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Fundamentalism and American Culture (New Edition), by George M. Marsden
Free Ebook Fundamentalism and American Culture (New Edition), by George M. Marsden
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Review
"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
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About the Author
George M. Marsden is the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Jonathan Edwards: A Life.
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Product details
Paperback: 468 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press; 2nd edition (February 23, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0195300475
ISBN-13: 978-0195300475
Product Dimensions:
9.2 x 1.2 x 6.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.8 out of 5 stars
35 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#347,781 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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.
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.
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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