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Another Look at Fundamentalism: A Response to Ernest R. Sandeen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

LeRoy Moore Jr
LeRoy Moore Jr
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Church History, Hartford Seminary Foundation
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Extract

Ernest R. Sandeen's article on fundamentalism in the March 1967, issue of Church History is a work of primary importance in the reinterpretation of a significant aspect of American religious history. Professor Sandeen corrects many of the misunderstandings contained in the hitherto “standard” treatments of Cole and Furniss. And he otherwise goes quite beyond earlier studies to provide fresh insights into the nature of fundamentalism as an especially religious phenomenon.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , June 1968 , pp. 195 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1968

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References

1. Sandeen, Ernest B., “Towards a Historical Interpretation of the Origins of Fundamentalism,” Church History, XXXVI (03 1967), 66–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Cole, Stewart G., The History of Fundamentalism (New York: Harper, 1931)Google Scholar; and Furniss, Norman F., The Fundamentalist Controversy, 1918–1931 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954).Google Scholar

3. Sandeen, op. cit., p. 67.

4. Ibid., 82.

5. Ibid., 83. Italics added.

6. The Watchman-Examiner (07 1, 1920), 834.Google Scholar

7. In addition to Sandeen's study of fundamentalism, see his “The Princeton Theology: One Source of Biblical Literalism in American Protestantism,” Church History, XXXI (09 1962), 307–21.Google Scholar

8. The Watchman-Examiner (07 1, 1920), 834.Google Scholar

9. Cf. The Watchman-Examiner (02 1, 1917), 134.Google Scholar

10. Maring, Norman H., “Baptists and Changing Views of the Bible, 1865–1918,” Foundations, I (07 1958), 52.Google Scholar

11. Ibid., 58.

12. Instructive at this point is Maring's account of the founding of the Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, a school usually regarded as fundamentalist in origin. Cf. “Conservative but Progressive,” in What God Hath Wright, ed. Gilbert L. Guffin (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1960), 15–49.Google Scholar

13. Cf. Strong, A. H., A Tour of the Missions (Philadelphia: 1918), 197–98Google Scholar; and “My Views of the Universe in General,” The Baptist (05 29, 1920), 625–26.Google Scholar

14. Strong, , Systematic Theology, 8th ed. (Philadelphia: 1907), 196Google Scholar. Cf. Systematic Theology, 7th ed. (New York, 1902), 95.Google Scholar

15. Strong, , Christ in Creation and Ethical Monism (Philadelphia: 1899), 127.Google Scholar

16. For more detail, see my study of “The Rise of American Religious Liberalism at the Rochester Theological Seminary, 1872–1928” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Claremont Graduate School, 1966)Google Scholar; and “Academic Freedom: A Chapter in the History of the Colgate Rochester Divinity School,” Foundations, X (01-03 1967), 64–79.Google Scholar

17. The Watchman-Examiner (03 29, 1917), 395.Google Scholar

18. A Tour of the Missions, 191; cf. chaps. 15–16.

19. One of the most remarkable of Strong's conciliatory articles was hia brilliant summary in a positive vein of “My Views of the Universe in General,” The Baptist (05 29, 1920), 625Google Scholar. Referring to the burgeoning fundamentalist controversy, he said: “My views are midway between two opposite extremes. Both sides fire into me, while I am only the more convinced that my middle ground is the only correct position. I claim that the truth has in it the elements of both parties in the controversy.”

20. Strong, , “Confessions of Our Faith,” The Watchman-Examiner (07 21, 1921), 910.Google Scholar

21. Interview with Ewell, Glenn B., 02 26, 1964Google Scholar. Mr. Ewell, who took a B.D. degree at the Rochester Seminary prior to Strong's retirement, was seminary librarian from 1913 until the merger with Colgate Theological Seminary in 1928. Thereafter, until his retirement in 1945, he was registrar and dean at the Colgate Rochester Divinity School.

22. The remarks in this and the following paragraph are adapted from my ”Academic Freedom: A Chapter in the History of the Colgate Rochester Divinity School,” Foundations, X (01-03, 1967), 74–75.Google Scholar

23. Handy, Robert T., “Fundamentalism and Modernism in Perspective,” Religion in Life, XXIV (Summer 1955), 392.Google Scholar

24. Maring, , “Baptists and Changing Views of the Bible,” Foundations, I (10, 1958), 57.Google Scholar

25. Sandeen, loc. cit., 67.

26. Mead, Sidney E., The Lively Experiment, The Shaping of Christianity in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 183.Google Scholar