I remember my high school history teacher explaining that though “fundamentalist” was a term of disapproval, all believers held to the fundamentals of the Bible, so we could all be called fundamentalists. That may have been one of the many encouragements I’ve received over the years that has made me comfortable with political and theological labels. I think I’m stepping away from that now.

Dr. Matthew Hall reviews Matthew Sutton’s new history of twentieth century evangelicalism, American Apocalypse. He says evangelicals tried to distinguish themselves from fundamentalists in different ways, but in fact they were more similar than they wanted to admit. “The entire tradition shares a premillennial expectation of an imminent and traumatic second coming of Christ,” Hall writes. Sutton believes that primary context shaped many theological doctrines.

American Apocalypse will make a great many evangelical readers uncomfortable. Because of his extensive work in primary sources, Sutton has—better than anyone else—documented the ways in which some of the most prominent, and beloved, white evangelical and fundamentalist figures were enmeshed within their own cultural context. This enculturation manifested itself routinely in anti-Semitism, white supremacy, and nativism. Whether it’s reading Harold Ockenga’s anti-Semitic assessment of Jews in Hollywood, or the myriad of voices justifying white supremacy and indicting racial intermarriage, Sutton shows how these attitudes weren’t on the fringe of the movement. Rather, they often inhabited its center.