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New Trends in the Historiography of American Fundamentalism

Paraphrasing Jerry Falwell, the historian George Marsden once quipped that “a fundamentalist is an evangelical who is angry about something.” But he knew that a fundamentalist was much more than that. Marsden’s pathbreaking Fundamentalism and American Culture () has done more than any single work to shape the ways in which we understand American Christian fundamentalism. For thirty-five years, few historians challenged Marsden’s arguments and those who did had little success. But in recent years, a new generation of scholars is upending what we think we know about fundamentalism. Their work promises to overturn the Marsdenian paradigm in two ways: first, they are questioning Marsden’s definition of fundamentalism and who that definition properly describes; second, they are challenging Marsden’s description of the relationship between fundamentalism and the broader American society. The term “fundamentalism” as a religious descriptor arose in the early twentieth century around the publication of twelve booklets entitled the Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth. Wealthy oilman Lyman Stewart launched the project. He and his editors sought to call Christians back to the supposed “fundamentals” of the Christian faith. Many respected scholars, influential ministers, and evangelists from around the English-speaking world (all white men) contributed to the volumes. The Fundamentals included personal testimonies and covered such topics as the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the inspiration of the Bible, higher criticism, Catholicism, and new religious movements. Stewart sent copies of the booklets free of charge to every English-speaking Protestant minister, evangelist, professor, theology student,