In terms of the longer fundamentalist heritage, the more explicitly politicized fundamentalism of the later twentieth century brought into the center of the movement the older custodial side of the American evangelical impulse that went back to the Puritans and had been best preserved in the South. That custodial side had been apparent in a good bit of the northern fundamentalism of the 1920s, but during the mid-twentieth century it had been overshadowed by the sectarian premillennialist side. In the new cultural-political fundamentalism it reemerged in full force. Jerry Falwell in his 1980 book. Listen America, for instance, echoed the Puritans in calling for national repentance to stay God’s hand. “While it is true that we are not a theocracy, as was ancient Israel,” he conceded, “we nevertheless are a nation that was founded upon Christian principles, and we have enjoyed a unique relationship toward God because of that foundation.” In addition to national repentance, Falwell called for Christian voter registration drives. “It is perfectly legal, for example, for a deputy registrar to come right to your local church at a designated time and register the whole congregation.”49 Without much reflection on how practical political campaigns fit in with continuing predictions that the Rapture and end-times would commence in a few years, an ideal of cultural transformation reemerged as one of the most conspicuous traits of the movement.
THE PREMILLENNIAL PARADOX
The central cultural paradox of fundamentalism was thus even more dramatically pronounced than ever. In tandem with massive efforts to transform American politics and culture for the long run, ever more popular dispensational premillennial teachings suggested that for the United States there would be no long run. The Rapture and hence the beginning of the End Times, as countless preachers and writers proclaimed, were very likely to occur at least within the next few decades. America was simultaneously Babylon and God’s chosen nation. Countless sermons and fund-raising appeals described in lurid terms how America was under judgment. Doom was inevitable and imminent. Each new crisis in the Cold War, conflict in the Middle East, or development in the European Union proved that the Bible prophecies were fulfilled and the end was near. Yet the United States at the very same time also remained a moral beacon for the ideals of freedom and best hope for defending righteousness against the powers of darkness. The Cold War and opposition to atheistic Communism fueled the idea that America represented a virtuous alternative. Jerry Falwell, for instance, organized “I Love America” rallies at every state capitol.”50 Love it or leave it” style patriotism remained a hallmark of the movement, as much in the era shaped by 9/11 as it had been in that shaped by Vietnam. America might deserve the wrath of God for its sins, but let an American protester desecrate the flag or criticize the military and such outbursts would be treated as though they were blasphemy.
At the same time as such sentiments were building during the 1970s, Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) was America’s best-selling non-fiction book, reaching 28 million in print by 1990. Lindsey’s tour de force is an arch-typical example of fundamentalism in its apolitical mode. Lindsey predicted that as the end approached, apparently within the generation, the U.S. moral decline would “so weaken law and order” that first the economy and then the military would collapse. Meanwhile institutional churches would be forming “religious conglomerates” and the Pope would become “even more involved in world politics” as the prophesied union of world church and world government moved into place. “Open persecution” was likely “to break out for ‘real Christians.’” For America the only hopes were for individual conversions and possibly “a widespread spiritual awakening.” In an interview in 1977 Lindsey declared, “God didn’t send me to clean the fishbowl, he sent me to fish.”51
The most striking contrast to such apolitical premillennialism was the militantly political postmillennialism of the Christian Reconstructionist movements. Christian Reconstructionism in its pure form is a radical movement that has never had a wide following. Founded by Rousas J. Rushdoony, an ultra-conservative Presbyterian, Reconstructionism, Theonomy, or Dominion Theology, as it is variously called, advocates ultra-conservative economic theory and calls for a theocracy that would include a reinstitution of Old Testament civil law. The positive proposals of Reconstructionists are so far out of line with American evangelical commitments to American republican ideals such as religious freedom that the number of true believers in the movement is small. Nonetheless Reconstructionists helped formulate the early critiques of secular humanism and their call for a biblically based alternative had considerable influence on the rhetoric of the Christian Right.52 What might be tagged “Soft Reconstructionism,” calling for a Bible-based civilization but not in a literal or thoroughgoing way, thus became a common motif within the Christian Right, so that avowed premillennialists often spoke as though they were postmillennialists. The best-known case was Pat Robertson, who emerged as the leading political figure in the Christian Right with his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988 and formation of the Christian Coalition in 1989. Robertson’s books, such as The Secret Kingdom (1983) and The New Millennium (1990), included seemingly postmillennial themes involving restoration of explicitly Christian influences in American government.53 The paradox itself is not new. Already in the 1920s mixes of premillennial doctrine and postmillennial rhetoric reflected a longstanding cultural ambivalence in the American evangelical heritage.
It should not be surprising then, even if it remains remarkable, that at the same time as implicitly postmillennial political rhetoric was flourishing, premillennial end-time scenarios became more popular than ever. Beginning in the mid-1990s the Left Behind book series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins surpassed its end-time predecessors and by 2004 had sold over sixty-two million copies.54 These adventure stories tell of the tumultuous times following the Rapture. The primary task of a brave band of Christians, left behind but converted by recognizing the meaning of the Rapture, is to evangelize others, but they are also deeply involved in political intrigue as they try to subvert the machinations of the Anti-Christ and his sinister world government. The enormous popularity of these books, which sell to audiences far larger than the dedicated fundamentalist or evangelical constituencies, suggests the popular appeal in America of an aura of biblical authority combined with adventure set in an ultimate dualistic clash between a minority with Christ on their side versus a world empire of evil.
