to fundamentalism in particular. The Klan overlapped with, and helped feed the larger upsurge of, fundamentalism in the 'twenties; indeed, the very term "fundamentalist" only came into use in 1920. The 1920s "marked a crucial transition in American religious history," according to one of its leading interpreters. The evangelical Protestant establishment found itself on the defensive in the face of unprecedented competition from Judaism and Catholicism, as well as from advocates of the social gospel and higher biblical criticism. Belief in the inerrancy of the Bible, the truth of the
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