Defining the American Evangelical Movement: Doctrine and Denominations (Episode 3)

In January 1953, the Reverend Donald Gray Barnhouse published a striking New Year's resolution in his magazine Eternity. After 25 years of building a ministerial empire — through Bible conferences, books, a widely syndicated radio broadcast, and a national magazine — Barnhouse confessed that he had fallen short in one significant area: unity. Long known for his willingness to call out anyone he disagreed with, even on minor points, Barnhouse declared that he wanted to widen his "circle of Christian fellowship" — defined not by doctrinal alignment, but by a simple question: Is this person going to be in heaven with me?

It was a remarkable resolution for a man forged in the fires of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. And as historians Maggie Capra, Dan Hummel, and John Fea discuss, it offers a revealing window into the dynamics of American fundamentalism — a movement defined as much by its internal fractures as by its battles with modernism.

This episode dives deep into one of the most defining and contested threads in American evangelical history: fundamentalism. What does it actually mean to be a fundamentalist? Where did the term come from? How did the movement evolve — and fracture — across the twentieth century? And what does it have to do with debates still raging today?

The conversation traces fundamentalism from its origins in The Fundamentals pamphlets of the early twentieth century, through the cultural watershed of the Scopes Trial, to its complex relationship with the neo-evangelical movement and Billy Graham. Along the way, the historians examine:

•      The three core characteristics of fundamentalism: Protestant militancy, doctrinal orthodoxy, and a deep sense of certainty

•      Why fundamentalism was originally a Northern movement centered in Baptist and Presbyterian denominations — not the Southern, rural phenomenon it later became associated with in popular memory

•      The crucial divide between premillennialist and amillennialist eschatology, and how it fractured the movement and gave rise to rival institutions like Dallas Theological Seminary and Westminster Seminary

•      The Scopes Trial of 1925 — what it actually meant, how it was misrepresented by journalists like H.L. Mencken and later by films like Inherit the Wind, and why the fear about children and Nietzschean philosophy was central to William Jennings Bryan's case

•      How fundamentalists didn't disappear after Scopes, but built a thriving parallel subculture of Bible institutes, radio broadcasts, Christian schools, and media empires

•      The surprising ways fundamentalism was thoroughly modern — embracing new technology, print culture, and a rationalist, inductive approach to Scripture — even while opposing certain hallmarks of modernity

•      The relationship between fundamentalism and politics, from Frank Norris's anti-Catholic crusade to Karl McIntyre's anti-communism to the emergence of the Christian Right

The episode closes by reflecting on what fundamentalism teaches us about evangelicalism more broadly: that the movement's most significant tensions have often been internal, and that to understand fundamentalists, we must take seriously their own sense of what they were doing — and why.

YOUR HOSTS

John Fea is Professor of American History at Messiah University and one of the leading historians of American evangelicalism. He is the author of several books, including Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? and Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump.

Dan Hummel is a historian of American religion and the author of The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle over the End Times Shaped a Nation (Eerdmans, 2023). His work focuses on the intersections of theology, politics, and culture in American evangelical history.

Maggie Capra is a historian of American Christianity whose research focuses on conservative evangelical and fundamentalist communities in the twentieth century. Her work explores the internal dynamics of these movements, including questions of gender, media, and institutional culture.

KEY TOPICS DISCUSSED

The Story of Donald Gray Barnhouse

The episode opens with Maggie Capra's account of Donald Gray Barnhouse — a powerful fundamentalist figure who stayed within the mainline Presbyterian Church USA even as others left, and whose 1953 New Year's resolution to pursue Christian unity reveals both the aspirations and the limits of fundamentalist fellowship.

Defining Fundamentalism

The historians distinguish between popular uses of "fundamentalism" (anyone militant or anti-modern) and its specific historical meaning: the movement that coalesced around The Fundamentals pamphlets in the early twentieth century. John Fea cites Curtis Lee Laws, who coined the term in 1920, calling on Baptists to "do battle royale for the fundamentals." George Marsden's definition — a fundamentalist is an evangelical who's angry about something — is also explored.

