Fundamentalism and American Culture

by Marsden, George M. ;

  The movement took three principal forms. Considerable groups within the major denominations identified themselves with the fundamentalist tradition, although they had now abandoned all hope of excluding the modernists. Second, there were substantial fundamentalist influences outside of the traditional dominant structures of American culture but within denominations that were not purely fundamentalist. In the South, in Holiness and Pentecostal movements, and in immigrant denominations, pietistic traditions were often reshaped by fundamentalist example and influence. Finally, some of the most extreme fundamentalists separated into their own denominations or into independent churches. These were mainly dispensationalists for whom strict separation was an article of faith. By about 1960, this wing of the movement was the only one that still chose to wear the badge of “fundamentalist.”32 Most of the other groups that had been touched by the fundamentalist experience of the 1920s re-emerged in a new post-fundamentalist coalition. Their basic attitude toward culture is suggested by their successful appropriation of the more culturally respectable term “evangelical.” Yet, although this new evangelical sub-culture repudiated “fundamentalist” as too exclusivist in implication, “fundamentalistic” remains a useful adjective to describe many of its most conspicuous and controversial traits.

  PART FOUR

  Interpretations

  XXII. Fundamentalism

  as a Social Phenomenon

  After 1925, the fragmentation and relocation of fundamentalism was taken by many observers for evidence of its disappearance. Fundamentalism, they assumed, was the offshoot of a social adjustment. As the interpretation of the original movement passed into the hands of the historians, this became a recurring theme. On the first page of his History of Fundamentalism, published in 1931, Stewart Cole pronounced, “For a half century the church has suffered a conflict of social forces about and within it that accounts for the present babel of witnesses to Christian truth and purpose.”1 H. Richard Niebuhr, writing in the mid-30s, emphasized the “social sources” of fundamentalism “closely related to the conflict between rural and urban cultures in America.”2 Statements like this abounded in textbooks on the 1920s.

  After World War II many people were eager to discover the roots of the anti-intellectualism and extreme anti-liberalism prevalent in the McCarthy era. The fundamentalism of the 1920s seemed to provide an obvious precedent. Norman F. Furniss’s The Fundamentalist Controversy, published in 1954, emphasized the anti-evolution aspect of fundamentalism and its predilection for ignorance in the face of new ideas. Two more popular works of the 50s, Inherit the Wind, a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee (1955), and Ray Ginger’s popular history, Six Days or Forever? (1958), dramatized Bryan’s last stand at Dayton. Both stressed the tension between rural and urban as a source of fundamentalist intolerance. The most subtle analysis of fundamentalist intolerance came from Richard Hofstadter in his Anti-intellectualism in American Life and The Paranoid Style in American Politics. published in the early 60s. Hofstadter perceived status anxieties among fundamentalists. “By the end of the century,” he wrote, “it was painfully clear to fundamentalists that they were losing much of their influence and respectability.” Their anti-intellectualism and paranoid style were “shaped by a desire to strike back at everything modern—the higher criticism, evolutionism, the social gospel, rational criticism of any kind.”3

  The interpretation of fundamentalism as a side effect of the passing of an old order intimated that the movement would die away when the cultural transformation was complete and the social causes removed. William Mc-Loughlin, whose outstanding work on American revivalism supplied Hofstadter with much of his material, subscribed to this “consensus” interpretation of American history. According to this view, American society develops toward a consensus of shared cultural values that eventually absorbs alien and dissenting elements. As this happens, the consensus itself gradually changes, leaving once dominant patterns to fade away after a period of upheaval and resistance. In McLoughlin’s view fundamentalism represented the “Old Lights” who always appear in a time of religious change, while the more radical fringe-sects were the “inevitable emotional and institutional effluvia of a major alteration within Christendom.” Even taken together, they did not constitute a “third force in Christendom” capable of replacing the established order.4

  By the time McLoughlin published his analysis in 1967, this kind of sociological explanation of fundamentalism was beginning to come under fire. Some interpreters, moreover, were beginning to take the fundamentalists’ doctrinal positions seriously. In 1955, in an important reinterpretation of fundamentalism, the neo-orthodox theologian William Hordern stated that “no system of thought can be judged by what fanatics do in its name.”5 According to an important text of the 1960s, “fundamentalism drew a necessary line between historic Christianity and naturalism, but it drew the line at the wrong place.”6 A trend was developing toward more balanced approaches.7

  Ernest Sandeen provided the most influential critique of the social interpretations of fundamentalism. He pointed out that neither the fundamentalists’ predictions of the end of the world nor the liberals’ predictions of the end of fundamentalism had as yet come true. Sandeen showed that the roots of fundamentalism lay much deeper than the social upheaval of the 1920s. In refutation of the consensus interpreters, Sandeen pointed to the pluralistic nature of American society, a theme that was becoming increasingly popular in the 1960s: “We exist in a fragmented and divided culture, not in one pervaded by consensus.” Therefore it was possible to regard fundamentalism as “an authentic conservative tradition,” rather than the temporary aberration or “pseudo-conservative” departure that Hofstadter and other historians had seen.8

