lisa@phs.UUCP (Jeff Gillette) (12/08/84)
eundamentalism: A Historical Note <> Bob Brown has called our attention to a series of booklets published between 1910-1915 called "The Fundamentals". I am not an expert on 20th Century American Church history, but I do enjoy reading a bit of it, and thought a brief (:-) summary historical summary might be in order. Most of my reading comes from Ernest Sandeen "The Roots of Fundamentalism" (Grand Rapids, 1970), and Sydney Ahlstrom's "A Religious History of the American People" (New York, 1975). Sandeen (PhD Chicago) is a persistent chronicler of the movement, and Ahlstrom (recently retired from Yale) is the premiere American church historian of this generation. I understand that George Mardsen's History of Fundamentalism is also quite good. The term "fundamentalist" is a bit anachronistic. Although the Fundamentals were published in the 1910s, those who rallied against "godless" modernism did not call themselves "fundamentalists" until the 20s (The earliest reference to the term I know of is Harry Emerson Fosdick's 1925 sermon, "Shall the fundamentalists win?"). Sandeen documents the roots of those who produced the Fundamentals from three 19th Century groups. The first was a group of conservative scholars who taught in seminaries (notably Princeton!), and wished to contend for an "inerrant" Bible in the face of rising higher criticism. A second group consisted of the followers of the Keswick (England) conference and its American spin-offs. These stressed a simple pietistic understanding of the Bible, and personal holiness. The third group, and the one that Sandeen credits as the major impetus to the development of the Fundamentals, was the millennarian movement (the Bible prophecy folk). Since the middle of the 19th Century a number of popular conferences had been founded for lay people to hear about the imminent return of Christ. Among the more positive results of this was a flood of money into foreign missions (get the heathen saved before Jesus comes), large-scale city evangelistic crusades with D.L. Moody, R.A. Torrey, etc (get the Americans saved before ...), and a host of denominations that attempted to set precise dates for the return of Christ (count the big toes on Daniel's beast, multiply by the number of weeks in the anti-Christ's contract, add the days in captivity times the ... well, you get the picture). These three groups found themselves fairly compatible, if not always entirely in harmony with each other. Concerned over the spread of the "social gospel" and the rising tide of biblical higher-critics, wealthy oil baron Lyman Steward commissioned preacher A.C. Dixon to gather the best "theologians" of the time (really, about 1/3 were academes, 1/3 were parish ministers, and 1/3 were lay people) to publish a series of booklets that would be mailed to every minister, every theologian, every student in theological schools, and every missionary. Sandeen argues fairly convincingly that 1) the Fundamentals was not intended to be any type of theological program. Specifically, the five "fundamental" doctrines mentioned by Bob apparently were not a part of the 90 articles published in the series. 2) the Fundamentals were "eccumenical" in tone - they represented a cross-section of denominational leaders, and were meant to encourage agreement rather than to incite conflict (as, e.g. the later controversy in the 20s). The 90 articles in the Fundamentals break down thus: 29 on the inspiration and authority of the Bible; 31 on other theological issues (existence of God, Jesus, Church, Holy Spirit); 30 "others" (personal testimonies, attacks on Catholics and socialists, and appeals for missions). Apparently Bob is quite right when he says that the inerrancy of the Bible was traditionally considered the fundamental of the Fundamentals. What impact the Fundamentals had is difficult to determine. These books did not seem to get reviewed by the scholarly journals. Public interest in the millennium peaked at the end of the war (WWI), and denominational leaders began to deride the millennialists for their lack of concern for the problems of present society. The next generation of leaders for the movement (1920s) were affiliated with "Bible institutes" rather than denominations or seminaries. When Fosdick preached his sermon, and William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow went ape in Dayton Tennessee, and J. Greshem Machen left Princeton Seminary (under not too pleasant circumstances) to set up his own Presbyterian denomination, fundamentalism was not enjoying a very good public image. It seems to have gone in the closet during the 30s, gaining attention only in some populist functions (bible conferences, revival meetings, Youth for Christ). It was not until 1942, and the founding of the National Association of Evangelicals, that fundamentalism again emerged into the public limelight as a "respectable" religion (but, that's another story). Jeff Gillette duke!phs!lisa The Divinity School Duke University