The Meaning of "Fundamentalism"

Fundamentalism as Defined by Fundamentalists

In 1920 Curtis Lee Laws, editor of the Northern Baptist paper The Watchman-Examiner, coined the word “Fundamentalists” to describe those “who still cling to the great fundamentals and who mean to do battle royal” against theological liberalism. Laws’ definition of Fundamentalism was essentially theological, concerned with preserving orthodox doctrine. Yet within sixty years Fundamentalism had become a word to describe religious extremism of every kind. Fundamentalism is no longer a label for only orthodox American Protestants; today, Islamic terrorists, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and Hindu extremists are all considered Fundamentalists by the popular media, academics, and even many religious historians. “Fundamentalism” has become a catch-all term for any religious “dangerous other.”

Fundamentalism as Defined by Modernists

Unsurprisingly, theological modernists in the 1920s and 30s contested the meaning of Fundamentalism. Rather than seeing Fundamentalists as heroic preservers of sound doctrine, modernists accused Fundamentalists of being narrow-minded, backward pedants who obstinately refused to update Christianity to reflect modern times. In his famous 1922 sermon “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” Harry Emerson Fosdick, modernist pastor of New York’s First Presbyterian Church, argued that “we must be able to think our modern life clear through in Christian terms, and to do that we also must be able to think our Christian faith clear through in modern terms.” Modernists believed that Fundamentalism was a movement at the cultural margins of early twentieth century America. Thus Fosdick had noted that the strength of Fundamentalism lay in the “Middle West.” The 1925 Scopes Trial, and the coverage of the trial by influential Northeastern reporters like H. L. Mencken, encouraged this perception of Fundamentalism. So despite the fact that Fundamentalism was actually a predominately middle class, urban movement, H. Richard Niebuhr’s 1937 entry on “Fundamentalism” in the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (vol 5, New York City: MacMillan) declared that “in the social sources from which it drew its strength Fundamentalism was closely related to the conflict between rural and urban cultures in America.” Niebuhr believed that it was modernism that found “its strength in the cities and in the churches supported by the urban middle classes.”

Fundamentalism as Defined by Secular Intellectuals

Although the modernists had successfully marginalized Fundamentalists by contesting the demographics of Fundamentalism, it was a group of secular intellectuals that broadened the term to include religious extremism of all stripes. Political scientists, sociologists, and historians during the 1940s and 50s had developed a consensus view of modernization. They noted that the values of the European Enlightenment, a blend of rationalism and secularism, had transformed American culture in the first half of the twentieth century and undermined traditional forms of religion. Consensus intellectuals believed that Fundamentalism was an anti-intellectual backlash against modernity. In the 1940s influential sociologist Talcott Parsons drew comparisons between National Socialism (Nazism) and Fundamentalism. Parsons proposed that both Nazis and Fundamentalists were reacting against modernity because modernization had “devalued social traditions” (Uta Gerhardt, Talcott Parsons: An Intellectual Biography, Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2002, pp. 75-76).

Consensus historian Richard Hofstadter included a lengthy discussion of Fundamentalism in his 1964 Pulitzer Prize-winning book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1974). Hofstadter traced a current of American anti-intellectualism back through the Great Awakenings, nineteenth century revivalism, and Fundamentalism, and titled his chapter describing Fundamentalism “The Revolt against Modernity.” Hofstadter thought that Fundamentalists were reacting to the psychological anxiety produced by intellectual attacks on their faith. The Fundamentalist mind was conflicted by a desire to cling to outmoded beliefs in the midst of self-doubt. Indeed, Hofstadter quoted Reinhold Niebuhr to argue that “frantic orthodoxy is a method for obscuring doubt.” Fundamentalists were willing to “dismiss science and even rational attempts to interpret the Bible” in order to dispel uncertainty (Hofstadter 122-123). But ultimately what Hofstadter contributed to the modern definition of Fundamentalism was the idea that there existed a “fundamentalist mind” that viewed society through Manichean lenses. The Fundamentalist “looks upon the world as an arena for conflict between absolute good and absolute evil.” Hofstadter had expanded the definition of Fundamentalism to include any person who viewed right and wrong in absolute terms (Hofstadter 135).

