This October I will be co-leading a PhD seminar at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary on the history of fundamentalism and evangelicalism. Nathan Finn, dean of the School of Theology and Missions and Professor of Christian Thought and Tradition at Union University, will be leading it with me. Nathan is the author of an excellent dissertation on the history of Baptist fundamentalism in the south (c. 1940–1980), and was on the doctoral committee for my own dissertation.
Below are the books and essays we will require for the seminar, along with the monographs and biographies that we will assign to various students, who will read and report on them to the rest of the class.
If you read through this and think, They really should have assigned this, or I would included much more of that—just know that we likely agree with you! There are so many good books to choose from, but choices must be made.
If you are a qualified student, I believe you can still sign up for the course.
Required Books
- Carpenter, Joel A. Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
- Graham, Billy. Peace with God: The Secret of Happiness. 1955; reprint, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2000.
- Hankins, Barry, ed. Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism: A Documentary Reader. New York: New York University Press, 2008.
- Marsden, George M. Fundamentalism and American Culture, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
- Sutton, Matthew Avery. American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.
- Sweeney, Douglas A. The American Evangelical Story: A History of the Movement. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005.
Required Essays
- Hamilton, Michael S. “The Interdenominational Evangelicalism of D. L. Moody and the Problem of Fundamentalism.” In American Evangelicalism: George Marsden and the State of American Religious History, eds. Darren Dochuk, Thomas S. Kidd, and Kurt W. Peterson, 230-80. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2016.
- Marsden, George M. “The Rise of Fundamentalism.” In Turning Points in the History of American Evangelicalism, eds. Heath W. Carter and Laura Rominger Porter, 133-53. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017.
- Sweeney, Douglas A. “The Essential Evangelicalism Dialectic: The Historiography of the Early Neo-Evangelical Movement and the Observer-Participant Dilemma.” Church History 60.1 (March 1991): 70-84.
Monographs (assigned to individual students, not the entire class)
- Bendroth, Margaret. Fundamentalism and Gender, 1875 to the Present. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
- Dochuk, Darren. From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Religion, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism. New York: Norton, 2010.
- Gasaway, Brantley W. Progressive Evangelicals and the Pursuit of Social Justice. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2014.
- Gloege, Timothy. Guaranteed Pure: The Moody Bible Institute, Business, and the Making of Modern Evangelicalism. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
- Hankins, Barry. Uneasy in Babylon: Southern Baptist Conservatives and American Culture. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2003.
- Larson, Edward J. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion, 2nd ed. New York: Basic, 2006.
- Marsden, George. Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.
- Mathews, Mary Beth Swetnam. Doctrine and Race: African American Evangelicals and Fundamentalism between the Wars. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2017.
- Miller, Steven P. The Age of Evangelicalism: America’s Born-Again Years. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
- Swartz, David R. Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.
- Williams, Daniel. God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
- Worthen, Molly. Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Biographies (assigned to individual students, not the entire class)
- Blumhofer, Edith. Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody’s Sister. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993.
- Dorsett, Lyle. Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.
- Evenson, Bruce J. God’s Man for the Gilded Age: D.L. Moody and the Rise of Modern Mass Evangelism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
- Hankins, Barry. God’s Rascal: J. Frank Norris and the Beginnings of Southern Fundamentalism. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1996.
- Turner, John. Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ: The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2008.
- Wacker, Grant. America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.
