Protestantism in 1920's Literature

By koryn noah,

Describes the affect that modernization had of Protestantism in the 1920's through literature

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

The Twenties were a decade demarcated by the effects of modernization on American culture. The 1890 census revealed the changing structure of American society by reporting that for the first time ever the majority of Americans lived in urban areas. Moreover, the explosion of technological innovations and the growth of industrialization altered popular lifestyles and values. Worldly pursuits of happiness and the inroads of scientific materialism encroached upon the moral ideals that had characterized the Victorian era, leading to a notable fragmentation of American society. Conflicting responses to the alterations in the culture emerged as Americans attempted to come to terms with social and economic progress. The consequences of this growing divide was especially evident in American Protestantism.
“[I]n the 1920s, the most heated controversies seemed to revolve around religious modernism and its challenges to established teachings and values.” (Hawley 119). The secularization of American culture initiated profound effects on the expectations of American religious life. Though the foundations of this secularization lay in societal changes that had been taking place since the nineteenth century, the Twenties was significant for the obvious divisions that these alterations were causing in mainstream Protestantism. The Protestant religion that reigned dominant in America was being torn asunder by tensions between modernizing Liberal Protestants and vehement anti-modernist Fundamentals. Amid the modernizing of American culture, many mainstream Protestants began to question deep-rooted beliefs. Indicative of a “creeping secularism” were the “Liberal Protestants” who “preached a Social Gospel and made the first tentative gestures toward modern ecumenism.” (Hoover 3). In response to religious modernizers, traditionalists arose in the attempt to reject the effects of modernization.
In particular, issues that we will return to latter, such as immigration, prohibition, education reform, and evolution delineate the conflicts that were causing a rift in American Protestantism. Furthermore, the inroads of modernism affected the very structure of mainstream Protestant denominations. While the informal Protestant establishment found itself weakened in the modern world, it increasingly turned to that modern world for solutions. Churches followed the example of big business by undergoing consolidation and introducing managerial techniques. Even the Fundamentals who claimed a separation from the modern world adapted the forms of popular culture as a means of dealing with the disillusionment of modern life. Though the use of popular culture as a means of evengelizing was common throughout American history, in the Twenties this became even more common. Most importantly, as “popular culture...came to embrace differing and competing responses to mass anxieties and separations.” (Hawley 145), the literature of the 1920s became an effective forum for discussing the changes in religious culture. By looking at the religiosity presented by two very different novels of the decade, Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry and Bruce Barton’s The Man Nobody Knew, a clearer picture American Protestantism emerges.
Although The Man Nobody Knows is a religious novel meant to promote a modern, liberal Protestantism and Elmer Gantry is a satirical glimpse into fundamental religion, both expand upon religious themes that were widespread in the 1920s. Furthermore, these novels also provide reflection on larger societal issues that were permeating American culture. A close analysis of these novels, together with a consideration of the effects that modernization and changing values had on religious matters, expose the 1920s as a decade characterized by a fundamental change in the way in which Protestantism functioned in America. Moreover, these two novels expressed different aspects of Protestantism in the Twenties by exploring the varying reactions to modernism. In response to the changing circumstances, some Protestants turned to the business culture to sustain their beliefs, while others found ‘old-time’ revivalism to be a vital means of support. The Man Nobody Knows and Elmer Gantry provide a evaluation of these methods employed by Protestants in the Twenties.
Certainly it is important to consider the movements in American culture which inspired the writing of these novels. As already noted, modernism drove a wedge in mainstream Protestantism by separating religious modernists from the anti-modernists. Perhaps the most decisive issue that alienated Protestants was the increase in the acceptance of the theory of evolution. “Doctrines reconciling religious teaching with scientific evidence had gained widespread acceptance in mainstream Protestant denominations.” (Hawley 119). Liberal Protestants alleged that faith in religion did not exclude the possibility for faith in modern science. In fact, many Protestants “having frankly embraced evolution and the introduction of scientific and historical methods into biblical study ... abandoned theological explanation of the Bible” (Hawley 120).
