While this definition does not cover all modern fundamentalists, it has held true for the key group of fundamentalists who have fought for and advanced the core beliefs from which many differing forms and variations have sprung over the decades.

on a related note . . .

@Devin: I think we’re in basic agreement that the term “fundamentalist” has to be used with caution, and that it certainly cannot be used as a blanket label for any “dangerous other.” Perhaps the only point where we differ is that I think it’s best to use the names people use for themselves whenever possible. So, if people after the 1930s calls themselves fundamentalists, they’re fundamentalists. It’s the historian’s job to sort out how that self-definition has changed.

It’s understood that terms have to be taken in their chronological and geographical context. So, for example, it’s perfectly legitimate to use the term “evangelical” for sixteenth-century Lutherans, eighteenth-century Congregationalists, and twentieth-century Bible churches, with the understanding that the term differs a great deal in each instance.

You’ll note that Watt doesn’t use the term “extremist”; that was my error.

@Lincoln: I think you’re right to suggest that “fundamentalism” is “still a useful category of analysis, as long as one is precise as possible.” I think Watt would concur to the extent that “fundamentalist” describes well a group of religious and social conservatives that emerged during the 1920s and 1930s. He would also contend (I think) that the term “fundamentalist” does not necessarily aptly describe the religious, social, and political progeny of the 1920s/30s movement, and that therefore a new category is necessary.

He would also see the contemporary politicization of the term “fundamentalist” as unhelpful, and therefore worth reconsidering.

@Devin: How does Watt use the term “Christian extremist”? The movement’s understanding of creedal orthodoxy seems hardly extreme. Is this referring to the cultural accretions that current fundamentalists maintain?

@Jonathan: I agree with Paul’s answer to your question. The key, as Carpenter brings out, is that one could have an identity as a fundamentalist and yet also have another religious identity. I’m not sure that doomsaying and social reform are necessarily mutually exclusive, even in the same person.

@Devin: I certainly agree that the term fundamentalist is a very difficult one to use properly. But I think it’s still a useful category of analysis, as long as one is precise as possible. I don’t want to argue against Watt’s book, which I obviously haven’t read. But speaking generally, the term fundamentalist is still a category which plenty of people identify with. When possible, it seems best to use labels that people would use for themselves. I can’t imagine the term Christian extremist being more precise or less condescending than the term fundamentalist.

I am excited to see how the definition of “fundamentalist” will shift yet again with the publication of Watt’s upcoming book, “Fundamentalism: A Brief History.” As far as I understand it, Watt is arguing in the book (as elsewhere) that the term “fundamentalism” has in fact lost much of its power in the decades since the 1930s, and that it has now become an unhelpful category in American religious history. To put that another way: today’s Christian fundamentalists look (and act) much differently than yesterday’s Christian fundamentalists, so how should we proceed in understanding them? He argues that a new term — perhaps “Christian extremist,” or something like that — should be used in delineating the “new” from the “old.”