Elmer Gantry

Some of today's readers might find this book a little wordy, much as Dickens seems in this day and age of tighter, faster prose. And I did have a few moments where I wanted to say, "Move along." However, I found it well worth the time spent.

Unlike (apparently) so many other readers, I didn't find his scathing view of hypocrisy in religion unreadable. Quite the opposite. Further, while a charlatan preacher is the vehicle taking us on the journey, it's also contemptuous of pharisaical politics and ethic-less capitalism. Not to mention, of course, of the repudiation of science (the book was written in the wake of the Scopes trial).

Despite the fact that we are merely a couple of years away from a century on this book, we have only to show more sample headlines about religious leaders and politicians and corporate elite to see Elmer Gantry all around us. I would say that Sinclair Lewis was a prophet, except that it wasn't prophecy ... it was simply observing what was true then and has not changed since. show less

With evangelicals attempting a hold on political power in the name of morality, this book is as relevant today as it was when it was first penned around 100 years ago. Personally, I’m a devout Christian and coordinate a Sunday School class. I’m also a lover of truth and, like Sinclair Lewis, find the evangelical movement’s unwillingness to accept uncomfortable truths troublesome. This book scandalized the American public in 1927, and its study of humans’ religious nature can transform our world today. It needs to be reread and rediscussed.

Elmer Gantry is an up-and-coming pastor amidst the fundamentalist-liberal split in American religion in the early 1900s. He struggles with his call and even works in business for a time. Yet he show more possesses all the bells and whistles of eloquence and charisma to make himself a success.

All is not well, however. His naked ambition is revolting. He’s less concerned with Christian spirituality than the self-interest of being on top. In his preaching, he uses the whipping boy of vice to curry favor with the masses and rich donors. Further, let’s just say he has troubles keeping his pants zipped with attractive female parishioners. Lewis takes these traits, commonly still seen among the pastoral crowd, and spins off a social commentary as crystal clear and close to the bone as any before seen.

Most admirably, this critique does not contain pure cynicism towards religion. It contains well-constructed observations about liberal Christianity and about true Christianity. As we’d say today, Lewis was not interested in merely fanning the flames of the culture wars; rather, he paints a laudable (and dare I say, historical and Biblical) portrayal of Christianity’s role in maintaining the social fabric, particularly by helping those marginalized.

It doesn’t take a PhD in English literature to make the leap that these forces still operate in American evangelicalism and politics today. Skin-deep religious figures still live hypocritical lives. Self-interested leaders still take advantage of a well-meaning laity’s faith steeped in ignorance. Lewis won Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes in his day because of his words’ power. He deserves to be heard afresh today. True religion and a noble democracy depend on it. show less

"I'll be the one big preacher in Zenith. And then- Chicago? New York? Bishopric? Whatever I want! Whee!"
By sally tarbox on 4 Jun. 2013
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Elmer Gantry is an intensely unspiritual young man at college in the 1920s. Not particularly academic, he is a strapping 'football gladiator' who goes in for fighting, drinking and girls. His only friend is a passionate atheist.
How Gantry comes to get sucked into theology school, and his failures and successes thereafter make for a highly readable work, that make one look at organised religion in a dubious manner. Elmer's attitude to the whole thing is well illustrated when he gets his first appointment:
'He'd show 'em!...Show 'em how he could build up church membership, build show more up the collections, get 'em all going with his eloquence - and of course, carry the message of salvation into darkened hearts. It would be mighty handy to have the extra ten a week - and maybe more if he could kid the Schoenheim deacons properly. His first church...his own...and Frank had to take his orders!' show less

BkC 56

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Book Description: Today universally recognized as a landmark in American literature, Elmer Gantry scandalized readers when it was first published, causing Sinclair Lewis to be "invited" to a jail cell in New Hampshire and to his own lynching in Virginia. His portrait of a golden-tongued evangelist who rises to power within his church - a saver of souls who lives a life of hypocrisy, sensuality, and ruthless self-indulgence - is also the record of a period, a reign of grotesque vulgarity, which but for Lewis would have left no record of itself. Elmer Gantry has been called the greatest, most vital, and most penetrating study of hypocrisy that has been written since Voltaire.

My Review: I grew up in a show more single-parent household. My mother was a pedophile, and I was her philed pedo. She was also the most thunderational kind of christian nutball, the most conservative kind of social fascist conformist, and a chilly, appearance-obsessed harpy. Unless you were a stranger, when she presented as a pious, charming, lovely woman.