Anti-evolutionists were incensed by religious modernizers’ recognition of evolution as a viable scientific theory. To the Fundamentalists who insisted that the Bible was to be interpreted literally, Liberals were committing a heresy by rejecting the inerrancy of the Bible through their belief in evolution. The Fundamentalists launched an antievolution crusade in the 1920s in an effort to elimination “atheistic evolution” from churches and schools. The intensity of the evolution debate is exemplified by the battle to keep evolution teaching out of the public school. “Fundamentalist-inspired efforts to outlaw the teaching of human evolution in the public schools of America began in the early 1920s, and before the decade ended, twenty-three state legislatures had debated such legislation.” (The Antievolution Crusade 1). In particular, Tennessee’s Butler Law which made it illegal to teach evolution in public schools sparked a confrontation that exemplifies the evolution controversy and the division between liberals and fundamentals: the Scopes ‘Monkey’ Trial.
When the ACLU sought to test the constitutionality of such statues, they found John Scopes, a Tennessee biology teacher who was willing to defy the Butler Law by teaching evolution. The Court case that ensued in 1925 was a media spectacle that pitted Clarence Darrow, an agnostic, against the fundamental Protestant, William Jennings Bryan. The defense, led by Darrow, argued the modernist rationale that evolution was a matter of scientific study and therefore should not be subjected to religious creeds. At the trial Malone clarified this purpose when giving the theory of the defense:
The defense maintains that the book of Genesis is in part a hymn, in part an allegory and work of religious interpretations written by men who believe that the earth was flat and whose authority cannot be accepted to control the teachings of science in our schools... The defense maintains that there is no more justification for imposing the conflicting views of the Bible on courses of biology than there would be for imposing the views of biologists on courses of comparative religion. We maintain that science and religion embrace two separate and distinct fields of thought and learning. (Scope Trial transcripts 1).

The prosecution was annoyed by the defense’s statement. It claimed that “there is but one issue before this court and jury, and that is, did the defendant violate the statue.” (Scope Transcripts 1). The prosecution won and Scopes was found guilty because he had of course, violated the statute. Yet in the larger issue of evolutionists versus antievolutionists, liberal vs. fundamentalist, it was not so easy to declare a winner.
Though the prosecution technically won the case, Fundamentalist Christianity was ridiculed by the press. Shortly after the trial, a humiliated Bryan died. The man who had told Darrow, “You believe in the age of rocks, I believe in the rock of ages.” (Herbert Hoover 3), had won the case but lost the war. However, it should not be assumed that the fundamentalists gave up. They had in fact won a victory, and in the wake of the trial they intensified their actions. Antievolutionists organizations such as the Bryan Bible League, the Supreme Kingdom, and the Bryan Bible League were formed in the attempt to get an antievolution amendment to the federal Constitution#. The fundamentalist would never succeed at their endeavor, however, and American society seemed to be showing favor towards a Protestantism that authenticated the modern world.
There can be no doubt that the changes in American culture were dividing American Protestants. In the 1920s immigration was another subject at the foreground of the religious storm. Many Americans were concerned with the number of immigrants flooding the country, but the Fundamentalists were particularly disturbed by the rising number of Catholics and Jews. Whereas some Protestants felt that these immigrants represented a threat to the informal Protestant establishment, religious modernizers became more accepting of the idea of America as a pluralistic society. “Catholics, Jews, and unbelievers, it was argued, were entitled to their own beliefs and at the same time to full citizenship in the American republic, and only by recognizing these rights and working toward a pluralistic society based on mutual toleration and cooperation could the nation’s religious system adapt to modern spiritual needs and sensibilities.” (Hawley 120). To the Fundamentalist this liberal thinking was unacceptable, and they launched a counteroffensive to keep non-Protestants out of positions of prominence.
Related to the restrictionists’ policies that proliferated in the 1920s, was the issue of national prohibition. The Eighteenth Amendment, which was passed in 1919, banned the “manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors.” Prohibition was seen as a means of ridding America of social evils and immoral behavior associated with drinking. Immigration also contributed to the prohibition campaign because “Protestant middle-class reformers had... become disturbed by the drinking habits and customs of Irish and German immigrants.” (Goldberg 54). Yet the American public was far from consensus on the issue of prohibition. In the 1920s prohibition was perhaps the most unstable condition that emerged among Americans. The ‘drys’ believed that prohibition led to a decline in arrests and alcohol related illnesses. They even attributed the prosperity of the decade to the fact that people had more money to spend since they weren’t buying alcohol. On the other hand, the ‘wets’ felt that the law denied personal liberty and breed crime.