Three Characteristics of Fundamentalism (John Fea)

•      Protestant militancy — a fighting spirit, a willingness to contend for every doctrinal point

•      Doctrinal orthodoxy — a narrow, defensive commitment to core Christian beliefs filtered through the experience of battling modernism

•      Certainty — a rationalist, fortress-like approach to faith with little room for mystery

Three Historical Artifacts (Dan Hummel)

•      Harry Emerson Fosdick's 1922 sermon "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" and Clarence McCartney's Presbyterian response "Shall Unbelief Win?" — illustrating the theological stakes around the atonement

•      The hymnal Gospel Truth in Song (1924), and the hymn "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" — exploring how shared music shaped fundamentalist identity

•      J. Frank Norris — the colorful Texas pastor who co-pastored churches in both Dallas and Detroit, connecting working-class white communities in the South and North (and who shot a man in his church office)

Premillennialism vs. Amillennialism

Dan Hummel explains the crucial eschatological divide within fundamentalism: premillennialists (represented by Dallas Theological Seminary, founded 1924) believed Jesus would return before a literal thousand-year reign, while amillennialists (represented by Westminster Seminary, founded 1929 by J. Gresham Machen) understood the church to already be living in the kingdom age. This divide shaped institutional loyalties, political attitudes, and approaches to missions — and its echoes are still felt today.

Fundamentalism and the Scopes Trial

The 1925 Scopes Trial is one of the most misunderstood events in American religious history. The historians discuss how William Jennings Bryan's poor performance was broadcast nationally, how H.L. Mencken's satirical reporting shaped public memory, and how films like Inherit the Wind cemented a caricature of fundamentalists as rural and anti-intellectual. The historians also surface a less-examined thread: Bryan's concern that evolutionary teaching would corrupt a generation — a concern connected to the Leopold and Loeb murder trial the previous year, in which Clarence Darrow argued that Nietzschean philosophy had corrupted two young men into committing murder.

Fundamentalism's Surprising Modernity

The historians challenge the common assumption that fundamentalists were simply anti-modern. In reality, they embraced radio, television, print culture, and new technology as eagerly as anyone. Their rationalist, inductive approach to Scripture — reading the Bible as a source of propositional truth — was itself a thoroughly modern epistemology. Dan Hummel notes that you can't have fundamentalism without modernity; it is both a reaction to and an expression of modern culture.

The Parallel Subculture and the Neo-Evangelical Turn

Following the Scopes Trial, fundamentalists didn't disappear — they built. Joel Carpenter's work (discussed by Maggie Capra) documents the rise of Bible institutes, conferences, Christian radio, K-12 schools, and media empires that formed a thriving parallel Christian subculture. Out of this world came neo-evangelicalism — Billy Graham, Carl Henry, Christianity Today, and Fuller Seminary — which sought "cooperation without compromise" while retaining most fundamentalist theology but abandoning its separatist posture.

Fundamentalism and Politics

The relationship between fundamentalism and political engagement was complex and shifting. During World War I, premillennialists were sometimes seen as insufficiently patriotic (why spread democracy if Jesus is coming?). By World War II, evangelicals and fundamentalists had largely embraced American exceptionalism and anti-communism. Figures like Karl McIntyre and Billy James Hargis served as bridges between the "old Christian right" and the movement that would coalesce into the Moral Majority under Jerry Falwell in 1979.

BOOKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED

•      The Fundamentals (1910–1915) — The landmark pamphlet series funded by Milton and Lyman Stewart that gave the fundamentalist movement its name

•      The Roots of Fundamentalism — Ernest Sandeen (University of Chicago Press, 1970)

•      The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism — Dan Hummel (Eerdmans, 2023)

•      American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism — Matthew Sutton (Harvard University Press, 2014)

•      When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture — Paul Boyer (Harvard University Press, 1992)

•      Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism — Joel Carpenter (Oxford University Press, 1997)

•      God's Rascal: J. Frank Norris and the Beginnings of Southern Fundamentalism — Barry Hankins (University Press of Kentucky, 1996)

•      Christianity and Liberalism — J. Gresham Machen (Eerdmans, 1923)

•      The Fundamentalism Project — Martin Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds. (University of Chicago Press, 5 vols., 1991–1995)

•      Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s — Frederick Lewis Allen (Harper & Brothers, 1931)