Book review
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Fundamentalism and American Culture, George M. Marsden, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006
Since it was first published in 1980, Marsden’s work has been the definitive guide to the rise of fundamentalism in North America. For those working in Latin America it provides an appreciation of the roots of many of the missionary societies and missionaries that they encounter.
Today there is considerable confusion over the term fundamentalist. It is frequently used in a pejorative sense referring to religious extremism, as for example in Islamic fundamentalism. So a publication that provides a better understanding of the term is welcome.
From the church’s perspective the word has its main origin in 12 small publications called The Fundamentals produced in the period 1910-15 and aimed at counteracting the theological liberalism of that time. Sixty-four British and American scholars and preachers contributed, the publications were sponsored by North American Christian businessmen and three million copies were distributed. These fundamentals of the faith dealt with such things as Biblical inerrancy, the virgin birth and creation. This battle against theological and biblical liberalism was also reflected in the main Protestant denominations and continues to the present day even though liberalism was absorbed into modernism and postmodernism. Marsden regards fundamentalism primarily as a response to false doctrine.
But, as the author goes on to explain, Fundamentalism has also been mutating. Although most of his book deals with the rise and establishing of fundamentalism during 1870-1925, this Second Edition provides an additional section covering the period up to 1980.
The first three sections deal with the initial rise of fundamentalism 1870-1917; then the impact of the First World War on the movement; and finally the Scopes creation-evolution trial and the debates within the denominations. He comments on the revivalist DL Moody, the doctrinal pronouncements of BB Warfield, Charles Hodge and J Gresham Machen and the holiness and dispensationalist movements. In the new fourth section he deals with the changes in evangelicalism and also issues such as the Moral Majority, abortion and the political right.
Unfortunately the work does not cover the current movement of post-evangelicalism and the global rise of fundamentalism. This makes it questionable if it is worthwhile buying the Second Edition if you already own the First.
David E. C. Ford
Professor of New Testament, Fundación Universitaria Seminario Bíblico de Colombia, Medellín, Colombia