F
tity was stigmatized within nineteenth-­century colonial
Firepass Ceremony
The “firepass” or firewalking ceremony is important because
it represents perhaps the most prominent religious ritual of
the “Madrassis,” indentured immigrants who came to the
Caribbean from South India. It came to be seen as an inte-
gral aspect of Madrassi identity in colonial Trinidad. But the
firepass ceremony is also important because it has not only
influenced but also been partially appropriated by and re-
framed within contemporary forms of ecstatic Kali worship
and related forms of Shakti Puja practiced in postcolonial
Trinidad. (Puja is a general term for ritual worship to a deity,
and shakti is a conceptualization of cosmic power or energy
associated with the devis, or female goddesses, understood
as activating the universe in its polymorphous complexity.)
Although it is not exclusively the case in South Asia and its
diaspora, firepass among Hindus in Trinidad has been prin-
cipally conducted within the matrix of shakti devotionalism.
Perhaps the two most significant influences on contempo-
rary, temple-­based shakti worship are the older, community-­
based forms of sacrificial Kali Puja and the old-­style Ma-
drassi firepass ceremony. Both of these ritual traditions have
been adapted and transformed in hybridized relation to each
other within Kali’s current, temple-­based incarnation (see
Shakti Puja in Trinidad; Hinduism—Trinidad).
Madrassi Identity in Trinidad
The term Madrassi was commonly used to refer to inden-
tured labor migrants of varying regional and linguistic back-
grounds in South India who sailed to the Caribbean through
the southeastern port city of Madras (Chennai). An average
80 percent of these so-­called Madrassis were equally divided
between Tamil and Telugu speakers. In the late 1840s, among
the earliest indentured Indian laborers in the colony, there
were far more Madrassi immigrants in Trinidad than those
“Kolkatiyas” from the North of India, who sailed through Cal-
cutta (Kolkata) to the Caribbean. Yet during the entire period
of indentured immigration to Trinidad from 1845 to 1917, the
overall number of South Indians only constituted approxi-
mately 6 percent of the total 144,000 indentured immigrants
from India (De Verteuil 1990). Whereas North Indian mi-
grants were primarily rural villagers, it is believed that those
from the South tended to be urban and semi-­urban dwellers
from the vicinity of Madras (Wood 1968, 139–40).
From the outset of Indian indentureship, Madrassi iden-
2 Tseng Proof  •  2013.03.13 16:25  9170 Taylor  •  The Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions  •  Sheet 303 of 562
Trinidad. Though Madrassis were reportedly better edu-
cated than recruits from North India, colonial planters and
estate managers considered Madrassi immigrants to be
troublesome and inferior workers, and it was this opinion
that prevailed during the period of indentureship. They were
variously considered “dirty in their habits,” needing to be
“carefully looked after,” as well as “clannish and lazy” (see
Brereton 1981; De Verteuil 1989, 1990; Look Lai 1993; Mangru
1983; Ramesar 1994; Wood 1968). According to Younger
(2002, 144), planters in Guyana and Trinidad complained so
much by the 1850s about the difficulty of managing South
Indian laborers that British colonial authorities diverted the
out-­migrating stream of Madrassis toward the newly estab-
lished sugar estates of South Africa, around the port city of
Durban. Thus Madrassi emigration to Trinidad was termi-
nated in 1860 (Brereton 1981, 103).
Though unsalutary, the colonial European bias against
Madrassis is probably not surprising given that British Vic-
torians traced the ancestors of the so-­called black races
of South India to sub-­Saharan Africa, which ostensibly ac-
counted for the “primitive” and “backward” ways of Madras-
sis (Bolt 1971; Khan 2004). Compared with those from the
North, Madrassis were generally darker in skin color and
therefore subject to racist prejudices of both colonial Euro-
peans and North Indians in Trinidad. Indeed, Trinidadian
society quickly grew accustomed to accommodating the
majority North Indian group, who were seen as distinct and
who were at times themselves hostile to Madrassis. The his-
torical legacy of this conflict surfaces in the bifurcated clas-
sificatory practice sometimes encountered in contemporary
Indo-­Trinidadian discourse positing “Hindu” versus “Ma-
drassi”—the former associated with ostensibly respectable
North Indian culture and high-­caste brahmin identity, and
the latter with purportedly primitive South Indian culture
and low-­caste chamar identity (for broader discussions, see
Vertovec 1992; Khan 2004; and McNeal 2011).
