Fundamentalism and American Culture

This work provides the history of Christian fundamentalism, which emerged as a movement with that name in 1920. It first looks at the roots of the movement in evangelical revivalism before 1920. Then it considers fundamentalists' most characteristic outlooks. It describes the distinctive outlooks of Dispensational Premillennialism concerning history and modern times. Then it looks at the role of Holiness teachings, especially Keswick Holiness, in shaping fundamentalism. Fundamentalists, especially of the Presbyterian variety, were also militant defenders of traditional evangelical Protestant orthodoxy. Being a coalition of related movements, fundamentalists displayed a variety of view as to how to engage mainstream culture. These outlooks and tendenciescoalesced into a nationally prominent fundamentalist movement during the years of cultural change from 1917 to 1925. The analysis looks at various dimensions of fundamentalism of the 1920s. The penultimate chapter looks more recent American fundamentalism, especially in the rise of the religious right since the 1970s. The concluding chapter reflects on the continuing legacy of fundamentalism in the twenty-first century, even as the term itself is less widely used--