The continuing popularity of these themes—at the same time that many of their most ardent fundamentalistic proponents are deeply involved in politics and in establishing, for instance, educational institutions with buildings designed to last for generations—also confirms what appears to be a longstanding pattern. Premillennial end-time views, while important for confirming biblical authority and for promoting evangelism and missions, have not usually been prime determinants of fundamentalist views on other matters.55 While sincerely held, these do not appear to be the sort of core doctrines (such as the necessity of trusting in Christ’s sacrifice for salvation) that are so much at the center of a movement’s web of beliefs that they cannot be easily ignored when in conflict with other pressing interests. Less central to the whole system, they are operative in some areas of concern, but not controlling factors for the whole.56
The one major area of practical politics where premillennialism is operative is policy toward the state of Israel.57 A variety of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Protestant biblical interpreters, including Dispensationalists, predicted the return of the Jews to Palestine and such views had some impact in encouraging British and American support for that project. The foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 vastly strengthened the credibility of Dispensationalists, providing them with their most compelling case for the fulfillment of prophecy in contemporary times. They could also tie the Cold War into the scenario as Dispensationalist interpreters almost universally agreed that the USSR would, with Arab support, lead the invasion of Israel in the cataclysmic events of the last times and the fateful
Battle of Armageddon. The practical result of these teachings was that American fundamentalists and most evangelicals were among the most ardent promoters of U.S. policies of support for Israel. Even though most prophetic interpreters could not find the United States directly in biblical prophecy, they could offer hope for America on the basis of the promise to Abram in Genesis 12:3 (“I will bless those that bless thee”) so long as the United States made the defense of Israel a cornerstone of its foreign policy.58
AMERICAN FUNDAMENTALISM AND THE WORLD PHENOMENON
At just about the same time that Fundamentalism and American Culture first appeared, fundamentalism was much in the international as well as national news. By 1980, spurred in part by the Iran hostage crisis, journalists and scholars often extended the use of the term “fundamentalist” to include militant anti-modernists of other world religions, especially Islam. It is questionable whether a term, coined as it was in the American Protestant context of 1920, can appropriately be applied to strongly conservative movements in Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism, or Islam, especially when none of the parties involved are happy with the analogy. Nevertheless, the scholars who have approached these comparisons in the most sensitive and nuanced ways have pointed out that it is still useful to note some illuminating parallels, even while acknowledging essential differences. “Fundamentalism” according to an especially helpful summary, “refers to a discernible pattern of religious militance by which self-styled ‘true believers’ attempt to arrest the erosion of religious identity, fortify the borders of the religious community, and create viable alternatives to secular institutions and behaviors.”59
Recognizing that fundamentalistic American Protestants fit this generic worldwide pattern of responses to selected aspects of modernity, it is illuminating also to reflect on how they are different, particularly as compared to radical Islamists. Although each of these groups is militant, fundamentalistic American Protestants are distinguished from radical Islamists and some other armed conservatives in world religions in that the warfare in which their group engages is almost always metaphorical rather than literal. Fundamentalistic American Protestants stress those biblical passages that emphasize the warfare between the forces of good and evil. Nonetheless, it has been unusual for them to recommend that church groups or individuals should take it on themselves to engage in physical violence against God’s enemies. Occasionally fundamentalistic Christians have physically attacked abortionists or their clinics, but this has been rare.
One overarching difference between fundamentalistic American Protestant and radical militant movements in most other world religions is that American Protestants are shaped not only by their religious heritage but also by the American Enlightenment. Most fundamentalistic Americans are, after all. Baptists who have a heritage that affirms separation of church and state that antedates the Enlightenment. And as Mark Noll has shown most definitively, because they joined forces with champions of more Deistic or liberal Christian Enlightenment outlooks in the American Revolution, most American evangelical Christians were far more open to republican ideology than were their European Christian counterparts. Thus the Common Sense philosophy, with its confidence in the rational judgments of ordinary people, became fused with the American evangelical heritage. Further, as Nathan Hatch has argued, the populist or “democratic” elements in American evangelicalism fostered its remarkable growth in the era of the early republic.60 In the burgeoning religious marketplace of the Second Great Awakening, separation of church and state seemed a boon to vital Christianity. The overall result was that American evangelicalism, despite its sectarian tendencies and concerns for purity versus cultural corruption, nonetheless usually remained remarkably comfortable with what they see as the ideals of the American Revolution. Even if they romanticize the American founders as working from an essentially Christian worldview, one result of that use of history is that they view many of the early ideals of the American political heritage as sacred. One of their most deeply held beliefs is that individual freedom of choice is central to the American Christian heritage. Although they believe legislation should reflect God’s moral law on selected issues such as abortion or gay marriage, their general instinct on most matters is to advocate voluntary persuasion rather than governmental coercion.61 Above all—and most important in making the comparisons to militant religious movements elsewhere more misleading than clarifying—is that when American evangelicals speak of a “Christian America,” the first thing they are likely to speak of is religious freedom as being at the heart of the American experiment.62
In the light of American fundamentalists’ republican and nationalistic heritage, the comparison with radical militants in other world religions takes on a more complex form. While fundamentalistic American Protestant militancy rarely involves personal undertakings of physical violence as a religious duty, it nonetheless often strongly supports literal warfare on the part of the nation. And although in domestic affairs fundamentalistic American Protestants clearly distinguish between the far-too-secular nation and their churches, in foreign policy they often seem uncritical of American nationalism and treat the United States as though it were unquestionably on God’s side in warfare against the forces of evil. Thus while relying on lawfully constituted authorities to wield the sword has something to be said for it morally, both in terms of the Christian tradition and modern Western standards, it cannot be said that the difference between fundamentalistic American Protestants and other religious militants is that the former do not advocate physical violence in the name of a holy cause.63 Much the same could be said, of course, of any religious Americans who might favor military action for a good cause. But fundamentalistic evangelicals are more likely to advocate state-sponsored warfare than are other Americans.
