Historians of fundamentalism and its “evangelical” progeny have always considered educational institutions central to the movement. Bible institutes or colleges provided focal points for Virginia Lieson Brereton's pioneering comparative study, seminal works by George Marsden, Joel Carpenter, and William Trollinger, and recent revisionist work by Molly Worthen and Matthew Sutton. However, no one has systematically traced the evolving network of fundamentalist Bible institutes, colleges, and universities across the twentieth century. More incredibly, no one had contextualized it within the broader history of American higher education. Enter Adam Laats, a historian of education at Binghamton University with a longstanding interest in the fundamentalist movement. His most recent work, Fundamentalist U, is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of modern evangelicalism.

The book relies on six institutional archives: Wheaton College, the Moody Bible Institute, Biola University, Gordon College, Bob Jones University, and Liberty. A Pentecostal college might have rounded out this source base, but it still offers impressive geographic, ideological, and institutional diversity—and a glimpse into other institutions within their respective networks.

Bible Institutes formed the original backbone of fundamentalist education in the late nineteenth century. A rarity today, they were unremarkable additions to an educational landscape filled with teachers’ colleges, secretarial schools, and agricultural and mechanical institutes. By the 1940s, most of these institutions, secular or religious, had morphed into a modern collegiate form.

Although fundamentalist schools were no different from their mainstream counterparts in policing student behavior (at least before the 1960s), they had an additional burden of pinning down “correct” theology. But without a universally accepted “orthodox” Protestantism, it proved impossible. Instead, a proliferation of different doctrinal standards triggered a crisis of authority. Who had the power to define the contours of right belief and practice for a fundamentalist institution: administrators, faculty, alumni, or donors? The answers could vary as much as the doctrines.

Adding to this unstable mix was the fact that fundamentalist parents and students expected a “real” education, on par with nonfundamentalist alternatives. Despite their fierce opposition to evolution (one commonality across institutions), fundamentalists always claimed the mantle of “true science.” But by the 1950s, the advent of the modern evolutionary synthesis and the demonstrated usefulness of evolutionary ideas across the social sciences made this claim increasingly implausible.

So long as fundamentalist colleges operated in a closed system, the definition of a “real” education could be idiosyncratic. But with the demographic tsunami of college-aged baby boomers and new federal education programs, most evangelical colleges chose to expand on the public largesse. This money had strings attached. Although the government never dictated curriculum, it did require accreditation—which necessitated properly credentialed faculty. Thus, Ph.D.-holding professors became another vector of challenge to fundamentalist assumptions.

Older lifestyle rules were no less immune to changing circumstances. Prohibitions against card-playing, movies, and dancing may have always been conservative, but they were still mainstream for the first half of the century. By the 1960s, these rules were actually undermining the respectability they were supposed to safeguard. Students chaffed under behavioral guidelines that deviated from respectable norms.

But once again, the federal government posed the greater challenge. Pre-Civil Rights respectability among fundamentalists, in both the north and south, meant racial segregation—often justified in theological terms. By the 1970s, segregation made an institution ineligible for federal funds and could endanger its tax-exempt status. These once-lily-white evangelical campuses would integrate, whether they wanted to or not.

From the educational frame, then, the divide between evangelicals and fundamentalists emerged from different strategies for institutional self-preservation. Institutions maintaining a fundamentalist identity, like Bob Jones University, had strong administrative structures. They doubled-down on purity as their primary selling point. Neo-evangelical institutions like Wheaton College represented a negotiated response to faculty and student pressure. They sought viability by way of a “real education.” But these were differences in style more than substance, since any theological disagreements between institutions mirrored the doctrinal diversity that had always existed. Both groups sought students from the same religious population, only by different means.

Perhaps predictably, evangelicals became major players in national politics in the 1970s. In an age of modern identity politics, higher education played a crucial role in mobilizing evangelicals and uniting it to the Republican Party. That evangelicals wanted government funds and beneficial policies without any oversight is almost identical to many corporations. No wonder that they became political allies. But Laats rightly connects this to the longer history of fundamentalist political engagement across the century.

All told, Fundamentalist U further challenges three persistent myths that have also been targets of the new evangelical historiography. First, it demonstrates evangelical “orthodoxy” was an aspiration, a dream—and a fleeting one at that. Epic battles over essential belief and practice plagued fundamentalist higher education. Despite their sincerity, they could not find a consistent method of resolution; despite wanting a single meaning of the Bible, they too chose from a range of interpretive options.

Second, Fundamentalist U. challenges the myth of fundamentalist “withdrawal from culture” between 1920 and 1970. At best, this was a marketing slogan for fundamentalist higher education. Ironically, the later political mobilization some historians see as integrative led to increased pressure to “withdraw”—as when Christian colleges were criticized for training teachers for public schools, instead of Christian schools alone.

Finally, Laats demonstrates the utility of defining evangelicalism as a social network anchored by educational institutions. The network was not formed around a shared set of biblical answers, but around the question and concern of being “biblical.” This and other evangelical assumptions must be taught. And much of that teaching took place in fundamentalist colleges and universities.

Fundamentalist U. thus confirms recent revisions in evangelical history, while offering plenty of unique contributions. Fundamentalist higher education may be an oxymoron to many outsiders, but Laats has convincingly demonstrated it has been central to American evangelicalism.