  To arrive at this conclusion, Sandeen had to use an unusually narrow definition of the fundamentalist movement. Sometimes he maintained that fundamentalism before 1918 was an alliance between dispensationalism and Princeton theology.9 Elsewhere he defined it even more narrowly. “The Fundamentalist movement of the 1920s was only the millenarian movement renamed.”10 This definition, which differentiated between the longer-lived millenarian-fundamentalist movement and the fundamentalist controversy of the 1920s, successfully undercut the social explanation. The social upheaval following World War I might explain the intensity of the denominational controversies or the anti-evolution crusade, but these outbursts were of little significance for understanding the essence of the movement.11

  Sandeen’s work was an important step toward taking fundamentalism seriously as a significant and lasting religious movement with its own types of organization and ways of thought. Moreover, he made important progress in uncovering some of its primary roots. Yet he mistook the roots he uncovered for the source of the entire movement. He failed to see that the lush and complex overgrowth of what was calied “fundamentalism” in the 20s sprang from equally complex and tangled roots in the nineteenth-century traditions of revivalism, evangelicalism, pietism, Americanism, and variant orthodoxies.12 Moreover, Sandeen provided fundamentalism with “an essentially theological definition.”13 His insistence on the integrity of the religious and intellectual aspects of the movement was a valuable corrective to those interpretations that reduced fundamentalism to its social dimensions. In attempting to restore balance, however, he went too far toward the opposite extreme.

  What then can be said of the social dimensions of fundamentalism? While the present interpretation maintains that fundamentalism was first of all a religious movement, there is nonetheless no doubt that the sense of cultural crisis following World War I shaped and modified the movement in important ways. Certainly the postwar crisis helped to intensify feelings, increase militancy and harden resistance to change. The distinctive ideologies of the movement came to be waved like flags above the cultural field of battle. Extremism flourished in the midst of the conflicts, and extremists were attracted to the movement.

  The cultural crisis of the 1920s was part of a wider movement of truly rev
olutionary cultural and intellectual change. At the time, the crisis was widely perceived as a conflict between urban and rural culture, but that was perhaps because extreme positions were most visible. The issues at stake had for two generations been affecting every aspect of American life, from the institutions of higher learning to the meanest village. In its later phases the conflict did have a rural-urban dimension; Sandeen is right, however, in asserting that this was not the essential issue.

  The peculiarities of the American environment to some extent determined the specific forms the conflicts took. Living in a very large and new country Still being settled at the same time that major internal cultural changes were taking place, Americans had an unusual degree of diversity in their acquaintance with new ideas and values. Rural-urban differences accentuated this diversity. The remarkable ethnic diversity was probably just as important. Long after a degree of Americanization had taken place, national groups, and even sub-groups from the same national origin, might have little interaction even when living in close proximity. Social prejudices were reinforced by denominational differences, which often entailed different institutions, including those of higher education.14 Within ethnic and denominational groups, there might also be wide regional diversities. Northerners, Southerners, Easterners, and Westerners might have their first real encounter with a new idea decades, or even generations, apart.15

  These circumstances greatly increased the probability of religious conflict when the diverse groups came into contact. World War I and the contemporaneous growth of the mass media accelerated that inevitable contact. Suddenly national consciousness overrode local and parochial concerns. Individuals with wide differences in background and belief were forced by the war to work closely together. Moreover, the overseas experience accentuated the “How-ya-gonna-keep-’em-down-on-the-farm-after-they’ve-seen-Paree” syndrome. One side effect was national paranoia and a chain reaction of crusades against various cultural enemies. There was a natural tendency to oversimplify the issues, and the media magnified and sensationalized these reactions.

  It is thus possible to understand the timing of fundamentalism’s rise to popularity, as well as its intensity and some of the accompanying extremism in terms of the social conditions of the day. Yet this is only a partial explanation. As emphasized by Sandeen, and effectively documented by Robert E. Wenger, fundamentalism’s first principal centers of strength were urban and Northern. In the light of this fact the common social hypothesis, premised on the conflict between rural and urban, cannot stand.16 On the other hand, Walter Ellis has presented some good, albeit limited evidence that liberals within a city or town were as a rule of somewhat higher social status than fundamentalists in the same community.17 A similar pattern emerges in comparisons of fundamentalist and liberal leadership.18 One might infer that this contrast would generally obtain. Liberal religion was essentialiy culture-affirming and hence would appeal to more cosmopolitan individuals as a form of Christianity that would not unduly disrupt their established ways of life. The “old” families of a community and those settled in one local church for generations would be most inclined toward such views. The growth of fundamentalist churches, conversely, was largely through conversions. Thus it would more likely come from among young people, recent arrivals in a community, and those outside the power centers of the culture. Unlike the radical Holiness and Pentecostal groups, however, fundamentalism was not likely to exist simply on the fringes of society. Its radicalism was tempered by traditionalist identification with the middle-class ideals of the older Protestant establishment. Fundamentalism appealed to some well-to-do, and some poor, but also and especially to the “respectable” Protestant and northern European working class, whose aspirations and ideals were essentially middle-class Victorian.19

