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  phleg_mel

  5 out of 5 stars

  journey towards a reasonable faith

  Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2012

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  In his work, Fundamentalism and American Culture, Marsden described fundamentalism (coined in 1920) as a large American Protestant movement "shaped by the longstanding . . . urgent need for positive evangelism, missions, and spirituality." (Marsden, 2006, 119, 252) Marsden pointed out that during the 1800s, Thomas Reid's "Common Sense philosophy," with its "confidence in rational judgments of ordinary people, shaped the Puritan view of Biblical interpretation, later merging with the American evangelical heritage." During the early twentieth century, higher criticism of Scripture and Darwinism led to theological changes in the churches. For fundamentalists, "inerrancy" of Scripture implied a "scientific quality related to the view of truth as directly apprehended facts." Their strong orientation toward the printed word eschewed the mysterious in both exposition and worship. (Marsden, 57, 60-61, 251) Due to "Common Sense" philosophy, fundamentalists adopted a somewhat rationalist view of Scripture.

  As an early fundamentalist leader, B.B. Warfield emphasized that faith must be grounded in right reason. True to the demands of Common Sense, Warfield saw the effects of the Fall on human consciousness as pervasive but quite limited. Warfield carefully balanced his appeals to objective evidence with the subjective witness of the Holy Spirit. (Marsden, 115, 121) At Princeton Seminary, J. Gresham Machen struggled to preserve both his inherited Presbyterian faith and his intellectual integrity in a world in which the leading intellectuals, and even many theologians, ridiculed traditionalist Christianity. "The Church," he said, "is perishing today through the lack of thinking, not through an excess of it." For Machen, liberals subordinated Christianity to culture while evangelicals seemed to ignore culture in order to maintain a pure Christianity. He believed that since the cultural crisis was rooted in the intellectual crisis, an attempt to bypass culture and intellect, the arts and sciences, would simply make the situation worse. Machen's solution was the consecration of culture. Machen eventually assumed Warfield's mantle as chief intellectual spokesman for conservative Presbyterians. Francis Schaeffer studied briefly under Machen at Westminster Theological Seminary. Schaeffer was an effective popularizer of the Reformed idea that Christianity had powerful implications as a cultural critique. Yet, conservative Reformed scholars were finding it increasingly difficult to remain Renaissance Christian humanists. (Marsden, 137-8, 245)

  The Reformed traditions encouraged more positive attitudes toward intellect, the organized church, and the ideal of building a Christian civilization. Fundamentalist ambivalence about these subjects can be better understood if seen as reflecting not only immediate experience, but also the conflict between the pietist and the Calvinistic traditions. Within the Calvinist tradition, politics was a significant means of advancing the kingdom. Between 1865 and 1900, the view of social and political order transitioned from a postmillennial to a premillennial (or Pietistic) view of political action as no more than a means to restrain evil. By the 1920s, political conservatism consisted of pietists who would use government merely to restrain evil, of Calvinists preserving Christian civilization, or of Anabaptists opposing all Christian involvement in politics. (Marsden, 7, 86, 92)

  During the 1920s, fundamentalists were often regarded as anti-scientific and anti-intellectual." Their anti-intellectualism and paranoid style was "shaped by a desire to strike back at everything modern - the higher criticism, evolutionism, the social gospel, rational criticism of any kind." As a result, fundamentalists were losing much of their influence and respectability. Given the various views of eschatology, keeping premillennial teachings in the background became necessary for establishing a respectable and self-consciously conservative coalition against modernism. (Marsden, 7, 119, 199)

  Traditionally, American evangelicalism viewed God's redemptive work as manifested in the spiritual and moral progress of American society. Within fundamentalism, different beliefs concerning eschatology resulted in two very different worldviews. (Marsden, 38, 47-9, 63) Whereas premillennialists were less hopeful concerning progress, postmillennialists were optimistic about the spiritual progress of the culture.

