The Global Church Era · c. 1910-1970s · N. America, then global
Fundamentalism
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About This Movement
The word arrived in 1920: Curtis Lee Laws, writing in the Watchman-Examiner, proposed calling those willing to do 'battle royal for the Fundamentals' fundamentalists, and the name stuck. The movement was older than the word. The Niagara Bible Conference had met annually from the 1870s until 1897 and adopted a fourteen-point creed in 1878; A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield published 'Inspiration' in the Presbyterian Review in April 1881, giving the doctrine of scripture its most exacting American statement. Between 1910 and 1915 twelve volumes called The Fundamentals were published, financed by Lyman Stewart and given away — around three million copies. The Presbyterian General Assembly adopted a five-point doctrinal deliverance in 1910. Then came the public defeats and the separations: the Scopes trial in July 1925, Princeton Seminary reorganized in 1929 with Westminster founded in answer, and new denominations of their own from the 1930s.
In Its Own Record
Formed or Influenced
- The Mainline Century — Liberal Protestantism & Neo-Orthodoxy — The census's second 'in tension with' edge — the Great Schism pattern run inside Protestantism, graded on both sides' own dated rupture texts: the five-point Doctrinal Deliverance (1910), Fosdick's 'Shall the Fundamentalists Win?' (21 May 1922), Machen's Christianity and Liberalism (1923) and the Auburn Affirmation (9 Jan 1924). The Social Gospel (IX.34) belongs inside this tension and is named here rather than given a second edge. Any present-day continuation of the argument is a matter for dated statements, not for this grade. Edge written at the Era 10 Freeze (Mark, 2026-08-14).
Sources
- The Fundamentals (12 vols., 1910–1915; eds. Dixon, then Torrey), financed by Lyman Stewart and distributed free (primary) — The movement's own manifesto series, verified as to volumes and dates; ~3 million copies distributed.
- The Niagara Creed (1878) and the Niagara Bible Conference records (annual to 1897) (primary) — The pre-1906 formation layer, disclosed as reach-back; the fourteen-point creed verified.
- A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, 'Inspiration', Presbyterian Review (April 1881) (primary) — The Princeton formulation of inerrancy; issue and date verified.
- Curtis Lee Laws, the naming article in the Watchman-Examiner (1920) (primary) — The coinage itself, verified; the movement's name given by one of its own editors.
- J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (1923), with the denominational controversy records (the 1910 Doctrinal Deliverance; the Scopes trial record, 1925) (primary) — The rupture's texts on this side, dated. Scopes carries adversarial-legal and media-circus flags. Editions from standard reference.
- George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture (Oxford, 1980; 3rd ed. 2022) (secondary) — Verified, current edition confirmed — the field's standard.