Marsden assures that at least "one side of the fundamentalist mentality is committed to inductive rationalism" (118).

Marsden expands on these thoughts in chapter five, "The Evangelical Love Affair with Enlightenment Science" (122-52). Marsden enumerates four phases of the Enlightenment era and concludes the first--Newton and Locke's "ideals of order, balance, and religious compromise"--and the fourth, similar, and based on Scottish Common Sense Realism, "had major lasting effect on the United States" (129). Marsden contrasts the turn-of-the-century epistemology of a conservative Reformed theologian from Holland, Abraham Kuyper, with that of another conservative theologian, Princeton's champion of biblical inerrancy, B. B. Warfield. Warfield ridiculed Kuyper's claim that science for believers differed substantially from science for atheists. For Warfield et al, science was the ally of religion--provided of course the discipline was not redefined so as to limit all inquiry to natural causes and effects. Marsden goes on to document how most evangelicals laboring in the natural sciences were open to old earth interpretations of the first two chapters of Genesis. The "warfare" between science and religion was begun by missionary atheists like Draper and Huxley long after Darwin published in 1859 (139-40).

Chapter six, "Why Creation Science?" (153-81) discusses how YEC took root in fundamentalist circles even though quite a number of prominent conservative Christian theologians (e.g., the above-mentioned Warfield) were quite open to considering seriously other explanations. Marsden suggests the Premillennialists' dependency on exact biblical numerology combined with the South's knee-jerk resistance to any and all intellectual innovations generated from the North succeeded in elevating YEC dogma very nearly to the exalted doctrinal status of the virgin birth.

The final chapter, "Understanding J. Gresham Machen" (182-201), is devoted to the controversial protégé of B. B. Warfield, who coincidentally (or not) founded Marsden's alma mater in 1929, Westminster Theological Seminary. Acknowledging Machen's several personal and ideological foibles, Marsden nonetheless presents Machen as a thinking man's fundamentalist, a praise-worthy, serious academic whose razor-sharp mind produced a number of intellectually rigorous arguments in support of the traditional views of Christianity he had inherited from his esteemed Princeton predecessors. Machen clearly saw the ideological ditch modernism and postmodernism were driving Christianity into, and made a number of cogent arguments based on the above-mentioned Common Sense Realism, e.g., historical facts, upon which traditional Christianity is based, are in fact objectively real, and obtainable by historians.

Marsden's chapter on Machen is the only one in which Marsden's opinion of the subject is easily discernible. Marsden is clearly an admirer of Machen, undoubtedly because of the courageous way in which Machen imparted his own considerable academic abilities and respectability in support of the principle tenets of Christian fundamentalism, not entirely unlike Marsden himself.

It's not very fashionable among the intelligentsia to take Fundamentalism seriously, and to try to understand how it emerged and what are its motivations. Marsden's introductory review is therefore particularly important because he does precisely that: lucidly written, he takes the protagonists seriously, and shows the many and complex religious, social and political motivations of those who founded and developed Fundamentalism. I personally found the two chapters on the interaction with Science to be particularly illuminating, emphasising how the present opposition to evolution was not inevitable, given the variety of views at the outset of the movement. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to go beyond media stereotypes and wants to gain some real insight into Fundamentalism.

This book is a hybrid, essentially a compilation of some of Marsden's shorter writings. The opening sections are concise narratives of the development of the fundamentalist movement from the post-Civil War period to the recent past. This is essentially a distillation of Marsden's more extensive narration presented in some of his other books. Marsden covers the shock of the Civil War, the impact of rapid urbanization, industrialization, and the influx of non-Protestant immigrants. This is followed by the debate over liberalization or modernization of the Protestant churches with the hiving off of more conservative, fundamentalist oriented movements. Marsden has a nice intermixture of theological, social, and political history in these chapters. The second half of the book is a series of topical essays on issues related to the history of the modern evangelical movement. These include the political involvement of evangelicals, the relationship between evangelical movements and modern science, and an insightful essay on the maverick theologian, J. Gresham Machen. Like all of Marsden's work, this book is written well and quite thoughtful. For individuals interested in a good precis of the relevant history of the modern evangelical movement and the shifting relationships of evangelicals to political activity, this is an excellent book.

I will not repeat what has been said by other Amazon reviews; some of which are excellent. My own favorite chapters are "The Evangelical Love Affair with Enlightenment Science," and "Why Creation Science?"