  Nevertheless, premillennialists and postmillennialists regarded the state of American civilization with a mixture of hopeful loyalty and increasing alarm. Fundamentalists saw the fundamental issues as theological. In order to unite evangelical America, a new combination of revivalist, conservative, and premillennial traditions emerged. By 1925, the theological aspect of fundamentalism merged with its concern for the social and moral welfare of the nation. The battle for the Bible developed into a battle for civilization. Combined with changing mores in the culture, fundamentalists experienced profound ambivalence toward the surrounding culture. Marsden pointed out that fundamentalism of recent decades differs from that of the 1920s due to its "deep involvement in mainstream national politics." (Marsden, 153, 161-4, 231-2) Marsden examined the extraordinary growth in political emphasis and power of the more recent movement.

  As the era of faith in science and progressive consensus ended, the countercultural upheaval of the 1960s intervened. "In the 1970s distress over rapidly changing public standards regarding sexuality and the family combined with longstanding anti-communist patriotism to make fundamentalistic evangelicals ripe for political mobilization." Without much reflection on how practical political campaigns fit in with continuing predictions that the Rapture and end-times would commence in a few years, an ideal of cultural transformation reemerged as one of the most conspicuous traits of the movement. The central cultural paradox of fundamentalism was thus even more dramatically pronounced then ever. . . . America was simultaneously Babylon and God's chosen nation. Premillennial doctrine and postmillennial rhetoric mixed, reflecting a longstanding cultural ambivalence in the American evangelical heritage. As implicitly postmillennial political rhetoric was flourishing; premillennial end-time scenarios became more popular than ever." (Marsden, 241-249, 256)

  Modern historiography assumes that human and natural forces shape the course of history and its basic model is something like a biological concept of development.

  Prone to a more literal interpretation of Scripture, premillennialists begin with the assumption that ongoing warfare between God and Satan shapes history. On the other hand, postmillennialists saw human history as reflecting an ongoing struggle between cosmic forces of God and Satan, each well represented by various earthly powers, but with the victory of righteousness ensured. These totally opposed views of history lay at the heart of the conflict and misunderstanding between theological liberals and their fundamentalist opponents. (Marsden, 38, 47-9, 63) Considering context of evidence is one guideline for good historical writing. Marsden met this guideline by pointing out that the dispensationalist view seems less eccentric if placed in the context of the whole development of Western historiography.

  Marsden concludes, "[I]dentification of cultural forces, such as those with which this book is concerned, is essentially a constructive enterprise, with the positive purpose of finding the gold among the dross." Since we are limited by our culturally determined experience, Marsden states that we should ask God for grace to recognize our limitations as we "carefully identify the cultural forces which affect the current versions of Christianity." (Marsden, 259-260) In his work, Marsden described numerous events within the context of American culture that provided insight concerning the growth and development of fundamentalism during the last century. Marsden's description of fundamentalists as "militant" seems to describe the fundamentalism of my childhood. In his description of fundamentalists and their political activism during recent decades, Marsden provided relevant evidence, or immediacy, meeting a second guideline for good historical writing.

  In his discussion of B.B. Warfield, J. Gresham Machen, and Francis Schaeffer, Marsden identified causal connections. As a cognitive historian, Marsden met a third guideline for good historical writing by considering intellectual influence, wrestling with questions in history of ideas.

  Avoiding assumptions, Marsden met a fourth guideline by providing positive, specific evidence concerning events during the last century. Marsden addressed numerous issues within American culture, including the fundamentalist view of Scripture, the Reformed view of culture, as well as the role of differing eschatologies in political activism.

  In his work, Fundamentalism and American Culture, Marsden demonstrated a thorough, objective understanding of fundamentalism as a cultural phenomenon. Marsden's work would be a valuable addition to the personal library of anyone who seeks a deeper understanding of fundamentalism.

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  ESigward

  4 out of 5 stars

  Fundamentalism and American Culture by George H. Marsden

  Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2013

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  I have been surprised at how good a historical survey this book is. It covers the terrain with citations from many personalities and sources. I regret that while it is a theological book, it is largely historical and not technically theological.

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  Dennis Waters

  5 out of 5 stars

  Fine chronology and analysis - a great place to start

  Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2009

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  I heard George Marsden lecture at Princeton Theological Seminary a few months ago and was sufficiently impressed to want to try one of his books. So I picked this one.

