The King James Only Movement

An evangelical movement born of last century’s culture wars, King James Onlyism offers a glimpse into the way evangelicals view and use their Bibles. Having located the source of apostasy and cultural waywardness in the production of new biblical texts and translations, King James Onlyism insists that the only way to protect Christianity from collapsing into rampant subjectivism is to remain singularly faithful to the King James Bible translation. This chapter identifies this insistence with the movement’s professed quest for certainty and suggests that there are various far-reaching consequences to it that might do more to threaten evangelicalism than protect it.

Aesthetics · Apostasy · Certainty · Christianity · Epistemology · Movement (music) · Subjectivism · Theology · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · History · Media, Religion, Digital Communication · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies