Abstract
Beginning with discussion of the problematic nature of the term ‘fundamentalist’, this chapter examines the role of Princeton Seminary within the fundamentalist–modernist debates of the early twentieth century. After placing Princeton within the context of nineteenth-century American Protestantism, the chapter looks at its initial reaction to theological liberalism, arguing that the response of the Princeton theologians was at first nuanced and sophisticated. It was not until the intra-Presbyterian controversies in the 1920s that the lines became more firmly drawn. Examining the career of J. Gresham Machen in detail, the chapter shows that while Machen battled liberalism and modernism, his critique was of a very different nature to the more populist arguments sometimes adopted by fundamentalists more widely. The chapter contends that fundamentalism was far from being a monolithic movement.