Atheism, Fundamentalism and the Protestant Reformation : Uncovering the Secret Sympathy

Because of its provocative thesis and mutli-disciplinary approach, this book will be of interest to historians, theologians, philosophers, and sociologists of religion. Key subject areas include atheism and non-religion, Protestant fundamentalism, science and religion, the theological origins of the modern world, and the effects of postmodernity.

In this study of new atheism and religious fundamentalism, this book advances two provocative - and surprising - arguments. Liam Jerrold Fraser argues that atheism and Protestant fundamentalism in Britain and America share a common historical origin in the English Reformation, and the crisis of authority inaugurated by the Reformers. This common origin generated two presuppositions crucial for both movements: a literalist understanding of scripture, and a disruptive understanding of divine activity in nature. Through an analysis of contemporary new atheist and Protestant fundamentalist texts, Fraser shows that these presuppositions continue to structure both groups, and support a range of shared biblical, scientific, and theological beliefs. Their common historical and intellectual structure ensures that new atheism and Protestant fundamentalism - while on the surface irreconcilably opposed - share a secret sympathy with one another, yet one which leaves them unstable, inconsistent, and unsustainable.