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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.
"Marsden reveals a great deal of history, showing the origins, development and growth of evangelicalism and fundamentalism. His is a focused yet broad scholarly work that has stood the test of time, a worthwhile history resource on fundamentalism in America."--Congregational Libraries Today
| Pt. 1 | Before fundamentalism | |
| I | Evangelical America at the brink of crisis | 11 |
| II | The paths diverge | 21 |
| III | D. L. Moody and a new American evangelism | 32 |
| Pt. 2 | The shaping of a coalition | |
| IV | Prologue : the paradox of revivalist fundamentalism | 43 |
| V | Two revisions of millennialism | 48 |
| VI | Dispensationalism and the baconian ideal | 55 |
| VII | History, society, and the church | 62 |
| VIII | The victorious life | 72 |
| IX | The social dimensions of holiness | 80 |
| X | "The great reversal" | 85 |
| XI | Holiness and fundamentalism | 93 |
| XII | Tremors of controversy | 102 |
| XIII | Presbyterians and the truth | 109 |
| XIV | The fundamentals | 118 |
| XV | Four views circa 1910 | 124 |
| 1 | This age condemned : the premillennial extreme | 125 |
| 2 | The central tension | 127 |
| 3 | William Jennings Bryan : Christian civilization preserved | 132 |
| 4 | Transforming culture by the word | 135 |
| Pt. 3 | The crucial years : 1917-1925 | |
| XVI | World War I, premillennialism, and American fundamentalism : 1917-1918 | 141 |
| XVII | Fundamentalism and the cultural crisis : 1919-1920 | 153 |
| XVIII | The fundamentalist offensive on two fronts : 1920-1921 | 164 |
| XIX | Would the liberals be driven from the denominations? 1922-1923 | 171 |
| XX | The offensive stalled and breaking apart : 1924-1925 | 176 |
| XXI | Epilogue : dislocation, relocation, and resurgence : 1925-1940 | 184 |
| Pt. 4 | Interpretations | |
| XXII | Fundamentalism as a social phenomenon | 199 |
| XXIII | Fundamentalism as a political phenomenon | 206 |
| XXIV | Fundamentalism as an intellectual phenomenon | 212 |
| XXV | Fundamentalism as an American phenomenon | 221 |
| Pt. 5 | Fundamentalism yesterday and today (2005) | 229 |
| Afterword : history and fundamentalism | 259 |
Anonymous
Posted January 27, 2010
No text was provided for this review.
Overview
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 ...