ABSTRACT

Fundamentalism is often associated with the South but its key roots lay elsewhere. At Princeton Seminary, conservative Presbyterians resistant to the theory of biological evolution and innovations in biblical interpretation defended the literal truth of the Bible and such doctrines as Jesus’s virgin birth and Resurrection. From England came “dispensational premillennialism,” which divided human history into biblically defined epochs or “dispensations” and anticipated the return of Jesus to inaugurate the millennium, followed by the cataclysmic end of time. These doctrines were spread nationwide by a network of evangelists and Bible institutes centered on Dwight L. Moody (1837–99) and his Chicago institute and, after 1876, through an annual interdenominational conference series at Niagara, New York.