Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism

By Joel A. Carpenter

Book Overview

By the end of the 1920s, fundamentalism in America was intellectually bankrupt and publicly disgraced. Bitterly humiliated by the famous Scopes "monkey trial," this once respected movement retreated from the public forum and seemed doomed to extinction. Yet fundamentalism not only survived, but in the 1940s it reemerged as a thriving and influential public movement. And today it is impossible to read a newspaper or watch cable TV without seeing the presence of fundamentalism in American society. In Revive Us Again, Joel A. Carpenter illuminates this remarkable transformation, exploring the history of American fundamentalism from 1925 to 1950, the years when, to non-fundamentalists, the movement seemed invisible.
Skillfully blending painstaking research, telling anecdotes, and astute analysis, Carpenter--a scholar who has spent twenty years studying American evangelicalism--brings this era into focus for the first time. He reveals that, contrary to the popular opinion of the day, fundamentalism was alive and well in America in the late 1920s, and used its isolation over the next two decades to build new strength from within. The book describes how fundamentalists developed a pervasive network of organizations outside of the church setting and quietly strengthened the movement by creating their own schools and organizations, many of which are prominent today, including Fuller Theological Seminary and the publishing and radio enterprises of the Moody Bible Institute. Fundamentalists also used youth movements and missionary work and, perhaps most significantly, exploited the burgeoning mass media industry to spread their message, especially through the powerful new medium of radio. Indeed, starting locally and growing to national broadcasts, evangelical preachers reached millions of listeners over the airwaves, in much the same way evangelists preach through television today. All this activity received no publicity outside of fundamentalist channels until Billy Graham burst on the scene in 1949. Carpenter vividly recounts how the charismatic preacher began packing stadiums with tens of thousands of listeners daily, drawing fundamentalism firmly back into the American consciousness after twenty years of public indifference.
Alongside this vibrant history, Carpenter also offers many insights into fundamentalism during this period, and he describes many of the heated internal debates over issues of scholarship, separatism, and the role of women in leadership. Perhaps most important, he shows that the movement has never been stagnant or purely reactionary. It is based on an evolving ideology subject to debate, and dissension: a theology that adapts to changing times.
Revive Us Again is more than an enlightening history of fundamentalism. Through his reasoned, objective approach to a topic that is all too often reduced to caricature, Carpenter brings fresh insight into the continuing influence of the fundamentalist movement in modern America, and its role in shaping the popular evangelical movements of today.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195057902
• ISBN13: 9780195057904
• Release Date: October 1997
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Is there a sequel?

Carpenter has made a great contribution not only to the history of the church in America, but also to 20th century American history at large. Writing as an ex-fundamentalist, yet committed Christian (preface xiii), Carpenter's task is "to explain what happened to fundamentalism between the demise of its crusades in the 1920s and the rise of Billy Graham." (preface xiv) It is disappointing that he only covers the period of fundamentalism from its inception in the 20s and 30s through the rise of "new evangelicalism" in the 1950s. Perhaps he'll write a sequel. The book is well-documented though he uses some of the more extreme examples to illustrate particular points about fundamentalism. Nonetheless, his discription of fundamentalism as "militant," "decentralized," "antielitist," "aggressive," "male-dominated, macho movement," and "often intellectually lame, provincial, petty, mean-spirited, stultifying, and manipulative, but...enabling and energizing as well" is generally accurate. In all fairness he points out some (implicitly rare) exceptions to these descriptions. The description gets increasingly optimistic as the book progresses. There are a lot of names, places, and dates mentioned in this book, more than you could ever remember, but if you are associated with any institute born out of fundamentalism, he probably mentions it (he mentioned mine in one of the endnotes, which are not merely reference notes but contain important information). With the recent media interest in "evangelicals" this book will give you a good foundation to build on if you're wondering who the evangelicals are. But, keep in mind, he is writing about the movement that gave birth to evangelicalism and the descriptions here cannot be applied to 21st century evangelicalism in its broad diversity. The underlying movement that plays out in this book is one that portrays a group of very narrow-minded people (for good or ill) becoming a very influential people through some key adjustments. Perhaps the most important adjustment for Carpenter is the rise of higher centers of learning among evangelicals. There are other books that continue the story, but this book will leave you thinking, "What's the next chapter (or book) going to say?"

Why do fundamentalists still have an influence?

Lest you think fundamentalism was the faith of your Victorian great-grandparents or something only hill-billies believe, think again and read this book. It is a history of fundamentalism in the 1930s and 1940s in the USA. This book tells us not only what simple, fundamental Christian belief is all about during the depression and World War II, but also who the players were. Critics and Christians alike can gain something from this book. The former will find a scholarly view of what fundamentalists believe and why they are still a political force today. Christians will find it interesting to learn who influenced and founded leading evangelical institutions. There are insights into the National Assocation of Evangelicals (NAE), a powerful lobbying group today. Also the forces that brought about Billy Graham, which you won't find in his biography are summarized. The motivation for creating Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, CA as a place where intellectual Christians could teach and study is explained. Other organizations mentioned are Park Street Church, Boston, the Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College. Less expected is the influence of Harvard Divinity School. The author rightly observes that fundamentalists, who may be divided in their denominations, were brought together by an infrastructure of bible colleges, youth movements, business men's gatherings and camps. The book touches on the influence of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, coming from the UK, then Canada. It would be interesting to have a similar book that analyzes European fundamentalism of the 1930s and 1940s. Then there's Asia and Africa. Clearly, there's a global story here that has yet to be told. Regrettably, the book is very much from a male viewpoint - with only a fleeting reference to the empowering of women through fundamentalist organizations. I would have liked to have heard more about women fundamentalist leaders - but maybe they were suppressed! Joel Carpenter explains the rise of neo-evangelicals, who moved away from the expectation of the imminent return of Jesus. He explains pre-millenialism and dispensationalism (a belief in Christian eras) concisely and clearly. This is a thorough, historical study, written with clarity and copious references.

Great book for the serious enthusiast!

The book is about Protestant fundamentalism's "recovery" after its defeats in the 1920s. Carpenter tells the story of the movement's alienation and loss of status in the 1920s, its institution building in the 1930s and 40s, and its recovery the late 1940s. Among other themes, he discusses the how the movement wrestled with separatism and accommodation within the denominations and in the broader culture. This is not a popular history of the movement. To illuminate the development of key characters, theological positions and institutions, Carpenter goes into a level of detail that might overwhelm the casual inquirer.