Old-­s tyle Firepass Performance and Its
Relation to Contemporary Shakti Puja
Firepass and Hosay (Hosay is the local term for the Muslim
festival of Muharram) were the two most important festivals
celebrated by Indians in the nineteenth century—even more
important than the Hindu festival of Divali that is so promi-
nent today (see Hosay). Tikasingh (1973) tells us that time-­
expired Indians celebrated the firepass ceremony, whereas
Hosay was celebrated by estate-­resident Indians, and that
firepass was the one with “greater religious content.” Indeed,
firepass seems to have been a “cult of affliction” in that its
practitioners often made promises to particular deities that
they would cross through the fire if their illness was cured or
their problem solved.
285
 286  |  Fi repa s s C e r e m o n y
The firepass performance is reported to have been cele-
brated since 1867 at Cedar Grove, Naparima, and since 1868
at Peru Village, Mucurapo, in what is now Saint James. Scat-
tered written and oral references indicate that the firepass
was also undertaken in varying forms at El Dorado, Taca-
rigua, Chaguanas, Curepe, Waterloo, and Boissiere Village,
among other locations in Trinidad. Both firepass and Hosay
came under direct government control in 1882 with the pass-
ing of Legislative Ordinance No. 9, which regulated proces-
sions, and the use of various paraphernalia such as torches
required application for licensed permission from the colo-
nial authorities and imposed imprisonment or fines upon
anyone convicted of breaking these laws. Jha (1985, 5) reports
that firewalking had become so popular by the early 1880s
that such regulations were issued by a “frightened govern-
ment” in order to curb it. Although it is difficult to establish
a definitive history of firepass in Trinidad, evidence seems to
indicate that the last full-­scale performance of old-­style Ma-
drassi firepass took place in the early 1950s at what is now
the El Dorado Shiva Mandir. (That the Normandie Hotel in
Saint Ann’s, Port of Spain, began offering secular firewalking
entertainment geared for tourists during this very same time
period [Frances Henry, personal communication, March
2000] is suggestive of the complexity of cultural change
within the broader island society at midcentury.)
The firepass performance has clear South Indian roots.
It was referred to during the colonial period as the “Madras
Coolie Festival” (New Era, August 18, 1884), for example, or
in a newspaper advertisement as the “St. James Tamil Fire
Pass Festival” (Port-­of-­Spain Gazette, December 4, 1919). J. H.
Collens’s Guide to Trinidad (1888, 191) attributed the rite of
“passing through the fire” as “an annual one affected by the
Madras people.” And toward the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury, the missionary Father Cothonay (1893, 80) described the
firepass as the “greatest festival of the pagan coolies from
Madras.” Ordinance No. 9 also indicates that the Temiterna,
or firepass ceremony, was commonly called “the Madrasse
Festival.” Oral histories collected in Saint James, El Dorado,
and elsewhere (Mahabir 1987; McNeal 2000) as well as Pro-
cope’s historical work on Boissiere Village (1980) also indi-
cate Madrassi origins for the firepass performance in Trini-
dad. Moreover, there are several sources of linguistic support
for the ritual’s South Indian roots. A detailed description of
the festival in the Port-­of-­Spain Gazette (August 12, 1890) calls
it “Thimi Therunal,” which seems to have been derived from
the Tamil phrase for “fire festival.” Furthermore, an anti-­
firepass poster printed and circulated by one Father Marie
François in the late nineteenth century was composed bilin-
gually in English and Tamil, therefore signaling the identity
of the poster’s targeted group of ceremonial practitioners
(Cothonay 1893, plate between pages 80 and 81, reprinted in
De Verteuil 1989 and McNeal 2000). Interestingly, this politi-
Tseng Proof  •  2013.03.13 16:25  9170 Taylor  •  The Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions  •  Sheet 304 of 562
cal tactic used to undermine public appreciation for devo-
tional firewalking is not unique to colonial Trinidad. It has
also been used, for example, by skeptical Sinhala elites in
response to the twentieth-­century growth in popularity of
Hindu-­Buddhist firepass at the well-­known shrine of Katara-
gama in southern Sri Lanka (Younger 2002, 35–36).
