Matthew Avery Sutton. American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism.
Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2014. 480 pp. $35.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-674-04836-2.

Reviewed by Colin Bossen
Published on H-AmRel (January, 2016)
Commissioned by Bobby L. Smiley (Vanderbilt University)

Christian fundamentalists have taken serious‐
ly Jesus’s instructions “occupy till I come” formuch of the twentieth century, seeking to trans‐
form society and purge the United States of its
sins while preaching imminent apocalypse (Luke19:13). That, at least, is the central thesis ofMatthew Avery Sutton’s masterful history of therise of American Christian fundamentalism. InAmerican Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evan‐
gelicalism, Sutton argues that since the late nine‐
teenth century what he calls “radical evangeli‐cals” and later fundamentalists have been primar‐
ily animated by the doctrine of premillennialism,
the belief that the end of the world is coming andthat the world’s destruction will bring about Je‐
sus’s return (p. x).
Sutton is the Edward R. Meyer Distinguished
Professor of History at Washington State Universi‐
ty and his work differs from earlier historians on
two counts. In contrast to George Marsden, who
depicted the development of fundamentalism as
primarily an antimodernist and antievolutionary

phenomena with premillennialist undercurrents
in his Fundamentalism and American Culture(1980), Sutton gives priority to fundamentalists’obsession with the world’s oncoming end. He also
challenges the commonplace rise-fall-rise again
narrative that has become prevalent throughout
the academy. This narrative turns the 1925 Scopes
trial into a pivot point with fundamentalism
growing in the years before it and all but collaps‐
ing in its wake, only to rise anew in the 1950s. Sut‐
ton upends the familiar story by placing greater
emphasis on the role World War I played in themovement’s development, arguing that WilliamJennings Bryan—the prosecutor in the Scopes
case—was no fundamentalist, and, perhaps mostimportant, tracing how premillennialists influ‐
enced American culture during the interwar peri‐
od. The protagonists of Sutton’s history never re‐ally lose momentum. They opposed the 1928 pres‐idential candidacy of the Democrat and Catholic
Al Smith; organized opposition to the New Deal;
and, confident that God was on their side, advo‐
cated for US involvement in World War II.

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In his revision of the history of fundamental‐

veloper and funder of many evangelical causes,

ism, Sutton draws on a wide range of sources. HeWilliam Blackstone, for instance, predicted immi‐

combines careful attention to the decades-longnent doom in his 1876 Jesus Is Coming and again

trajectories of fundamentalist periodicals, such as

foresaw signs of the world’s demise in the early

the King’s Business and Christianity Today, withtwentieth-century rise of Zionism.

the institutional histories of important evangelicalBlackstone himself provides an almost perfect

training grounds, like the Moody Bible Institute,case for Sutton’s thesis that fundamentalists’ pre‐Fuller Seminary, and the Bible Institute of Los An‐

millennialism prompts them toward political ac‐

geles. He further bolsters his recasting by show‐

tion. Blackstone believed that the return of Jews

ing, through numerous citations to personal cor‐to Palestine was a necessary precondition for Je‐

respondence and diaries, that the fundamental‐

sus’s reappearance. Rather than wait for the event

ists’ public statements about the world’s nearing

spontaneously to occur, he became a major advo‐

demise matched their own private beliefs.

cate of Zionism and befriended the Jewish

The synchronicity between the public andSupreme Court justice Louis Brandeis, even creat‐

private is highlighted by the book’s structure.

ing a trust for Brandeis to use on Zionism’s behalf

Most chapters begin with an often humorous orin case Blackstone was taken up to heaven in thepoignant anecdote pulled from the personal pa‐

rapture.

pers of a radical evangelical. Obscure radical

In describing fundamentalism’s political his‐evangelical Philip Mauro boarded the Carpathia,

tory, Sutton explicitly casts the movement as pri‐witnessed the sinking of the Titanic, and pro‐marily white and male. In doing so, he shows

claimed that “the hand of God is most manifestly

how, despite’s fundamentalists’ often rhetoricalappearing in the affairs of men” (p. 2). Influential

unease with American culture, the movement has

Seattle preacher Mark Matthews inflated his self

most often served as a buttress for reactionaryimportance, dispensed advice to Woodrow Wil‐economics, patriarchal forms of social organiza‐

son, and urged Adolf Hitler to abdicate office, tele‐tion, and implicitly white supremacist racial poli‐

gramming the führer, “If you will ... send me acies.

telegram of agreement. I think I can organize

If fault must be found with American Apoca‐

forces which will immediately begin working tolypse it is that Sutton’s work does not place twen‐present that promise and agreement to the world”

tieth-century American premillennialism within(p. 228). In the wake of the Soviet Union’s 1949

the context of the much longer history of Chris‐atomic bomb test, Billy Graham pronounced “timetian millennialism. A brief engagement with theis desperately short!” (p. 326).

work of nineteenth-century American historian

Graham’s proclamation highlights the way inRobert Abzug, medieval historian Norman Cohn,

which fundamentalists have interpreted presentor feminist process theologian Catherine Keller

events to presage the end of history. World War I,

would have helped readers understand that mil‐the New Deal, the rise of Benito Mussolini andlennialism is not just an obsession of twentieth-Hitler, the start of World War II and the Cold War,century fundamentalists; it is something that has

and economic stagnation are all variously read,animated Christian social movements for cen‐incorrectly, as signs that the last days have ar‐turies. This minor blemish aside, Sutton’s book isrived. In the wake of each of these failures, Sutton

exactly what its author intended it to be: the sortshows how fundamentalists kept reading evi‐of history of Christian fundamentalism that will

dence of current events and the onrushing end instand for a generation.

the pages of the Bible. The Chicago real estate de‐2

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Citation: Colin Bossen. Review of Sutton, Matthew Avery. American Apocalypse: A History of Modern
Evangelicalism. H-AmRel, H-Net Reviews. January, 2016.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=44771

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No
Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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