Christian Fundamentalism is an undeniable facet of public and political life in the United States.¹ Yet its status within the public sphere remains an ongoing source of confusion and frustration for political theorists, pundits, and ordinary citizens. Seemingly out of nowhere, Fundamentalist believers rose up in the late 1970s to transform the American political and social landscape. Pastors have joined with media personalities and conservative politicians to advocate against defense-spending cuts, gun-control legislation, abortion, and feminism. Fundamentalist perspectives dominate debates over welfare reform, rights for same-sex couples, and education standards in the public schools. Questions abound: What motivates Fundamentalist politics?...

InThe Public and Its Problems(1927), John Dewey defended the ideal of strong publics. Challenging Walter Lippmann’s pessimistic assessment that modern states were far too complex to be managed by their citizens, Dewey offered a fluid understanding of democracy and the state that highlighted the critical role of robust “public interests.”¹ Yet, as his title suggests, Dewey’s optimism was tempered by a sense that the modern public was in trouble. In the context of expanding technology, bureaucratization, and a dehumanizing standardization of action and association, the public, he argued, was fragmenting. The problem for Dewey, as Robert Asen argues,...

Revival speech is the foundation of Fundamentalist politics. At the heart of Fundamentalist efforts to remake the public—from abolition and temperance to contemporary struggles against abortion and environmentalism—is a desire to make a world in which the gospel message can be propagated and in which people will be more receptive to revivalist persuasion. For much of Christian history it was assumed that this transformation could only come “in the fullness of time,” which had been preordained by God, but Fundamentalist counterpublicity derives from an emerging belief in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that human actions could affect God’s...

Fundamentalism has its roots in revivalism, but the Fundamentalist movement of the twentieth century has emerged as a radical reformulation of revivalist idealism. When Charles Finney addressed listeners and readers in his 1835Lectures on Revivals of Religion, he warned of individual enemies that the revival church would have to confront and overcome in order to establish Christ’s kingdom on earth. He warned of “professors of religion” who would dismiss and speak against the work of revival. He warned often of a personal devil who conspired to keep sinners out of heaven. When he spoke against institutions and systems, however,...

Fundamentalism is largely defined by narratives of confrontation with and marginalization within the larger social landscape. To be at rest or at peace is incompatible with Fundamentalist identity because the Fundamentalist church must have enemies. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Fundamentalist narratives frequently highlight the alienation of believers from the world they inhabit and the enemies the church must overcome. Arguably most prominent among these narratives are those connected to the apocalypse—the imagined final conflict between Fundamentalist believers and their enemies culminating in the triumphant return of Christ to ensure believers’ victory. From the various editions...

To be Fundamentalist is to be marginal. It is to adopt and enact one’s own marginalization in society. It is to assume a position of outsider. It is to invoke counterpublic speech against public norms. Yet it is also to lay claim to an imagined higher standard than that which society currently upholds. It is, as we discussed in the last chapter, to envision a world in which Fundamentalist speech is normative. It is to speak for a public that the Fundamentalist community imagines but cannot, itself, enact. Therefore, we have seen, within Fundamentalism, a continual and productive tension between...

Driving north toward Willow Creek Community Church, one passes out of the city—stores and strip malls fading into well-maintained industrial parks and suburban neighborhoods. Willow Creek does not stand out from its surroundings. Despite the acres of asphalt parking lots, the church building—a complex of interconnected additions—feels secluded, set apart in a “natural” environment, with well-maintained lawns and trees and a beautiful pond. Except for the line of cars pulling in on a Sunday morning, it resembles all the other business and industrial parks in the area, set well back from the street, shielded from the outside...

Fundamentalism is, at its essence, a church movement. By this I mean, as we have explored throughout this study, that Fundamentalist counterpublicity is intimately intertwined with narratives about the survival and status of the Fundamentalist church, a universal idealization of local believing communities. This idealization, in turn, conflates political and spiritual, public and private concerns in Fundamentalist rhetoric. The church marks the boundaries and exclusions of Fundamentalist identity, yet it also builds bridges between private belief and public action. It is in defense and propagation of the Fundamentalist church and the ideal of revivalism that the local church finds its...