But while the primarily Madrassi roots of firepass in Trini-
dad can be taken for granted, what becomes less clear and
more ambiguous or even contradictory are the actual details
of the performance itself and, in turn, the complicated and
partial ways this ceremony has influenced the contemporary
practice of ecstatic Kali worship. (It must be noted here that
firewalking practices are not unknown among certain Hindu
groups in North India [O’Malley 1935; Vertovec 1992] and
that Indian Muslims in places such as Lucknow and Varanasi
have historically carried out firepass as part of their Muhar-
ram observances [Korom 2003]; however, the evidence for
the South Indian roots of firepass in Trinidad is robust, and
it seems clear that Madrassi influences were primary during
the colonial era.)
Certain aspects of the firepass ceremony’s ritual struc-
ture recur throughout many of the oral and written historical
sources. These include (1) a period of fasting from meat and
sexual activity for anywhere between two and four weeks—
sources differ on the prescribed length of time—for purposes
of purification and spiritual empowerment; (2) the participa-
tion of men alone—no women were allowed to cross through
the firepit; (3) the erection of a tall wooden pole called the
tavasson maran (glossed as “prayer tree” in several sources),
which was climbed by a pious man very early on the morning
of the firepass day and from which he would recite prayers
and throw down various types of prasad (food offered to the
deity and then consumed by practitioners) to the waiting ob-
servers below; (4) the taking of a purificatory river or sea bath
by the firepass celebrants just before crossing the fire; and
(5) the use of a specific type of drum—similar to the tappu of
contemporary Shakti Puja—which is thin, held between the
drummer’s shoulder and arm, and beat on using two thin
wooden sticks.
While these five details seem relatively consistent across
the various oral and written sources, other dimensions of
the ritual action—such as ecstatic trance manifestation or
animal sacrifice—become hazy upon closer inspection, and
these happen to be variables of particular relevance when
considered in connection with contemporary Kali worship.
In his Guide to Trinidad, J. H. Collens (1888, 191) describes
the participants as “shouting or gesticulating vehemently”
as they pass through the fire, and he goes on to observe that
“being worked up at such times to an almost incredible pitch
of frenzied excitement, a collision [of the celebrants] would
be fraught with the most unpleasant consequences.” The ac-
count of missionary Father Cothonay (1893, 82) is also some-

what ambiguous; he states that “the candidates rush madly”
and invites the reader to “picture our hero dancing, jump-
ing, grimacing and making three turns around the temple.”
The Port-­of-­Spain Gazette (August 12, 1890) likewise reports
that the dancing is sometimes kept up all night, to the an-
noyance of surrounding neighbors. Although ecstatic spiri-
tual manifestation may be considered a form of folk dance
or sacred theater in performative terms, these references to
“dancing”—however suggestive—may not easily be taken as
definitive evidence of trance practice in the old-­style firepass
ceremony.
Oral histories do not substantially clarify the issue, as
they often vary from person to person. Informants in El
Dorado, where the last old-­style firepass performance in
Trinidad was held, do not offer a completely consistent pic-
ture. Several long-­time El Dorado residents and sometime
observers of old-­style firepass claimed that the firewalkers
would “vibrate” with “power” from the goddesses. But one
man who had actually taken part in the last two El Dorado
firepass ceremonies in 1951 and 1952 explained that cele-
brants achieved states of ecstatic trance occasionally, though
not necessarily or even regularly. To further complicate mat-
ters, an old Madrassi man from Pasea who witnessed the El
Dorado firepass held that devotees crossed the fire based on
their spiritual purity and discipline alone, not in an ecstatic
trance state. By contrast, informants in Saint James asserted
that all devotees who crossed the firepit were imbued with
activated shakti energy, otherwise they would have been
burned.