What has not been noted in the earlier reviews is language - the jargon or specialized vocabulary. Many of these are words I suppose from seminaries and/or various religious groups themselves. For example, you will often confront terms like "hermeneutical," and "dispensational premillennialists." Shades of graduate school, in my case the jargon of sociology which was so off-putting. I seem to recall also that the religious groups themselves like to dress up their creeds and thought in jargon.

I always stumble on such languate because I cannot seem to retain the definitions in mind as I move forward in the book. Thus, while I enjoyed this book immensely - and learned a great deal - I would have learned (and retained) more if I could clearly remember the new concepts/language.

In sum, a book well worth reading, and just as timely in 2006 as when published in 1991. I just wish we could all speak the same language.

This book was recommended to me, and I was shocked to discover that it was available at my public library. I have been very interested in studying the roots of Fundamentalism and the split between Fundamentalists and Evangelicals.

This book reads much like a history textbook. The information is fairly interesting, although I will have to admit that I began skimming about halfway through the book. I wished there had been more details about Fundamentalism specifically; I was hoping for more information about the movement in the last 100 years.

Having spent twelve years in the Fundamentalist world, specifically in the realm of education, I was already familiar with most of the information in this book, so it did not hold my interest as long as it might have otherwise. I'm sure it would be a great resource or starting point for a person who is unfamiliar with Fundamentalism, but a person who spent any amount of time with history textbooks from Christian schools need not bother.

Understanding Fundamentalism
Understanding Evangelicalism
Understanding Liberalism
Understanding Catholicism
Understanding Modernism

What set Martin Luther apart from the Catholic Church. What beliefs, what world view bring a certain group of people together? What type of theology makes a person an evangelical. What theology makes a person a fundamentalist? In what way does an evangelical and a fundamentalist concur? How does their thought and behavior come to a cross purpose? To unite against the Catholic church? To unite against modernist? To unite against theological liberals? Does one need to comprehend the catechism of the Catholic church to be an evangelical or a fundamentalist?
George M. Marsden clearly does not believe so, because this work or his work about American culture 1870-1930 and Fundamentalism describes this part of the dynamic in theological thought. This book and his previous book is about the dynamic between the Liberal theology, modernist theology, fundamentalism, and evangelicalism. The difference between evangelicals and fundamentalism is in the willingness to be forthright and direct about your differences between other traditional Christians and the more contemporary schools of theological thought.

George M. Marsden as a historian and a theologian does appreciate inerrancy of scripture and the bible being God's written word. He does seem to be more historian then theologian. His work concerns the interplay of theologian, theology, University culture, accademic scholarship, and the culture within the country. Part of the culture is how professors interact with each other within their disciplines and outside. The culture of the University eventually effects society as a whole. Does the theologian concur with predominant thought or does he argue alternatives. To pick up on the assumptions of those who oppose the idea of the supernatural happenings or Being.

To this end end George M. Marsden does review creation science in this work, the thoughts of J Gresham Machen in some detail along with a biographical sketch. This does serve as a good starting point in understanding the distinction between the evangelical and the fundamentalist. The evangelical tends to lean more on sentimentalism so to avoid making distinctions with other evangelicals or Liberals. The Fundamentalist may use sentimentalism, but often it is used to further his arguments for the supernatural and the inerrancy of scripture. The Fundamentalist is one more willing to have an argument over doctrinal differences. His purpose is to forthright with scripture. The evangelical main purpose is to bring souls into God's church.

This book does discuss interdenominational cooperation among evangelicals through nondenominational church organizations. These groups exist by blurring the distinctions between different church denominations. The Evangelist must have people working behind the scenes to bring the numbers who attended a Billy Graham crusade. The evangelist Billy Graham had to avoid being divisive with the evangelical community and did not encourage conflict with the modernist or Catholic Community. That by Marsden, would preclude Billy Graham being considered a Fundamentalist. A more soft and less distinct theology.

George M. Marsden also discusses Jerry Falwell. Who sought to be a fundamentalist preacher, but also a major player in the cultural and political disputes within society. He was and is not a separatist like Bob Jones was or the University still seeks to be. Jerry Falwell saw America was moving away from God and sought the country to change direction. To bring debate and provacation within the American culture. Bob Jones to recruit students who want to move the citizenry so the American culture be more distinctive. A more clear Fundamentalist Christianity to come more visible in the United States.

Being somewhat familiar with Marsden's writing I looked forward with great anticipation to reading this book. Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism are subjects with which I have significant familiarity and very great interest. The book was a disappointment and for me was simply a dreary recitation of facts with nothing to give it life.