AbstractsPhilosophy & Theology

The Fundamentalist-Modernist Debate: A Crisis in Religious Perspectives on Modernity,The Bible and the Individual, 1910-1925

by S. Shodjaipoor




Institution: Universiteit Utrecht
Department:
Year: 2015
Keywords: religion, modernity, fundamentalism,religious liberalism, American religion, modernist, biblical interpretation, secularization, individualism
Record ID: 1256206
Full text PDF: http://dspace.library.uu.nl:8080/handle/1874/304661


Abstract

This thesis relates to the increased historical interest in the connection between modernity and religion, but moves to another time and place, the Unites States in the 20th –century. At the time, the United States was viewed as one of the most ‘modern’ country in the world was characterized by elevated religious tensions. The authority of the church and the dogmas of traditional Christian tradition came under sharp criticism for not adapting to the contemporary world. This study aims to contribute to the growing area of research on the conflict between modernity and religion by exploring the fundamentalist-modernist debate in the 1910s and 1920s, one of the most important conflicts in the history of American religion. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the change in religious perspectives between fundamentalists and modernists portray different perspective on the relationship of modernity to religion between 1910 and 1925. The thesis seeks to address the question how the fundamentalists and modernists viewed the position of religion in connection to modernity in the contemporary world. The major objective of this study was to investigate three themes related to the fundamentalist-modernist controversy and modernity, which are church liberalization, inerrancy of Scripture, and individualism in modern society. The thesis reviews the fundamentalist and modernist responses to the changing American religious landscape, aiming to provide an understanding of the dialogue among fundamentalists and modernist on the progress of Protestantism in the wake of the 20th –century. The three themes are often discussed in the primary sources from the fundamentalist-modernist debate, and in the secondary sources analyzing the fundamentalist-modernist debate in the context of modernity.