The English Reformation and the Roots of Atheism and Fundamentalism

In this study of new atheism and religious fundamentalism, this book advances two provocative - and surprising - arguments. Liam Jerrold Fraser argues that atheism and Protestant fundamentalism in Britain and America share a common historical origin in the English Reformation, and the crisis of authority inaugurated by the Reformers. This common origin generated two presuppositions crucial for both movements: a literalist understanding of scripture, and a disruptive understanding of divine activity in nature. Through an analysis of contemporary new atheist and Protestant fundamentalist texts, Fraser shows that these presuppositions continue to structure both groups, and support a range of shared biblical, scientific, and theological beliefs. Their common historical and intellectual structure ensures that new atheism and Protestant fundamentalism - while on the surface irreconcilably opposed - share a secret sympathy with one another, yet one which leaves them unstable, inconsistent, and unsustainable. Cover 1 Half-title 3 Title page 5 Copyright information 6 Dedication 7 Table of contents 9 Acknowledgements 11 Introduction 13 1 The Unfinished Reformation 28 Reformation to Revolution 29 The Civil War 43 Restoration and Restraint 47 Freethought in a Protestant Key 55 Re-narrating Nature 68 2 Things Fall Apart 79 Dissenters and Evangelicals 81 The Gathering of Infidels 85 Origins and Ends 100 Walking Apart 106 3 An Inductive Theology 123 The Scottish Philosophy 125 An Evangelical Empire 131 The Shock of the New 140 Death in Tennessee 154 4 The Secret Sympathy 161 Contemporary Context 162 The Bible: Literal, Univocal and Perspicuous 171 Divine Activity: Disruptive and Substitutionary 185 Opposites Attract 200 5 A House Divided 217 New Atheists 218 Protestant Fundamentalists 234 Dialectic of Protestantism 242 Conclusion 257 Bibliography 260 Index 278