  This is not my field and I wouldn't know a dispensational premillennialist if I tripped over one, but for the most part I was able to follow Marsden's chronology and analysis. The details of the doctrinal factionalism among the major Protestant denominations in the 19th century left me bewildered for a while but eventually I got the hang of it - and I was glad I did.

  For a semi-secular urban type like me, fundamentalism has always been associated with the south and epitomized (for better or worse) by William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes monkey trial. So I was surprised to learn that its roots lie in learned theological disputes among Presbyterians and Baptists in the north after the Civil War. And unlike the fundamentalism of today, the fundamentalism of 100 years ago largely avoided engagement with the political process.

  Documenting and explaining this century-long transformation is Marsden's task and he does a terrific job. The writing is clear, the approach is fair, and the occasional flashes of dry wit are welcome.

  The original book was published in 1980 but the new 2006 edition has an additional chapter that ties the recent rise of the Moral Majority and its companions to the larger history. If you would like shed some preconceptions and understand more about the culture, theology, and politics of fundamentalism, I can't imagine there is a better place to start.

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  Lesley S. Hetrick

  5 out of 5 stars

  Informative

  Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2008

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  Fundamentalism is the movement arising among Christians in the early 20th century who fervently defended the fundamental doctrines of Christianity while opposing modernist liberalism. In his Fundamentalism and American Culture, George M. Marsden investigates the historical context and ideological roots of what came to be American fundamentalist Christianity, recognizing complex influences from nineteenth-century traditions like revivalism, holiness, and patriotism. Marsden says, "Fundamentalists were evangelical Christians, close to the traditions of the dominant American revivalist establishment of the nineteenth century, who in the twentieth century militantly opposed both modernism in theology and the cultural changes that modernism endorsed" (4). His interpretation of the phenomenon of fundamentalism treads a middle ground between those who reduce it to a purely social reaction to the emerging trend of modernist thought, and someone like Ernest Sandeen who views fundamentalism as essentially theological (201). Some evaluations from observers of the height of the fundamentalist frenzy saw it as hollow and brief; the Christian Century said in 1926, "it is henceforth to be a disappearing quanitity in American religious life, while our churches go on to larger issues..." (192). Marsden does not relegate fundamentalism to the position of a short-lived radical sect, but sees it as a significant movement with deep roots and continued relevance to today's American evangelicalism. As a result, he devotes about half of his book to in depth account of late 19th and early 20th century currents of Christian thought.

  Marsden focuses on three major themes. First, he highlights a tension within fundamentalism--the tendency at times to preserve the perceived identity of American culture (viewing America as Israel), and at other times to take on the identity of a separatist minority sect (viewing America as Babylon). Second, he studies the prominent movements of Christian thought in American evangelicalism before the emergence of fundamentalism. He sees deep roots in America's revivalism, pietism, the popularity of holiness, and middle-class Victorian values. Third, Marsden observes a wavering stance among fundamentalists regarding science and the intellect. On one hand, the scientific "common sense" type of principles of 17th century philosopher Francis Bacon allowed the average person clearly to see the plain facts of God evident in Scripture. On the other hand, this same scientific approach allowed proponents of Darwinian evolution to discard the unrealistic, supernatural, miraculous accounts found in the Bible. Naturalism and evolution were powerful enemies of Christians who wanted to maintain the fundamental supernatural tenets of the faith. Increasingly over the years, anti-evolution became a more unifying passion than even adherence to Christian orthodoxy. Marsden comments, "Many people with little or no interest in fundamentalism's doctrinal concerns were drawn into the campaign to keep Darwinism out of America's schools... The more clearly [fundamentalists] realized that there was a mass audience for the message of the social danger of evolution, the more central this social message became" (170).

  After chronologically recounting the origins of fundamentalism, its peak in 1920-1925, as well as the subsequent gradual growth of fundamentalist ideology through denominations and universities, Marsden shares his interpretation of the movement. Fundamentalism was initially a religious assertion against the threat of modernism, but the event of World War I gave fundamentalism crucial characteristics. War-related crisis provided an occasion for paranoia and militant defense of religious views. Marsden compares evangelicals experience of encroaching modernism to the "traumatic cultural upheaval" of cross-cultural immigration (204).