FUNDAMENTALISM AND EVANGELICALISM FOR REAL PEOPLE
Concentrating on the most striking feature of recent American fundamentalism, its political involvement, is nonetheless likely to lead to an unbalanced view both of fundamentalism itself and the evangelical movement of which it is a part. To understand the core traits of these movements one must look at them at the local and individual levels. Fundamentalism and its evangelical relatives are first of all religious or spiritual movements, more specifically built around variations on longstanding Christian teachings about human sin and guilt and the monumental eternal implications of salvation in Christ. Evangelicals of all sorts have believed that sharing that message is the kindest thing one can do for one’s neighbor and such spiritual concerns have long proved infectious, not only in mass revivals, but also in personal relationships.
In order to appreciate the significance of this point—that for most evangelicals and fundamentalist there are things more important than politics—we need to be reminded of interrelationships of the movements we are considering. Fundamentalism, here defined primarily by its degree of militancy, is part of a larger American evangelical or conversionist Protestant movement that goes back to the trans-Atlantic revivalism of the eighteenth century. Since then it has generated countless variations on the fertile American soil and cross-bred with many other traditions. In that light we can appreciate that fundamentalism was part of “an authentic conservative tradition”—conversionist evangelicalism—and not just a reactive militancy against theological and cultural change.64 It is true that the controversies of the 1920s and their sequels reshaped many types of conversionist evangelicalism. Similarly, political militancy since the 1970s has helped revive “fundamentalistic” attitudes even among many evangelicals who would not call themselves “fundamentalists.” Nevertheless, the larger conversionist evangelical movement is shaped by longstanding greater concerns—such as the urgent need for positive evangelism, missions, and spirituality. Since the nineteenth century it has generated a host of parachurch agencies for promoting these goals. So even while theological or political controversies may do the most to make the news and shape later historical analyses, such contests are rarely the largest factors in s
haping the everyday character of evangelicalism for its ordinary constituents.
Even in stricter self-styled fundamentalist churches, many other concerns far outweigh politics for most members. Individuals are attracted to these strict Bible fellowships for any number of reasons, but one pattern that consistently becomes conspicuous in local studies is that many converts are attracted to the order that it brings to their previously chaotic lives. In typical fundamentalist churches people who have been distressed by marital difficulties, alcohol abuse, or other disruptive behavior will tell how they came to value fundamentalist discipline. Those who feel disoriented by the mobility and impersonality and plethora of choices of contemporary life are attracted to the stability of a close-knit community with clear values and unambiguous sources of authority.65
Looking more broadly at conversionist evangelicalism in recent decades, we must also be reminded that some of the most flourishing groups have little to do directly with politics. Most of the largest mega-churches are built around emphases on evangelism and personal spiritual growth, rather than political action. Rick Warren of the huge Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, for instance, is best known for his ideas in The Purpose Driven Church (1995) and The Purpose Driven Life (2002), emphasizing church growth and discipleship. Bill Hybel’s seeker-friendly Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago similarly emphasizes church growth and advocates a non-partisan social agenda. Each of these churches served as models for hundreds of other thriving congregations. The charismatic Vineyard Christian Fellowship likewise grew since its founding in the 1970s to include hundreds of affiliated churches and represents only one of many types of pentecostal and charismatic churches that have thrived on emphasizing experiential Spirit-filled fellowship. Many of these enterprising and growing churches and movements have extensive overseas connections, missions, and charitable programs. By the end of the twentieth century Bible-believing conversionists had by default won the “fundamentalist” battles that had begun on the mission fields, as ninety percent of American missionaries were evangelical. Perhaps the largest story of recent decades, however, is the indigenous wild-fire spread throughout the third world of what was originally American-style evangelicalism. The counterpart in the United States has been the ethnic diversity of those who identify with various forms of evangelicalism, especially among Hispanic and Asian-American populations.
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