In fact, far from stopping crime, the amendment spawned massive bootlegging and the consumption of alcohol among the General public continued. Even though it was federal law, the enforcement of prohibition proved to be immensely difficult. “Indeed, illicit drinking became fashionable in a decade when many people rejected Victorian notions of propriety and began to enjoy nes forms of leisure and entertainment.” (Goldberg 56). Disturbingly, the rise of the Klan in the 1920s can also be attributed to the failure of authorities to enforce prohibition. Although Protestants supported prohibition in general, the emergence of the Klan displayed the values of extreme fundamentalists. The chief concerns of fundamental white Protestants, the foremost of which was Prohibition enforcement, found expression in the radical ideals of the KKK.
The Klan in the 1920s “identified itself as a Protestant-American organization and referred to the United States as a ‘Protestant Christian Nation’.” (Goldberg 121). The problems of prohibition, immigration, evolution, and the general modernization that was sweeping American culture, were the core causes that Klansmen rallied around. Fundamentalists could identify with the malaise that the KKK articulated. Both the fundamentals and the KKK sought to “uphold traditional religious and moral values.” (Coben 5) whose destruction they blamed on alcohol, Catholics, Jews, and economic consolidation. Actually, “with the growth of the Klan, militant Protestantism once again emerged as a mass movement.” (Goldberg 121). The movements associated with Protestants in the late 19th century, such as anti-Catholic American Protective Association, the Immigrant Restriction League, and the Anti-Salon League, were embodied in the rationale of the Twenties Klan.
The association between fundamental Protestants and the Klan is illustrated through the Klan’s recruiting techniques. Most of the time, “hooded and robed Klansmen singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” would show up at a local protestant church and present the congregation with a contribution, flowers, and a Bible. Usually, these visits had been prearranged with a sympathetic minister, who might allow one of the Klan representatives to speak from the pulpit.” (Goldberg 127). The Klan drew its membership from American Protestants who felt that there were fundamental evils in the progression of society. The “expanding Ku Klux Klan emerged as the most prominent manifestation of the traditional counterattack against modern ways.” (Hawley 104), attracting Fundamentals who were disillusioned by American society.
Without doubt, American society in the 1920s was plagued by complications that were driving a wedge in mainstream Protestantism. The decade was an impetus for changes which laid the foundation for a modern religious culture. Both the liberals and the Fundamentals realized that modernization necessitated a reformation in their dealing with religious traditions. This included a restructuring of the way that they represented themselves as Protestants to the world. “Like everything else in the 1920s, old-time religion received a glitzy makeover.” (The 1920s 5). Revivalism became popular once again as evangelists like Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson adapted the techniques of Twenties marketing to draw the faithful. In this respect, it seemed that even the fundamentalists were willing to use the popular culture they preached against to achieve their own ends. Indeed, Billy Sunday was even the inspiration behind Lewis’ Elmer Gantry. To understand how the modern world became a forum for discussing prominent religious matters in the 1920s, we will turn now to Lewis’s and Barton’s novels.
The Man Nobody Knows is a novel that attempts to redefine Jesus. In the novel Barton reexamines the life of Jesus by examining some of the momenteous occasions in his life. Incidents that were merely mentioned in passing in the Bible are expanded upon in Barton’s novel. Thus episodes in Jesus’s life, such as his meeting with Zacheas, are humanized from a modern-day prospective. Not only does the novel explain the life of Jesus in humanizing terms, but it also looks at the relation between great men such as Lincoln and Jesus himself. The novel is both episodic and descriptive, allowing the reader to reinterpret the life of Jesus in modern terms.