  I find quite helpful Marsden's reluctance to paint the fundamentalist movement as either purely theological or purely social. By resisting extremes, Marsden's eyes are open to the great and sometimes even contradictory complex issues informing fundamentalism. He says it is "a mistake to reduce religious behavior to its social dimensions" and admirably acknoweledges the power of spiritual forces and deep-seated convictions (203). I wish he had made some value judgments, even if tentative and qualified, and used a biblical standard to grant the reader practical ideas for how to move forth with knowledge of historical fundamentalism. What traps and misconceptions did fundamentalists fall into that contemporary evangelical may be vigilant to avoid? For what elements of fundamentalism can we be grateful and which can we even strive to emulate? This desire of mine, though, is just because I'm more interested in ideas than events. I prefer philosophy to history. People who love history may have more fun reading this than I did. Marsden's objectivity seems appropriate to a scholarly book in the genre of history.

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  Amazon Customer

  4 out of 5 stars

  An Excellent Resource

  Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2016

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  An excellent comprehensive resource for anyone seeking to understand fundamentalism in America. Sensitive, fair, and evenhanded.

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  Lindy

  5 out of 5 stars

  A Foundational Book for anyone interested in American Cultural and/or Religious History

  Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2016

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  Over the course of the twentieth century, fundamentalism has existed as a counterpoint to the excesses of modernity in the United States. After five decades of growth, fundamentalism reached its zenith during the 1925 Scopes trial in Dayton, TN. The Scopes trial served to highlight the inherent flaws in fundamentalist ideology, and as a result the fundamentalist cause became synonymous with rural backwardness. It is this fifty-year period prior to the infamous Scopes trial that George Marsden examines in his book, Fundamentalism and American Culture. Marsden’s book not only gives readers an insight into the roots and influences of fundamentalism, but also expands the historical view of American culture in general.

  Marsden’s analysis of the intellectual roots of fundamentalist ideology builds on previous historians’ attempts to explain the phenomenon. While the Scopes trial portrayed fundamentalism as a belief system built on anti-intellectualism and anti-scientific backwardness, Marsden argues that the ideological roots of fundamentalism stem from “an intellectual tradition that had the highest regard for one understanding of true scientific method and proper rationality.” In this sense, Marsden is building on the works of Ernst Sandeen, George W. Dollar, and C. Allyn Russell, who rejected social explanations of fundamentalism in favor of examining the movement as an important element of American religious and cultural history. While Marsden agrees with Sandeen’s conclusions that dispensational premillennialism and conservative Princeton theology were the precursors to fundamentalist ideology, he also emphasizes the influence of nineteenth-century revivalism, the holiness movement, “Scottish Common Sense Realism,” Calvinism, and the ideas of the seventeenth century philosopher, Francis Bacon. His analysis of these early influences led Marsden to define the fundamentalism which emerged after World War I as “militantly anti-modernist Protestant evangelicalism.”

  By examining the lives and works of many individuals within the early fundamentalist movement, Marsden seamlessly weaves this intellectual history of fundamentalism with a social history of American culture. Marsden underscores the contributions of Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Blanchard, Dwight L. Moody, Arthur T. Pierson, and Nathaniel West, among others, in order to personalize the various intellectual influences of the movement. This methodology works well for Marsden’s book, for it allows his overall argument to flow so smoothly that even readers with no academic background would be able to digest the complex theological and intellectual characteristics of the fundamentalist movement.

