Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism in the United Kingdom during the Twentieth Century
This item is out of stock.
Other
£132.50
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199664832
Number of Pages: 424
Published: 03/10/2013
Width: 16.3 cm
Height: 23.7 cm
Historians have sometimes argued, and popular discourse certainly assumes, that evangelicalism and fundamentalism are identical. In the twenty-first century, when Islamic fundamentalism is at the centre of the world's attention, whether or not evangelicalism should be seen as the Christian version of fundamentalism is an important matter for public understanding. The essays that make up this book analyse this central question. Drawing on empirical evidence from many
parts of the United Kingdom and from across the course of the twentieth century, the essays show that fundamentalism certainly existed in Britain, that evangelicals did sometimes show tendencies in a fundamentalist direction, but that evangelicalism in Britain cannot simply be equated with
fundamentalism.
The evangelical movement within Protestantism that arose in the wake of the eighteenth-century revival exerted an immense influence on British society over the two subsequent centuries. Christian fundamentalism, by contrast, had its origins in the United States following the publication of The Fundamentals, a series of pamphlets issued to ministers between 1910 and 1915 that was funded by California oilmen. While there was considerable British participation in writing the series, the
term 'fundamentalist' was invented in an exclusively American context when, in 1920, it was coined to describe the conservative critics of theological liberalism. The fundamentalists in Britain formed only a small section of evangelical opinion that declined over time.
This collection of 18 essays, plus an editorial introduction and conclusion, is certain to become required reading for anyone interested in twentieth-century evangelical Protestant Christianity in the United Kingdom, or in the problems facing the scholar who tries to define fundamentalism. Graham Gould, The Journal of Theological Studies, This book provides the definitive account of fundamentalism and Evangelicalism in Britain. Revd Dr David Martin, Church Times