Evangelicalism retains the doctrine of biblical authority that developed during the Protestant Reformation as well as the sense that each individual stands in need of a life-transforming experience of forgiveness of sins that can only come through faith in Christ.

With the rise of the Christian Right in American politics over the past quarter-century, there has been renewed interest in Protestant evangelicalism and fundamentalism and their roles in American culture. Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism is a collection of key primary readings tracing the history and development of this religious movement and its intersections with American life and politics, spanning the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century.

The documents deal with issues such as biblical criticism, theology, revivalist preaching, religion and science, religion and politics, and social concerns such as gender and race. Countering notions among some that evangelicalism is monolithic, the diversity of the movement is made evident in texts from the evangelical Left as well as the Christian Right.

Each section and many individual texts are prefaced by a brief editor's introduction explaining their background and context. During the period the book covers, evangelicalism went from being the dominant form of religion in America, then to the fringes, then back into the mainstream. These texts provide the reader with a sense of the central core as well as the range of evangelical thinking in the past century.