  One example from Ellis’s study of a fundamentalist controversy in the town of Indiana, Pennsylvania, provides one very brief—though perhaps representative—glimpse at what the national movement looked like at the local level. Although this instance is drawn from a small town, the sequence of events and the social patterns involved appear similar to those found in urban centers as well. In 1915 the Reverend William McKee, a graduate of the Nyack Bible Institute (of A. B. Simpson’s Christian and Missionary Alliance) and a dispensationalist, became pastor of the First Baptist Church of Indiana, a Pennsylvania town of some 6,000. During 1916 McKee inspired a considerable revival, adding fifty new members by baptism. In the early 1920s McKee attempted to involve his still growing congregation in the national fundamentalist debates. Some of the more established families in the congregation refused to take a fundamentalist stand against the policies of the Northern Baptist Convention. Ellis demonstrated that the fundamentalists in this struggle, loyal to the Baptist Bible Union, were drawn from the more recently arrived residents of the town, and from the laboring classes. While some well-to-do long-time residents were in this group, most of the business and professional people and the older families remained loyal to the Convention.20

  This case illustrates the complexity involved in assessing the significance of social factors in religious development. Although Ellis found a clear correlation between social class and religious affiliation, it does not necessarily follow that the religious choices were dictated by class antagonism. The non-fundamentalist group in Indiana had apparently long dominated the church, and would presumably have resisted any new group trying to take control, whether they were rich, or poor, or neither. Ellis points to the significant fact that the non-fundamentalists were not theologically liberal. One should not underestimate, moreover, the force of sheer inertia—of loyalty to the Baptist denomination and comfortable traditional Baptist concerns. The fundamentalists in this case were innovators attempting to drag the congregation into a national debate the local relevance of which was probably not readily apparent to the “old guard.”21

  Virtualiy every religious group is characterized by a particular social base. Social factors exert a considerable influence on religious life, and, except for explicitly stated commitments, may provide the best means of predicting religious behavior. It is, however, a mistake to reduce religious behavior to its social dimensions, or to assume that these are usually primary. Christianity claims, in various ways, to meet all sorts of human needs. The factors creating a sense of need are extremely complex within a single individual, let alone a group. Needs for order, growth, morality, and survival can be traced to a variety of social, economic, psychological, emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual forces, in addition to the inherent insecurities of the human condition. It is usually fruitless to attempt to explain a historical development on the basis of any one of these factors. Moreover, contrary to a common working assumption, those factors most amenable to measurement are not necessarily the most significant. Our analysis, then, must consider the range of human experience—social, economic, psychological, philosophical, symbolic, biological, etc.—and acknowledge that especially for large groups the underlying factors in behavior often can be analyzed only in a subjective way.

  In view of this limitation and the difficulties of finding any precise social or class determinants of fundamentalist behavior, we can nonetheless attempt, more impressionistically, to make some sense out of the important psychological-social dimensions of the fundamentalist experience. Given the imprecise nature of the case, it can perhaps be best described by an extended analogy or metaphor, rather than by any more exact analysis.

  The fundamentalist experience may be seen as providing American Protestants of English and Scottish ancestry with an analogy to the immigrant experience of other ethnic groups. The fundamentalist leadership came primarily from this “Anglo-Saxon” group, although some were of German origin.22 Most of these northern European Protestants in America had not personally experienced the shock of crossing the sea and making their way in a new land.23 They could be said, however, to have experienced a similarly traumatic cultural upheaval. In some respects America after 1918 was a new world as
compared with America at the end of the nineteenth century. People who had retained the dominant beliefs of the culture in which they were raised now found themselves living in a society where those same beliefs were widely considered out-dated, or even bizarre.

  The well-to-do and the well-educated middle classes often survived the transition with some of their influence intact, at least within their limited sphere. Although their adjustment to the new society might be difficult, normally it could be a gradual transition with no crisis forcing a confrontation between tradition and modernity. The lower middle classes were more likely to experience something akin to the immigrant experience. Raised with middle-class Victorian ideals they might find themselves in new and unsettled situations; “in-migrants” within a pluralistic and not always friendly society, or simply outside centers of cultural influence. Faced by a culture with a myriad of competing ideals, and having little power to influence that culture, they reacted by creating their own equivalent of the urban ghetto. An overview of fundamentalism reveals them building a subculture with institutions, mores, and social connections that would eventually provide acceptable alternatives to the dominant cultural ethos. As in immigrant communities, religion played a central role in shaping their identity. Immigrants combined some innovative religious approaches with the equivalent of old-world social, political, and individual mores, and their communities emphasized doctrines and practices that symbolized separateness from the larger community.24 While other practical accommodations of immigrants to the new culture may have proceeded smoothly, these symbolic points were not negotiable, so that beliefs and values were often frozen in the form which they had had in the old world prior to the migration.25 Similarly, among fundamentalists religious and political ideals hardened at about the point they had reached by 1900.