  Marsden’s analysis of the role of fundamentalism in American culture not only distinguishes this book from previous scholarly attempts to define and historicize the movement, but it also reveals the periodization of the book. As Marsden explains, this particular Protestant response to modernity is almost uniquely American. Although Marsden points to social, intellectual, and religious-cultural explanations, he holds to the contention that fundamentalism should be understood as a “sub-species of American revivalism.” This may be a flaw of the book, since it limits the scope and influence of the fundamentalist movement to America. However, this is likely due to the timing of the publication. Marsden’s book was first published in 1980, at the beginning of resurgence in American fundamentalism. Since then, similar religious movements (in particular, the rise and spread of Pentecostalism, which Marsden acknowledges as a close cousin of fundamentalism) have risen in other parts of the world which now merit scholarly attention. In particular, the militant, anti-modern aspect of fundamentalism remains to be fully evaluated in the light of 21st century events. Marsden’s analysis nonetheless provides the foundation for future research in the study of fundamentalism in other contexts.

  By placing fundamentalism within a broader American historical context, Marsden is able to illuminate the background of contemporary American evangelicals “whose common identity is substantially grounded in the fundamentalist experience of an earlier era.” Not only has Marsden rectified the relative lack of scholarship on an aspect of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American religious movement, he has also illuminated the cultural, intellectual, and theological roots of contemporary fundamentalism within American culture.

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  dougsoderstrom

  5 out of 5 stars

  A very good read!

  Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2012

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  I have probably read at least a hundred books about fundamentalists wanting to understand how they think and why they do what they do, but then one day it occurred to me that I had never studied the history of fundamentalism so I bought the book Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism 1870-1925 and was thoroughly satisfied. As a result of having read the book in question I now feel that I have a reasonably good grasp of where the fundamentalists have come from, and why they believe the way they do. All of such is especially interesting to me since I was brought up attending services in a fundamentalist Baptist Church for the first seventeen years of my life. And now having read the book I have a much better idea what the minister who "preached" all those horrific "hellfire and brimstone" and "last day/tribulation" sermons must have been taught as he went to Bible School or whatever back in the 1920's. It is no wonder that I had to spend so many years dealing with what appears to have been psychological damage done to "a child" sitting in the third from the front row pew, the right hand side of the church having to hear about the "Flames of Hell" nearly every Sunday morning! Paradoxically (or perhaps to offset the damage done?), I went on to get a Ph.D degree in Psychology (much of it humanistic psychology) which is the exact (ideological) opposite of fundamentalist theology! My master's degree thesis (Religiosity and the Fear of Death) and my Ph.D. degree dissertation (Religious Orientation and Meaning in Life) both dealt with religion. I have, of course, spent the balance of my last years all the way into retirement integrating the study of religion with that of psycholgy attempting to figure out who God is and how it is that we should relate to Her. In closing, I will have to say that my life has been extremely exciting, filled with great and wonderful questions, although certainly no answers whatsoever, but with much to look forward to.

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  T. Hooker

  5 out of 5 stars

  More Than You Expect

  Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2012

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  Some years ago, I learned in college about the Scopes Monkey Trial. That incident, more than any before (or possibly since), tarred the reputation of conservative Christianity in America. George Marsden helps readers to understand "the rest of the story".

  As the author makes clear, American fundamentalism was not originally a southern phenomenon. Nor is evangelical fundamentalism closely related to the "fundamentalism" found in the Middle East and various parts of Asia. There was nothing mean-spirited or even anti-intellectual about its earliest leaders, who held to a logical, Newtonian approach to science and were frequently well-educated. However, outside events gradually caused many of them to feel under siege and to overreact against cultural changes they couldn't control.

  I found this work invaluable in understanding the present state of American Christianity. Some of the excesses of 1920s fundamentalism subsided in time. Due to that, a much more respectable evangelicalism is predominant today (though even it is frequently misconstrued as a political movement). In the meantime, denominations which rejected historical, biblical theology have continued to decrease in influence and overall vitality. Given that fact, it's little wonder that Christians who hold to the exclusivity of Christ and other traditional beliefs tend to send the most missionaries abroad.

  One additional insight I gleaned from reading this concerns why a great cultural divide exists between rural and urban America today. News coverage for the Scopes Trail spurred stereotypes of rural dwellers (especially southerners) as uneducated hillibillies who reject all modern innovations. In turn, it caused those from rural areas to be distrustful of the people and ideas of the big cities (particularly in the Northeast). One hopes this division will lessen in the future, though there are indications that this will not be the case.

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