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fundamentalism

Who is a fundamentalist today? George Marsden talks about the recent edition of his Fundamentalism and American Culture

John Fea   |  February 22, 2022

Check out Marsden’s interview with Brian Kaylor at Word & Way: Marsden continues to affirm his view that a “fundamentalist” is a “militant evangelical.” This raises an interesting question. Is an evangelical who is a culture warrior a “fundamentalism?” Based...

Albert Mohler responds to David Brooks’ essay on evangelical reformers

John Fea   |  February 7, 2022

Writing at WORLD magazine, the latest imperial conquest of the fundamentalist fiefdom over which he presides, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler has responded to David Brooks’s recent New York Times piece on evangelical dissenters. Let’s break it down:...

Thabiti Anyabwile riles the fundamentalists

John Fea   |  January 21, 2022

Fundamentalists are fighters. They stage a militant defense of the faith from their bunker-like fiefdoms dominated by powerful masculine leaders. They see the world in black and white and will turn on anyone who dares depart from what they believe...

Fosdick’s “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” turns 100

John Fea   |  January 14, 2022

Current Contributing Editor Daniel K. Williams reflects on this classic 1922 sermon. Here is a taste of his post at The Anxious Bench: Now that we have reached the centennial anniversary of this sermon, perhaps it’s time to ask the...

Marvin Olasky discusses his resignation from World magazine

John Fea   |  November 19, 2021

We covered this here and here. Here is Bob Smietana at Religion News Service: Olasky had hoped to end his tenure as editor-in-chief, which began in 1994, in the summer of 2022. Those plans changed after World’s publisher announced the...

Are you reading the *Cedarville Interpreter*?

John Fea   |  March 22, 2021

We have done several posts over the years about the goings-on at Cedarville University, a conservative Christian school in Ohio. You can read some of those posts here. Many of these posts link to pieces University of Dayton historian Bill...

Why white evangelicals criticize the Black church

John Fea   |  December 22, 2020

In the 1980s, when I was a student at a small Christian college, some of my professors warned us about the “liberal theology” of the civil rights movement. What Martin Luther King Jr. did was notable, they said, but he...

More reporting on Southern Baptist Owen Strachan’s claim that “woke” Christians should be excommunicated

John Fea   |  October 15, 2020

We covered this here. Here is Leonardo Blair at The Christian Post: Deryk D. Hayes, pastor of St. Paul Baptist Church at Shively Heights in Kentucky, said he believes Strachan’s comments about “wokeness” makes him look like “an open and...

Excommunicate me please!

John Fea   |  October 12, 2020

This is the new fundamentalism. Here is Owen Strachan of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the major Southern Baptist seminaries in the country. He calls for the excommunication of people who believe in critical race theory and suggests that...

The last fundamentalist empire died yesterday in Lynchburg, Virginia

John Fea   |  August 26, 2020

Male authoritarian figures presiding over regional empires were an important part of 20th-century Protestant fundamentalism. I began to think historically about these empires during divinity school when I first read William Trollinger’s book God’s Empire: William Bell Riley and Midwestern...

How the history of white evangelical racism has led to Donald Trump’s election and continues to shape support for his presidency

John Fea   |  June 19, 2020

I begin with a caveat. This post is not implying that all white evangelicals are or have been racist. Many white evangelicals have been anti-racist and have fought hard to curb systemic racism in American life. But, as I argued...

What is Going on (Again) at Cedarville University?

John Fea   |  April 28, 2020

More stuff is going on at the conservative evangelical (fundamentalist?) Christian school. We’ve been covering Cedarville for several years now. Here are some of the titles of our posts: April 24, 2014: “What is Going on at Cedarville University?” (A...

Former Fundamentalists Await the Apocalypse

John Fea   |  April 3, 2020

Today a piece by Sarah Jones at New York Magazine caught my attention. Here is a taste of “Apocalypse Now?”: If you think it feels like the end of the world, you’re not alone. There is a pandemic. Donald Trump is...

Trump Responds to *Christianity Today* Editorial Calling for His Removal

John Fea   |  December 20, 2019

Here it is, in case you haven’t seen it: A far left magazine, or very “progressive,” as some would call it, which has been doing poorly and hasn’t been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years, Christianity Today,...

The American Council of Christian Churches Still Exists

John Fea   |  October 15, 2019

When post-fundamentalists like Billy Graham, Carl. F.H. Henry, and Harold John Ockenga began to forge a kinder and gentler brand of conservative Protestantism known as “neo-evangelicalism,” there were many veterans of the fundamentalist-modernist battles of the 1920s who continued to...

Why the Recent *Politico” Piece Will Not Hurt Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Standing Among Many Conservative Evangelicals

John Fea   |  September 10, 2019

Yesterday I posted about Brandon Ambrosino’s Politico piece exposing Jerry Falwell’s lies, shady business deals, sex life, and the tyrannical power he holds over his employees at Liberty University.  One of Falwell’s employees called the president a dictator who propagates a culture...

More on the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptists

John Fea   |  August 15, 2019

Earlier this month we did a post on Hailey Branson-Potts’s Los Angeles Times piece on the New Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement. Over at Slate, religion writer Ruth Graham also has a piece on this brand of ultra-fundamentalism.  Here is a taste...

“Red Hot Preaching” and Calls for the U.S. Government to Execute LGBTQ People: Meet the New Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement

John Fea   |  August 2, 2019

When Hailey Branson-Potts, a prize-winning reporter from the Los Angeles Times, called me to get some historical context before she attended the “Red Hot Preaching” conference in Sacramento, I told her that she was going to stick out like a sore...

Is the Southern Baptist Convention Evangelical or Fundamentalist?: Some Thoughts on the Beth Moore Controversy

John Fea   |  June 1, 2019

As many readers of The Way of Improvement Leads Home know, I am not a cradle evangelical.  I spent the first sixteen years of my life as a Roman Catholic.  I had a conversion experience as a sophomore in high...

Christ of the Ozarks

John Fea   |  April 12, 2019

I haven’t visited the 65.6 foot-tall statue near Eureka-Springs, Arkansas, but I learned a lot about it from Ben Railton, the “American Studier.”  Here is a taste of his post: Near Eureka Springs, Arkansas, at the top of the strikingly...

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