While the reality and complexity of variation in ritual
practice become apparent in this context, the descriptive
language of the older written historical sources along with
many of the oral testimonies from Saint James, El Dorado,
and elsewhere does suggest the likelihood of some degree
of institutionalized trance behavior involved in the old-­style
firepass performance. Yet caution and humility are war-
ranted in making definitive claims for the sake of “history”
in this regard, as well as in relation to animal sacrifice. How-
ever, this generalization concerning the significance of ec-
static religious praxis in colonial firepass is bolstered by the
fact that South Indian traditions of festival religion in India
and beyond have long been characterized by ecstatic behav-
ior on the part of participants as a recurring general feature
(Younger 2002).
The on-the-ground complexity of old-­style firepass con-
tinues to echo in relation to contemporary variations in
the Kali temple firewalking ritual. One important temple
in south Tunapuna used to perform firepass in a ceremony
conducted at night, with both male and female participants
crossing the firepit under the influence of active shakti mani-
festations. And until recently, another sizable temple in Debe
carried out firepass in a similar manner (this practice only
2 Tseng Proof  •  2013.03.13 16:25  9170 Taylor  •  The Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions  •  Sheet 305 of 562
Fi r e pa s s Ceremony  |  287
ceased due to the unexpected death of the temple’s head pu-
jari, or ritual leader). But a Kali temple in Moruga, by con-
trast, conducts firewalking performances in which devotees
do not vibrate with shakti energy, but walk across the red-­
hot coals in a measured and controlled manner. Moreover,
another contemporary temple in Diamond Village that cur-
rently performs firepass combines both strategies: shakti
trance mediums and nonvibrating devotees pass through the
fire, either individually, together in mixed pairs, or in small,
heterogeneous groupings. The variability of ecstatic trance
behavior within the firepass implicitly highlights the struc-
tural flexibility of this ritual performance—in its earlier Ma-
drassi as well as its later Kali temple–based incarnations.
Consider also the question of live animal sacrifice in re-
lation to old-­style firepass and then further in connection
with contemporary Shakti Puja. Multiple levels of ambi-
guity exist here because live sacrifice cannot be taken for
granted within the old-­style firepass ceremony itself. Both
Collens’s and Father Cothonay’s accounts of firepass from
the late nineteenth century contain references to animal sac-
rifice, but Father Armand Massé’s account from 1879 does
not (see Massé 1988, 4:270). Moreover, of the various old
newspaper articles ranging in date between 1871 and 1925
that I have collected concerning Madrassi firewalking ritu-
als, only one out of eight notes the sacrificial “offering of he-­
goats and fowls” (Port-­of-­Spain Gazette, August 12, 1890). One
is inclined to assume that live animal sacrifices would have
been mentioned had they taken place, given the highly sen-
sational and morally charged nature of these practices in the
eyes of those authors with access to public news media out-
lets at the time. Procope’s (1980) work on the history of Bois-
siere Village, which contains a wealth of information con-
cerning the firepass conducted there until 1925, also lacks
any indication of live sacrificial practices.
Available oral historical sources likewise paint an incom-
plete portrait of sacrifice in old-­style firepass. Informants in
Saint James claim that sacrifice was integral, whereas those
in El Dorado observe that animal sacrifice was not practiced
as part of the old-­style firepass ceremonies carried out there.
