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==Organizing the Fundamentalists==
 
==Organizing the Fundamentalists==
The most important leader in organizing a movement was [[William Bell Riley]], a Baptists based in Minneapolis, where his Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School (1902), Northwestern Evangelical Seminary (1935), and Northwestern College (1944) produced thousands of graduates.
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The most important leader in organizing a movement was [[William Bell Riley]], a Northern Baptist based in Minneapolis, where his Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School (1902), Northwestern Evangelical Seminary (1935), and Northwestern College (1944) produced thousands of graduates.
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After World War I, Riley became the leading organizer of the movement for Fundamentalism. He created, at a large conference in Philadelphia in 1919, the World's Christian Fundamentals Association (WCFA). It became the chief interdenominational fundamentalist organization in the 1920s, and Riley was president until 1929, after which it faded in importance. Although the fundamentalist drive of the 1920s to take control of the major Protestant denominations failed at the national level, the network of churches and missions developed and controlled by Riley indicates that fundamentalism was growing in strength, especially in [[TheSouth]]. Both rural and urban in character, the flourishing movement acted as a denominational surrogate and aimed at a militant orthodoxy of evangelical Christianity.<ref> William Vance Trollinger, Jr. "Riley's Empire: Northwestern Bible School and Fundamentalism in the Upper Midwest". ''Church History'' 1988 57(2): 197-212. 0009-6407 </ref>
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After World War I, Riley became the leading organizer of the movement for Fundamentalism. He created, at a large conference in Philadelphia in 1919, the World's Christian Fundamentals Association (WCFA). It became the chief interdenominational fundamentalist organization in the 1920s, and Riley was president until 1929, after which it faded in importance.  
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Although the fundamentalist drive of the 1920s to take control of the major Protestant denominations failed at the national level, the network of churches and missions developed and controlled by Riley indicates that fundamentalism was growing in strength, especially in [[The South]]. Both rural and urban in character, the flourishing movement acted as a denominational surrogate and aimed at a militant orthodoxy of evangelical Christianity.<ref> William Vance Trollinger, Jr. "Riley's Empire: Northwestern Bible School and Fundamentalism in the Upper Midwest". ''Church History'' 1988 57(2): 197-212. 0009-6407 </ref>
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==Fighting evolution==
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Fundamentalists in the 1920s devoted themselves to fighting the teaching of evolution in the nation's schools and colleges, both public and private. 
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Riley took the initiative in the [[Scopes Trial]] of 1925 to bring in famed orator [[William Jennings Bryan]] as an assistant to the local prosecutor.  The trial revealed a growing chasm in American Christianity and two ways of finding truth, one "biblical" and one "scientific." Liberals saw a division between educated, tolerant Christians and narrow-minded, tribal, obscurantist Christians.<ref> David Goetz, "The Monkey Trial". ''Christian History'' 1997 16(3): 10-18. 0891-9666; Burton W. Folsom, , Jr. "The Scopes Trial Reconsidered." ''Continuity'' 1988 (12): 103-127. 0277-1446, by a leading conservative scholar
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Gatewood (1969) analyzes the transition from the antievolution crusade of the 1920s to the creation science movement of the 1960s. Despite some similarities between these two causes, the creation science movement represented a shift from religious to scientific objections to Darwin's theory. Creation science also differed in terms of popular leadership, rhetorical tone, and sectional focus. It lacked a prestigious leader like Bryan, utilized scientific rather than religious rhetoric, and was a product of California and Michigan instead of the South.<ref> Willard B. Gatewood, Jr., ed. ''Controversy in the Twenties: Fundamentalism, Modernism, & Evolution'' (1969)</ref>
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Edwards (2000) contradicts the conventional view that in the wake of the Scopes trial a humiliated fundamentalism retreated into the political and cultural background, a viewpoint evidenced in the movie "Inherit the Wind" and the majority of contemporary historical accounts. Rather, the cause of fundamentalism's retreat was the death of its leader, Bryan. Most fundamentalists saw the trial as a victory and not a defeat, but Bryan's death soon after created a leadership void that no other fundamentalist leader could fill. Bryan, unlike the other leaders, brought name recognition, respectability, and the ability to forge a broad-based coalition of fundamentalist and mainline religious groups to argue for the antievolutionist position.<ref> Mark Edwards, "Rethinking the Failure of Fundamentalist Political Antievolutionism after 1925". ''Fides Et Historia'' 2000 32(2): 89-106. 0884-5379</ref>
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The American Civil Liberties Union at first had no objection to a general Christian outlook in the public schools, as long as it was that of no particular sect. By the time of the Scopes Trial, however, the ACLU and other advocates of secular humanism insisted that public education must not assume any religious outlook, laying the groundwork, as Bryan feared, for the triumph of materialism.
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==Other states==
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Webb (1991) traces the political and legal struggles between strict creationists and Darwinists to influence the extent to which evolution would be taught as science in Arizona and California schools. After Scopes was convicted, creationists throughout the United States sought similar antievolution laws for their states. These included Reverends R. S. Beal and Aubrey L. Moore in Arizona and members of the Creation Research Society in California, all supported by distinguished laymen. They sought to ban evolution as a topic for study or, at least, relegate it to the status of unproven theory perhaps taught alongside the biblical version of creation. Educators, scientists, and other distinguished laymen favored evolution. This struggle occurred later in the Southwest than in other US areas and persisted through the Sputnik era, which inspired increased faith in evolutionism.<ref>George E. Webb, "The Evolution Controversy in Arizona and California: From the 1920s to the 1980s." ''Journal of the Southwest'' 1991 33(2): 133-150. 0894-8410. See also  Christopher K. Curtis, "Mississippi's Anti-Evolution Law of 1926." ''Journal Of Mississippi History'' 1986 48(1): 15-29.  </ref>
    
==Fundamentalism in various religions==
 
==Fundamentalism in various religions==
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