[.ca] Elmer Gantry (ISBN 2859405461)

a brilliant, though one-sided, view:
"Elmer Gantry" is certainly one of Sinclair Lewis's best works (although I found it a notch below "Main Street"). In it he examines the rise of a young man in the world of religion. We are introduced to him as an easy-going, not too deep, likeable (but not loveable) guy. He has an incidental opportunity to give testimony at a classmate's street preaching. He loves the thrill of speaking in front of an audience and his appetite is whet. We follow the lives of two men actually, the other being another classmate named Frank Shallard. Elmer Gantry is a man who uses religion to advance his career. He focusses on sin because it is what he knows best. Frank Shallard is a deeper thinker who struggles to reconcile his doubts with his faith. The author uses the compaison of these two ministers to great effect. We eaily come to view Elmer Gantry as a hypocrite because he practices what he preaches against. Conversely, he preaches love but (except for a brief, real love affair) he seems only to love himself. He is able to shed most of his sins but he still readily gives in to lust and avarice. The reader sees all of his successes in his ministry as calculated moves designed to help his own self-promotion. If, on the way up, it is necessary to knock others down, then so be it. Frank Shallard rises to no great heights but he is fairly well situated with a well-to-do congregation and could easily coast on his moderate skills as a minister. His search for the truth, however, leads him to reject most, if not all, of his faith. As we are witnessing the escallation of Rev. Gantry's career, we catch, out of the corner of our eye, the decline of Rev. Shallard's career. The author's implication seems to be that sincere soul-searching has no place in the world of big-time religion. Certainly there is ample opportunity for the reader to reflect on numerous similarities in today's society. However, despite the author's repeated examination of the Christian faith, he misses many a point. First of all, he, as do many people today, overlook the fact that Chritians acknowledge their sinfullness not as something that is discarded with a loud AMEN! but as something that is confronted on a daily basis. When a Christian falls, he/she gets up and resumes the struggle. Rev. Gantry is rather singular in his calculated and unreppentant sinful nature. His only remorse is in getting caught. Rev. Shallard seemed to miss this point as well. Secondly, the parishioners of Rev. Gantry are portrayed either as self-centered businessmen or not portrayed at all. They seem an amorphous mass blindly following while shouting "Hallelujah!" While many people attend church for lesser reasons, presumeably many others are made better having heard the proper Christian message. Sinclair Lewis has written an excellent novel that rightfully examines how even the unsacred can succeed in the most sacred of professions. Those who scoff at Chritianity will love this book. However, the examination of these two men and the many theological discussions in the book will give everyone something to enjoy.

Was Elmer Gantry the model for the televangelists?:
The timing of "Elmer Gantry" (1927) is consistent with its being a fictionalization of the careers of Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson. But parallels with real-world history played little part in the book's success. At a time when a large majority of believers were repulsed by the antics of flamboyant "hot gospel" evangelists, "Elmer Gantry" touched a lot of receptive nerves. ... When the movie, "Elmer Gantry," was released, the suggestion was raised that Gantry was modeled after Billy Graham. Since Graham was still a child when the book was written, the suggestion was nonsense. But it probably sold a lot of tickets. Ultimately, the identification of Gantry and Falconer as real people is peripheral, even irrelevant, to the book's appeal. Lewis portrayed barnstorming preachers as lying humbugs, and every time a Jimmy Swaggart or a Jim Bakker is exposed as exactly that, persons tempted to write a book on such a subject are reminded that it has already been done - incomparably. While Lewis portrayed all religion as something less than a force for good, he did so in a low-key manner that enabled moderate believers to rationalize that the book's target was only extremist, flamboyant religions, not their own conservative sects. Lewis won a Nobel Prize for his literature, and "Elmer Gantry" leaves little doubt that it was well deserved.

PARABLE FOR CORRUPTION:
...EXCERPTED FROM "GOD'S COUNTRY" BY STEVEN TRAVERS Sinclair Lewis exposed the corruption of Christian ministers in "Elmer Gantry". This work was centered on a flawed evangelical in the Midwest who believes in God but still uses His name to better himself. It might as well be a parable for the corruption of the Vatican until the post-Reformation period, when Catholicism finally recognized its many mistakes and began to make changes. STEVEN TRAVERS AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN" ...

One of my favorites:
A good novel about a bad guy. I've never read anything else by Sinclair Lewis, though I intend to at some point. My unexplained and irrational fascination with crooked, dirty-dealing preachers (and Elmer is as dirty and crooked as they get) wouldn't allow me to pass this one up. I can't complain that it's one-sided because that's the side I got it for. If you want balanced, look elsewhere because this isn't the book for you. It's about a preacher gone bad. Period.

A book ahead of its time.:
The slang is dated, and today's technology isn't foreseen, but the human nature is exactly the same. You can envision Jimmy Swaggert, James Bakker, Paula White or any of the other innumerable other TV evangelist charlatans in a hot second, when you read about Elmer's true nature as a womanizing, conniving, deceptive hypocrite. Of course, Elmer would have been unfrocked a bit sooner by today's prying media, or would he? Look at Swaggert, whose sins are like Elmer's, and whose "repentance" absolutely mirrors Elmer's at the end of the book. He still fills up the churches like Elmer did. What "Elmer Gantry" really proves is that the American mind is still fertile ground for would-be messiahs, no matter how base and hypocritical they are in real life. Indeed, the book makes you wonder if all religion hasn't always been thus. Today's Catholic child abuse scandals, the Taliban destruction of art, and Pat Robertson's political ambitions surely argue that "Elmer Gantry" is not some simple, anti-religious tract. In that respect, the book is ultimately useful. Indeed, this book may be one of the most valuable books of the 20th Century in that it helped thwart the American recurring tendency toward theocracy. Where is the book's kind today?