Religious Fundamentalism and Public Education

Historical Review

Christian fundamentalism is usually associated most closely with Protestantism and had its beginning—as a theological school of thought and active movement—in the 1880s. The movement's beginnings were in the urban North; its more familiar association with the rural South came about only after the Scopes trial of 1925. Fundamentalism is characterized by its often dogmatic theology, assertiveness, and a sense of constantly being under siege by secular forces. What fundamentalists see as concerted, secular attacks on religious freedoms and the place of God in the school curriculum might be seen by others as gradual, inevitable cultural shifts.

For nearly 300 years, the religious influence on anything that could be defined as public schooling in the United States, while pervasive, was general in nature. Protestant in its leanings, the religious emphasis in public schools was on general biblical literacy, moral conduct, and the instillation of uniform values and identity. So the charge by fundamentalist Christians that public education has taken a secular turn away from religious values is, to a limited extent, an accurate one. It would be more difficult to support the charge that the change is due to the attacks of special interest groups such as secular humanists, the American Civil Liberties Union, or the Communist party—all of which have been labeled as the source of the problem at one point or another—against the wishes of the general population.

Instead, the shift was due more to societal changes brought about as a result of massive immigration, pragmatic and progressive philosophy, urbanization, growth in public education, and a growing faith in science and technology. The merging of these influences, especially at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, made any consensus of religious values nearly impossible and even resented by many in the nation. What became more prominent in public education was a sort of civil religion that emphasized ideals such as the importance of individual character in social mobility; the relationship between personal industry, moral rectitude, and merit; and a determined effort to unify America's diverse population through education.

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