In El Dorado and much more broadly throughout the island,
in fact, the picture that emerges is one in which live animal
sacrifice was practiced as an essential aspect of village-­based
Kali Pujas that were totally independent of the Madrassi fire-
pass performances and carried out in completely separate
ritual arenas. This form of Kali Puja typically involved one
or two shakti trance performances and was conducted on
behalf of the entire surrounding community. The important
point here is that these sacrificial Kali Pujas and old-­style
Madrassi firepass ceremonies seem to have originally been
part of different ritual systems, irrespective of whether or not
live sacrifice was practiced in any of the various specific fire-
pass observances.
 288  |  Firepas s C e r e m o n y
This view is further supported by the fact that Kali is no-
where near as prominent or predominant in Tamil- and Telugu-­
speaking South India, the original home of the Madrassis, as
Mariyamman—the great, independent South Indian goddess
whose worship is regionally paramount and who is propiti-
ated in times of need, especially concerning problems of in-
fertility and illness (see Hinduism—­Martinique). Mariyam-
man was brought to Trinidad by South Indian immigrants
and initially occupied an important position within their
spectrum of ritual devotions. Indeed, oral sources indicate
that Mariyamman’s murti (sacred statue) was the largest one
in the Mucurapo firepass temple during the early days, and
we know that the old Boissiere Village firepass temple owned
by Veerapin Swamy, a Madrassi, was called the “Mariyamman
Kovil”—kovil being the Tamil word for temple. This firepass
temple was located on the same spot as today’s Ellerslie Plaza
car park in Maraval, Port of Spain. Moreover, it must be noted
that ceremonial firewalking in South India is not traditionally
performed under the aegis of Kali but most commonly as a
form of devotion directed toward either Mariyamman or the
popular goddess Draupadi.
It is worth noting here—in a context concerned with fire-
pass and popular religion in Trinidad—that ritualized fire-
walking is also encountered within the sphere of West Afri-
can–derived Orisha Tradition. Mediums manifesting the
orisha or deity Osain (Yoruba Osanyin, the orisha of heal-
ing, syncretically interidentified with Saint Francis in Trini-
dad and Tobago) in ritual performances of mediumship
sometimes call for red-­hot coals and dance across them as a
sign of efficacy and power. That some practitioners refer to
Osain as the “Indian man” or “Hosain” (note the linguistic
similarity between Osain and Husayn, the grandson of the
Prophet Muhammad whose martyrdom is commemorated in
the annual festival of Hosay) suggests some dynamic form of
influence between these Indian- and African-­derived ritual
systems (see Crowley 1957). However, this is a problem that
awaits further research and one that might never reach de-
finitive conclusion. To be clear, the local sacred persona of
Osain is a complex and historically overdetermined figure
and thus in no way should the suggestion of intimate African-­
Indian interaction in this case be construed as a simplistic or
reductionistic one, for Osain’s dynamism is deeply and un-
deniably rooted in African-­derived forms of local religiosity.
Lest one still be tempted to reduce or homogenize the
dynamism and complexity of firepass performance in Trini-
dadian cultural history, it is relevant to return to an earlier
historical source on Thimi Therunal or “the Fire Festival”
(Port-­of-­Spain Gazette, August 12, 1890, 5). Here we have a
report on the Peru Village (Saint James) firepass by a self-­
identified Madrassi that is rich in descriptive detail, but the
tone of which is decidedly critical and condescending. Of par-
ticular interest is a passage toward the end of the report:
Tseng Proof  •  2013.03.13 16:25  9170 Taylor  •  The Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions  •  Sheet 306 of 562
Even Christians take part in this heathen and diaboli-
cal festival. A man named John Rock comes regularly
from the Spanish Main and brings with him the biggest
he-­goat he can get down there. He goes through all the
formalities like any Hindoo, and it is difficult to make
him out amongst them. His plea for taking part in this
heathen festival is that he was laid up in bed for many
years with some disease which no medicine would cure;
he was given up by all the doctors of the land, forsaken
by all his relatives; he was on the point of death when he
accidentally met someone from here, a Madrassee told
him the only chance left for him was to make a vow to
these deities at once; during the fête he had managed to
get to Trinidad by the assistance of some kind friends,
he passed through the fire, and strange to say this pro-
cess had the desired effect. This son of Africa has estab-
lished a branch of this heathen temple in Venezuela, and
the priest, Mr. Veerapen, goes there once a year with his
drums, bells, horns, cymbals and body guards.
