History of Fundamentalism

Daniel R. Bare, Black Fundamentalists: Conservative Christianity and Racial Identity* in the Segregation Era (New York University Press, 2021). 260 pp. $30.00 USD

Ever since George Marsden published his landmark work, Fundamentalism and American Culture, in 1980, a steady stream of books on the movement has flowed from the American press. However, virtually all of these books have focused on the movement’s most prominent institutions and leaders, which were white, leaving a generation of readers with the impression that fundamentalism was an exclusively white phenomenon. It was with great interest, then, that I took up Daniel Bare’s new book, Black Fundamentalists, which chronicles the African American contribution to fundamentalism during the crucial years 1920 to 1940.

Republished from Voice, Jan/Feb 2020.

John Fea noted two decades ago that “the term fundamentalism has become the most elusive term on the American religious scene.”¹ Today a fundamentalist is often viewed as anyone who holds to a strict religious system.² The task I have been given here is to note the attempted “hijacking” of the designation “fundamentalist.” While I can, in the main, appreciate the faithful heritage of historic fundamentalism, at the same time I also reject the extremism that can often be found in too much of what I term Movement Fundamentalism. It is easy for me to note the faults within fundamentalism, but at the same time it is hard to take issue with all fundamentalists; many of whom are faithful, sincere, sacrificial and dependable saints.

Fundamentalism Today

Over the years I have used a taxonomy to explain to insiders as well as outsiders the nature of contemporary fundamentalism in order to demonstrate the fractured nature of what fundamentalism had become over time. The basis for this present article is my original work which was entitled, “Three Lines in the Sand”³ which enumerated three varieties within contemporary fundamentalism.