Hofstadter wrote Anti-Intellectualism in American Life in light of the McCarthyism of the 1950s in light of the Second Red Scare of the late 40s and early 50s and the Congressional hearings led by Senator Joseph McCarthy. The ideas that Hofstadter spread through academic circles filtered down to popular culture. In 1955 Inherit the Wind, a dramatization of the Scopes Trial that was a thinly veiled allegory for McCarthyism, opened on Broadway. The play and its 1960 film adaptation popularized the notion that Fundamentalism was intolerant, backward, and anti-intellectual. Most Americans had never heard of Richard Hofstadter, but they sure listened when film star Gene Kelly criticized Fundamentalists in his role as reporter H. L. Mencken. The cultural arbiters of America sold tickets and books by portraying Fundamentalists as part of a vanishing past, doomed to the dust heap of modernity. Americans, then and now, place value on concepts like “progress,” “forward thinking,” “innovation,” and “new and improved.” Once Fundamentalism became associated with words like “regress,” “backward thinking,” “stolid,” and “old-fashioned” the movement became more marginalized than ever.

Fundamentalism as Defined Today

By the 1960s-early 70s Fundamentalism had dropped off the national radar except for occasional mentions of extreme “Fundamentalist” behavior. Academics were convinced that Fundamentalism had played itself out, that the movement would continue to diminish in influence and importance. But in the mid-1970s “Fundamentalism” surged back onto the national stage. Time magazine declared 1976 the “year of the evangelical.” (Secular academics did little to differentiate between new evangelicalism and Fundamentalism.) George Gallup had determined that evangelicals would play a significant role in electing the next president of the United States. Much to the astonishment of the political establishment, born-again candidate Jimmy Carter was elected. William Jennings Bryan had failed in all three of his Presidential bids despite being a Fundamentalist during the heyday of Fundamentalism, but Jimmy Carter’s margin of victory was the evangelical vote! American “Fundamentalism” was back with a vengeance.

The final step in the emergence of Fundamentalism as a “dangerous other” came in the late 1970s with the rise of Islamic militancy. Western support for Israel and intervention in Middle Eastern affairs had stirred up a hornet’s nest of Islamic terrorists willing to sacrifice their lives to strike at the United States and other Western nations, but, excepting foreign policy wonks, most Americans didn’t notice and didn’t care until the Iran hostage crisis began in 1979. A pro-Western government had been overthrown by militant Islamists who held over fifty American citizens hostage.

In May 1980 University of Chicago church historian Martin Marty published an influential article in the Saturday Review titled “Fundamentalism Reborn: Faith and Fanaticism” (Marty 37-42). Marty ignored the protests of both American Fundamentalists and Islamic scholars and described jihadists as Fundamentalists. Marty believed that Fundamentalism of both the American and Islamic varieties was united around a shared opposition to modernism: “I know of no place where wide-scale and aggressive liberalism is holding its own against the spiritual opponents of the modern impulse.” Marty believed that Jerry Falwell’s declaration of a “holy war” to “lead the nation back to the moral stance that made America great” echoed the words of the Iranian militants. The only thing that kept American Fundamentalists from being as dangerous as those in Islamic countries was America’s democratic tradition and religious modernists. Fundamentalism had truly become a “dangerous other.” The attacks on September 11, 2001 only strengthened this dominant perception of Fundamentalism.

Conclusion and Consideration

For nearly thirty years this definition of Fundamentalism has shaped the movement’s perception in the media and academia. We have some tough questions to ask ourselves as self-described Fundamentalists. Our definition of what it means to be a Fundamentalist differs radically from how others define it. The word “Fundamentalism” now carries overtones of extremism, violence, and intolerance. Terms are only valuable if they clearly communicate the idea that they represent. Curtis Lee Laws originally coined the term “Fundamentalism” because he believed that other terms being used to describe movement, like “orthodox” and “conservative,” were unclear or misleading. Are we today in the same position as Laws? Does the word “Fundamentalism” still primarily convey a Christ-like defense of the fundamentals of the gospel? Do we continue to call ourselves Fundamentalists to the potential detriment of the cause of Christ?

We can, and do, contest the predominant definition of Fundamentalism, but I suspect that our efforts are in vain. Certainly, we feel a sense of loyalty to a word that evokes memories of spiritual forbears and past contenders for the faith. But what eternal value is there in convincing the world of a given definition of Fundamentalism? As redeemed children of God, we remain on this earth to obey the Great Commission, not to preserve a man-made term from cultural influence. Perhaps, for the sake of the advancement of the Kingdom, we ought to embrace a new label while still holding “fast the profession of our faith without wavering” (Hebrews 10:23).