So Elmer Gantry was, for me, a documentary not a novel. I read it at maybe fifteen or so, just after I read Babbitt, and was astounded to read my own experiences of the asshole religiosifiers who surrounded me in a book over fifty years old! I hated them, powerfully and corrosively, then as now, and there was for me a giant pouring of balm over my outraged soul as I read this book: These people aren't the first! These people didn't invent this idiocy! If Lewis escaped to tell about it, so can I!

The rise of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and that ignorant ilk is not new, ladies and gents, it's happened before. This novel will show you that this kind of perverted conservative religious stupidity has always been with us, and its basic small-souled evil isn't unique to our times either.

Depending on my mood, that's either a comfort or a misery. But it always makes me feel less alone, less like I'm missing something and misinterpreting other things, to read this classic exposé of the long-standing culture of ignorant and evil exploitive "salvation artists." show less

Yes - horrifying and scabrously grotesque in all the expected ways, at times the broad force of Lewis's satire rubbing up against the limitations of his philosophical arguments (or are they his? It's never clear how seriously one is meant to take Frank Shallard, often a pitiable figure at sea in Gantry's world, but similarly blinkered in his intellectual development by a lack of sincere peers). A late-stage invocation of the KKK brings the themes of Gantry's college years back to the fore, where the only thing more valuable than education was educating the right attractive white men.

Unexpectedly also a chronicle of male adulthood and the struggles of reconciling one's own yearning for maturity with the demands of adult relationships. show more Disastrous and abhorrent as Gantry's behavior within his marriage to Cleo Benham may be, I close with this passage which was ickily familiar to me:

"It is possible that the presence of the elder Benhams, preventing too close a communion with Cleo, kept Elmer from understanding what it meant that he should not greatly have longed to embrace her. He translated his lack of urgency into virtue; and went about assuring himself that he was indeed a reformed and perfect character...and so went home and hung about the kitchen, chattering with little Jane Clark in pastoral jokiness.

Even when he was alone with Cleo, when she drove him in the proud Benham motor for calls in the country, even while he volubly telling himself how handsome she was, he was never quite natural with her." (p. 281) show less

The novel (amazingly, it was published in 1927) tells the journey of Elmer Gantry, a narcissistic, insincere, bigoted, unethical, womanizing, hypocritical student who abandons his ambition to become a lawyer to become a “preacher of the faith.” His journey leads Elmer from ordained Baptist minister, a "New Thought" evangelist, traveling salesman and eventually Methodist minister of a large prestigious church. Along the way Elmer contributes to the downfall, physical injury, mental harm and even death of key people around him, including a genuine minister, Frank Shallard. If you are expecting redemption here—you will not find it! This is a satire, funny, biting, infuriating and downright frightening (Elmer comes up with a plan to show more control/legislate the morals/values of the US—now where have I seen that before??). Not only do we see the hypocrisy and falseness of Elmer—but it is evident in those around him (even "Scotty" the golf pro is not an actual Scot, but a fraud who learned his false accent from a Irishman!) I was so surprised how relevant this novel was—despite the fact that it was written in the 20s. The characters are vivid, the issues presented complex and still true today (I wondered at the end if this book had been read by the Christian Coalition--to get ideas for their campaign!). A 5 out of 5 stars—a must read! show less

What makes this such a fascinating story is that, in spite of how villainous Elmer Gantry is (I'm assuming I didn't need to put "spoiler alert" before that, you were already aware of that, weren't you?), he doesn't know it; he feels he has no choice in the things he does, he can justify any action, and he truly believes he will turn over a new leaf. It would be easy to misunderstand how Elmer reacts, thinking he lets life lead him along like a Camus character. But Elmer, after letting life set him on the original path, takes control and drives the decisions that are made.

The story starts with Elmer's college years where he is compelled to come to Christ. Normally, when speaking of the power of Christ compelling someone, it would be the show more power of the Holy Spirit. However, it is the people in Elmer's life that compel him (which he admits, then backs away from.) It is then that he learns he has a gift for giving powerful speeches. With that revelation, he begins to take control of his life, paying less and less attention to what others say and paying more attention to getting whatever it is he wants. He builds his power through the ministry, while continuing to display the more base attributes of human kind.

One of the more depressing aspects of this story is how relevant it is to today's situations. Suffice to say that condemnation for sin, back room deals and payoffs, blackmail, and mindless stoicism are not a brand new product of today's world.

The reader expects a comeuppance. But, after a while, you know it isn't going to happen. It is like the cliché of watching a train run headlong to a disaster. And with each dangerous curve, disaster seems more likely. And yet, for Elmer, the train never crashes, and he careens forward reaping undeserved success after undeserved success. Even at the end of the book, (to continue this belabored analogy) the brakeman let's go and more fire is fed into the boiler, with Elmer smiling at the handle. show less