Right from the start, fundamentalism was a response of traditional evangelicals who declared war on modernizing trends. Forerunners of this movement saw it as a war that needed to be fought head on and on many fronts. What the Fundamentalists stressed was the major “fundamental” doctrines of faith. These doctrines

being the virgin birth of Christ, his miracles, his bodily resurrection, his substitutionary atonement for sin, and Christ’s second coming. These ideas laid the foundation for Fundamentalism.

Another reason for the rise of fundamentalism in America was the reaction to biblical criticism. In the nineteenth century, a German scholar, Julius Wellhausen, put forward what came to be known as the Documentary Hypothesis, which stated that the Pentateuch was composed from several strands (each of which he gave a title), which spanned between three centuries. He noted inconsistencies within the text, repetitions, and other examples to prove his view.

To define fundamentalism is very hard. There are several people that have tried to define the term. Bruce Lawrence states “the affirmation of religious authority as holistic and absolute, admitting of neither criticism nor reduction; it is expressed through the collective demand that specific creedal and ethical dictates derived from scripture be publicly recognized and legally enforced.” He believes that fundamentalism is a specific religious idealogy. Lawrence believes that the fundamentalists are antimodern, but not antimodernist. In other words, it rejects the rationalism and individualism that come along with modernity. Another person that tries to define what exactly fundamentalism is, is a person Jeffrey K. Hadden, who is also discussed later in this paper.

Modernism is a major idea a

Some topics in this essay:
America Fundamentalism, Jennings Bryan, Philadelphia Chicago, Bruce Lawrence, Darrow Bryan’s, Jeffery Hadden, Documentary Hypothesis, Clarence Darrow, Jeffrey Hadden, twentieth century, darwinian theory, loss influence, Julius Wellhausen, “the monkey trial”, “the monkey, fundamentalism america, theological fundamentalism, types fundamentalism, william jennings, william jennings bryan, political fundamentalism, rise fundamentalism,