Abstract: This article analyzes the religious fundamentalism’s trajectory and the transformations that occurred in its participation in the American public space. Initially, a brief discussion about the emergence of fundamentalism, its development, and how, especially since the mid-1920s, this movement saw itself as a minority religious group in a predominantly mainstream Protestant country. Then, we discuss the context of the 1960s and how fundamentalist discourse was marked by deep pessimism about the country’s socio-political and moral condition. Finally, we analyze the process of fundamentalist leadership’s growing political engagement throughout the 1970s, a process during which the self-consciousness of “persecuted minority” lost ground to the belief that this movement represented the aspirations of the majority of the American people.
Keywords:
Fundamentalism; History of the United States; Conservatism; Christian Right