Doctrine and Race: African American Evangelicals and Fundamentalism between the Wars (Religion & American Culture)

by Mary Beth Swetnam Mathews

Within the ranks of the clergy, a debate raged about how best to reconcile religious belief with the currents of modern science, how to conform to the standards of uplift while avoiding a confirmation of white racial stereotyping, and how to present African American religion as both up-to-date and traditional.53 With few exceptions, black Baptist and Methodist writers did not tie the antievolution effort to the fundamentalists in their discourse. African Americans either did not see the notions as linked or were unwilling to tar the antievolutionists with the fundamentalists’ brush or tar the fundamentalists with the antievolutionists’ brush. The latter could stem from general sympathy toward fundamentalist causes, but it could also likely come from a more critical reading of news reports.