Thus we are left with a picture of firepass in this particular in-
stance as a translocal ritual tradition whose boundaries seem
more porous than closed vis-­à-­vis the usually received cate-
gories of religion and ethnicity: an African “Creole” Chris-
tian from Venezuela on the South American mainland was
cured through his participation in a Madrassi firepass cere-
mony in Trinidad and subsequently founded his own temple
with active transnational interchange—all of this before the
turn of the twentieth century. This is an important image
with which to close, for it is often assumed by too many that
older incarnations of ritual traditions are necessarily more
“pure,” timeless, or easily tied to location and therefore less
variable or dynamic. These are empirical matters that must
be demonstrated, not assumed; and they deserve clarity—
even about what we do not, or cannot, know in hindsight.
Keith E. McNeal
Bibliography
Bolt, Christine. 1971. Victorian Attitudes toward Race. London:
Routledge.
Brereton, Bridget. 1981. A History of Modern Trinidad, 1783–1962.
London: Heinemann.
Collens, J. H. 1888. Guide to Trinidad. London: Eliot Stock.
Cothonay, R. P. M., and O. P. Bertrand. 1893. Trinidad: Journal d’un
missionaire Dominicain des Antilles Anglaises. Paris: Victor Retaux
et fils.
Crowley, Daniel J. 1957. “Plural and Differential Acculturation.”
American Anthropologist 59: 817–24.
De Verteuil, Anthony. 1989. Eight East Indian Immigrants. Port of
Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: Paria.
———. 1990. “Madrasi Emigration to Trinidad, 1846–1916.” Paper
presented at the 22nd Conference of Caribbean Historians,
University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.
Jha, J. C. 1985. “The Indian Heritage in Trinidad.” In Calcutta to
Caroni: The East Indians of Trinidad, edited by John La Guerre,

1–19. St. Augustine: University of the West Indies, Extra Mural
Studies Unit.
Khan, Aisha. 2004. Callaloo Nation: Metaphors of Race and Religious
Identity among South Asians in Trinidad. Durham, NC: Duke
University Press.
Korom, Frank. 2003. Hosay Trinidad: Muharra Performances
in an Indo-­Caribbean Diaspora. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press.
Look Lai, Walton. 1993. Indentured Labor, Caribbean Sugar: Chinese
and Indian Migrants to the British West Indies, 1838–1918.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Mahabir, Noor Kumar. 1987. “The Indian Fire-­Walking Ceremony
in Trinidad.” In Divali Nagar, edited by Kumar Mahabir, 12–18.
Trinidad and Tobago: National Council of Indian Culture.
Mangru, Basdeo. 1983. “Disparity in Bengal and Madras Emigration
to British Guiana in the 19th Century.” Revista Interamericana
13(1–4): 99–107.
Massé, Abbé Armand. 1988. The Diaries of Abbé Armand Massé, 1878–
1883. Translated by M. L. de Verteuil. 4 vols. Port of Spain: Scrip-­J
Printers.
McNeal, Keith E. 2000. “ ‘This Is History That Was Handed Down, We
Don’t Know How True It Is’: On the Ambiguities of ‘History’ in
Trinidadian Kali Worship.” Oral and Pictorial Records Programme
(OPReP) Newsletter, No. 39. St. Augustine: University of the West.
———. 2011. Trance and Modernity in the Southern Caribbean:
African and Hindu Popular Religions in the Trinidad and Tobago.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
O’Malley, L. S. S. 1935. Popular Hinduism. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Procope, Judith. 1980. “A Historical Survey of Boissiere Village No. 1,
Maraval, with Particular Reference to the Year 1917.” Honors
thesis, University of West Indies, St. Augustine.
