American religious anti-intellectualism as we know it really started with the rise of evangelism and fundamentalism in the 1890s-1900s. But it goes in phases: Pentecostalism emerges in the 1900s, fundamentalism and the rejection of modernity and science in the 1930s, anti-liberalism and various “youth” movements in the 1950s, television ministries and mega churches in the 1970s, religious political conservatism in the 1980s and 1990s, and the rise of the non-denominational “bible follower” churches in the 2000s.
But America also experienced several “awakenings” in the 1800s, which gave rise to all sorts of new flavors of spiritualism and Christianity ranging from Mormons to abolitionists. And there’s the rise of the (literal) Salvation Army in the US in the 1880s (but we really have the UK to thank for them).
American religious anti-intellectualism as we know it really started with the rise of evangelism and fundamentalism in the 1890s-1900s. But it goes in phases: Pentecostalism emerges in the 1900s, fundamentalism and the rejection of modernity and science in the 1930s, anti-liberalism and various “youth” movements in the 1950s, television ministries and mega churches in the 1970s, religious political conservatism in the 1980s and 1990s, and the rise of the non-denominational “bible follower” churches in the 2000s.
But America also experienced several “awakenings” in the 1800s, which gave rise to all sorts of new flavors of spiritualism and Christianity ranging from Mormons to abolitionists. And there’s the rise of the (literal) Salvation Army in the US in the 1880s (but we really have the UK to thank for them).
It’s been incubating here for a long, long time.
It was a death sign once they allowed intelligent design as a legitimate argument in schools
… Intelligent Design was the "default* up until the Scopes Monkey trials though?