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A review by jdintr
Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis, Mark Schorer
I have to say that Elmer Gantry is one of the great anti-heroes in American literature, right up there with Captain Ahab. I was riveted by his tale from start to finish.
Lewis asks profound questions of the "faith-based industry" that seem as relevant today as they did back when he wrote it in the 1920s. Sure, Gantry is scandalous, but he's not just another televangelist. It is his private betrayals (of Jim Lefferts, of Frank Shallard, of Lulu Bains) that are fascinating, not just his public hypocrisy. Elmer is a menace to the very society he seeks to moralize.
I appreciated Lewis's research. Not only had he covered skepticism and revivalists like Mary Semple McPherson, but his conversations between ministers have a fly-on-the-wall quality to them and really bring out the struggles that ministers face between private doubt and public faith. In the process, Lewis foresees the modern televangelists and even megachurches.
I would recommend this book to non-Christians for the sheer pleasure of peeking "behind the veil" of organized Christianity to see the plotting and shamelessness. For Christians, I think Lewis issues a challenge to be true to core beliefs and not to be afraid of exposing charlatans.
Lewis asks profound questions of the "faith-based industry" that seem as relevant today as they did back when he wrote it in the 1920s. Sure, Gantry is scandalous, but he's not just another televangelist. It is his private betrayals (of Jim Lefferts, of Frank Shallard, of Lulu Bains) that are fascinating, not just his public hypocrisy. Elmer is a menace to the very society he seeks to moralize.
I appreciated Lewis's research. Not only had he covered skepticism and revivalists like Mary Semple McPherson, but his conversations between ministers have a fly-on-the-wall quality to them and really bring out the struggles that ministers face between private doubt and public faith. In the process, Lewis foresees the modern televangelists and even megachurches.
I would recommend this book to non-Christians for the sheer pleasure of peeking "behind the veil" of organized Christianity to see the plotting and shamelessness. For Christians, I think Lewis issues a challenge to be true to core beliefs and not to be afraid of exposing charlatans.