Ramesar, Marianne D. Soares. 1994. Survivors of another Crossing:
A History of East Indians in Trinidad, 1880–1946. St. Augustine:
School of Continuing Studies, University of the West Indies.
Tikasingh, Gerad. 1973. “The Establishment of the Indians in
Trinidad, 1870–1900.” PhD dissertation, University of the West
Indies, St. Augustine.
Vertovec, Steven. 1992. Hindu Trinidad: Religion, Ethnicity and Socio-­
Economic Change. London: Macmillan.
Wood, Donald. 1968. Trinidad in Transition: The Years after Slavery.
London: Oxford University Press.
Younger, Paul. 2002. Playing Host to Deity: Festival Religion in the
South Indian Tradition. London: Oxford University Press.
Fundamentalism
Christian
Christian fundamentalism, as theology, ideology, and move-
ment, is not indigenous to the Caribbean, although this reli-
gious expression has become “indigenized” through the
course of history (see Christianity; Protestantism). An off-
shoot of U.S. Protestant fundamentalism, it began its exodus
to the Caribbean from as early as the turn of the twentieth
century, a period that coincided with the emergence of mo-
nopoly capitalism in the United States and the spread of
American imperialism in the Caribbean. Therefore, the his-
tory, theology, and ideology of the fundamentalist move-
2 Tseng Proof  •  2013.03.13 16:25  9170 Taylor  •  The Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions  •  Sheet 307 of 562
F u n damenta l ism  |  289
ment in the Caribbean is intricately bound up with that of
the United States and must be understood in that context.
In the United States, fundamentalism emerged as a dis-
tinct theology with a particular form of ideological expres-
sion after the Revolutionary War that began in 1775. It was a
response to modernity and modernism in biblical interpre-
tation, secularization, critical or liberal theology, and social
Darwinism, which accompanied the end of slavery and the
rise of industrial or liberal capitalism. The development of
industrial capitalism, religious liberalism, rationalism, and
the theory of evolution (Darwinism) were held to be diamet-
rically opposed to true Christianity because they threatened
the fundamentals of biblical doctrine. The theory of evolu-
tion was particularly attacked as having questioned the au-
thority of the scripture, which was the unerring word of God.
That is to say, the evolutionary existence of human beings
was understood as an attack on the belief of divine creation
and a negative influence on the Protestant faith.
This theological and ideological dispute split traditional
U.S. Protestant thought into conservative and liberal move-
ments. At one end were the conservative or “orthodox”
churchmen and social forces working to preserve the old
order of slavery, traditional Protestantism, and the funda-
mentals of biblical doctrine. At the other were those liberal
church leaders and social forces building a new social order
incorporating secular values embodied in private enterprise
and wage labor. In essence, the liberal church reinterpreted
Christian theology to support social change and the emerg-
ing scientific culture, which accompanied the rise of the
capitalist mode of production. Orthodox Protestantism was
opposed to social change, the development of science, and
intellectualism. It therefore defended the traditional faith
and an individualistic view of society based on a notion of
personal salvation. Science was seen as having destructive
effects on faith and morality, and reason was rejected be-
cause of its ability to undermine reverence. Orthodox Prot-
estantism, then, insisted that a liberal interpretation of the
Christian faith was incongruent with God’s mission as stated
in an inerrant and verbally inspired Bible. Christ’s mission on
Earth was not to attend to matters of civil and social reforms
because he was not a philanthropist, nor was the church in-
tended to dabble in politics or to purify world governments.
Christians should stand apart from worldly politics and wait
in millenarian fashion for the return of the Lord who would
build a new and happy society/world.
The term fundamentalism was coined in 1920 to describe
this conservative wing of North American Protestantism. It
found its greatest expression in the Baptist and Presbyterian
denominations (see Baptist Churches; Presbyterian Church),
which were ready “to do battle for the Lord” by protecting the
“old time gospel.” George Marsden, notable U.S. historian of
fundamentalism, insists that it was “a militant, antimodern-