Ungodly Women: Gender and the First Wave of American Fundamentalism (Three Indispensable Studies of American Evangelicalism)

This book is new edition of a revised dissertation first published by Augsburg/Fortress in 1990. DeBerg has done extensive research in the primary sources, and the book, while unexciting reading, is more coherent than much of what passes for English prose in the academy. DeBerg believes that the rise of American fundamentalism is tied to male fear of losing dominant societal status, that even the fundamentalist emphasis on biblical inerrancy was "designed to promote and defend" the "conventions of the Victorian separate-spheres ideology." (128)DeBerg has collected a large number of anti-feminist quotations from various turn-of-the-century evangelicals, but her thesis is weakened both by a loose definition of fundamentalism and by her admission that fundamentalists "were not the only men who tried to reassert traditional notions of masculinity during this time of cultural and social stress" (151-52), giving as examples Social Gospel theologians, liberal ministers, and Catholics. Furthermore, her research ignores some influential fundamentalists of the period, including the evangelist Bob Jones, Sr. (1883-1968), who made quite a few radioactive statements about women from his evangelistic platform before founding a college and naming as its dean a woman, one of the first female deans of an American co-educational institution.

Not long ago I referenced this book to a student as a book that had to be read as part of her Seminary training. It remains the best way to address the ongoing issues of women's place and American religion--Betty DeBerg's writing continues to be a well formed, documented, and written book reminding us what gender/fundamentalism looks like here. We are all to ready to point with judgement to these issues in other countries and ignore what is present even now here in the U.S.

Ungodly women is amazing, huge amount of information, verified and referenced. A wealth of knowledge that gives a different perspective regarding the development of Christian Fundamentalism in the late 1800s early 1900s in the US.