Abstract
Hostile efforts to restrict the boundaries of the fundamentalist movement would not have had as much success had they been utterly rejected by fundamentalists themselves. Instead, in the second half of the 1920s, some fundamentalists embraced the new stripped-down understanding of fundamentalism. Many adopted a prickly defensive stance, one that proudly accepted the insults of liberals as badges of honor. They often fiercely refused to accept attributions of ignorance or bigotry. However, they enthusiastically affirmed the positive implications of hostile accusations. For instance, as liberals attacked fundamentalism as isolated, ignorant, primitive, and anti-intellectual, some fundamentalists defensively affirmed fundamentalism as part of a Southern, populist, anti-intellectual revival tradition. Furthermore, many prominent fundamentalists unintentionally reinforced the image of fundamentalist bigotry with their aggressive Protestant militancy. These efforts by fundamentalists, whether deliberate or unintentional, bolstered the new public image of the movement.
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Notes
H. L. Mencken, Prejudices: Fifth Series (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926), 111.
J. Frank Norris, The Searchlight 4 (January 13, 1922): 1.
Willard B. Gatewood Jr., Preachers, Pedagogues and Politicians: The Evolution Controversy in North Carolina, 1920–1927 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1966), 193.
T. T. Martin, Hell and the High School: Christ or Evolution, Which? (Kansas City, MO: Western Baptist Publishing Co., 1923), 10, 11.
William Bell Riley, “The Truth and Teacher Agencies,” Christian Fundamentals in School and Church [CFSC] 8 (January–March 1926): 55.
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Gerald Winrod in Leo P. Ribuffo, The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right from the Great Depression to the Cold War (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983), 92–93.
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William V. Trollinger, God’s Empire: William Bell Riley and Midwestern Fundamentalism (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 43; The Searchlight became The Fundamentalist on April 15, 1927, which became The Baptist Fundamentalist of Texas on April 29, 1927; which became The Fundamentalist of Texas on June 1, 1928.
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Michael Kazin, A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan (New York: Anchor Books, 2007), 132, 272.
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© 2010 Adam Laats
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Laats, A. (2010). Fundamentalists and the New Fundamentalism. In: Fundamentalism and Education in the Scopes Era. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230106796_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230106796_10
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