Lewis’s Elmer Gantry explores the development of the main character Elmer, a charismatic but scandalous salesman turned preacher in the Twenties. At the beginning of the novel elmer rejects religion, but after meeting the virile minister Jim Roberts he is converted. Elmer goes to school and becomes a minister, but his career is plagued with scandal. He is kicked out of the Methodist ministry after he is seen boozing (a common vice of his), and soon meets and falls for the evangelist-healer Sharon Falconer. Gantry follows Sharon, and he too becomes a Bible-belt evangelizing revivalist preacher. Together they build their own tabernacle, yet tragically Sharon is killed in a fire opening night. After this incident Elmer seems lost, taking various jobs such as a new age mesmerist and travelling salesman. However, Elmer yearns to get back into the ministry, and eventually becomes a Baptist minister. From that point on the novel concentrates on Elmer’s rise in popularity and his attempts to become the one of the most successful and reknown ministers. Yet while the novel tracks Elmer’s success, it also exposes his hypocricy. Elmer Gantry takes a look at Protestant evangelism in the Twenties by providing a portrait of a confused minister whose insincerity leads to achievement.
The Man Nobody Knows and Elmer Gantry were significant in that they attempt to redefine and reframe the issues of Protestant religion into a context appropriate for popular culture. In an age of growing business and consumerism, Barton’s novel assured those who were religious that success could be achieved without the losing of one’s soul. In The Man Nobody Knows, Jesus was represented as a successful salesman. “[E]very one of the ‘principles of modern salesmanship’ on which business men so much pride themselves, are brilliantly exemplified in Jesus’ talk and work.” (Barton 104). Modernization entailed a growth of a consumer culture, giving rise to the status of salesmen and business executives as a powerful position in American society. Frustrated Americans appreciated the role of big business in organizing society. Ideally, they though that business allowed society “to link the great functional groups of society-workers, investors, and consumers-into an interdependent community in which each was concerned with the interests of all.” (Hawley 66). Management skills were beneficial, and as Barton insisted, the Bible was the greatest example of this. To learn how to succeed one only had to look at the Bible. “The Bible presents an interesting collection of contrasts in this mater of executive ability.” (Barton 29). Samson, Moses, John, and principally Jesus were able to create “an organization which carried on victoriously.” (Barton 30). Barton created a Jesus that was not only a comrade to businessmen, but also someone they could identify with. In the novel this relationship is depicted when Jesus meets an executive: “This man understood him. Both were executives. They had the same problems and the same power; they talked the same language.” (Barton 27).
In the Twenties, the materialization of a consumer culture willing to buy a variety of new products initiated not only the rise of the salesman as a career, but also an increase in advertising. “Advertising also achieved greater sophistication and subtlety in the 1920s.” (The 1920s 3). Barton acknowledges the growth of advertising in his novel, and comments on the function of advertising in the modern world. “The present day market place is the newspaper and the magazine. Printed columns ate the modern thoroughfares; published advertisements are the crossroads where the sellers and the buyers meet.” (Barton 139). Likewise, Barton insists that a Jesus who lived in modern times would sell his message through advertising. “If he were to live again...he would find a way...to be advertised by his service,” (Barton 138). Even in his own day the novel suggests that Jesus knew what it took to advertise to the mass of consumers. For example, Jesus was able to gather together twelve men (his disciples) and spread his message through the ’advertisement’ of himself as the Son of God. Therefore modern culture was substantiated by Jesus himself through the assurance that he too ”would be a national advertiser today, as he was the feat advertiser of his own day.” (Barton 140). As the greatest advertiser and savviest businessman the world has ever known, Jesus once again became accessible to in a modern world seemingly devoid of tradition.
Based on Bruce Barton’s role in American society, it is not surprising that he would write a novel concerned with business and advertising. Barton himself was an advertiser for one of the biggest companies in the Twenties. His redefiniton of Jesus in economic terms reflects his own role in American society.
Elmer Gantry also deals with the role of business and advertising in the Protestant religious culture of the 1920s. However, while The Man Nobody Knows embraces the liberal view that modern business is compatible with a thriving religiosity, Elmer Gantry displays business’s corruption of fundamental Protestantism. Lewis’s character Elmer is consumed by greed, and the novel suggests that this greed has infiltrated the structure of Protestantism. The consolidation of churches made religion as much a big business as other realms of modern culture. In the novel being Christian is associated with making money. “[I]f you attack such places by name, you’re likely to lose support. Why you might lose thousands of dollars! It seems to me wiser and more Christian to just attack vice in general.” (Lewis 208). The hypocrisy is evident in the religion which applied “20’s marketing techniques-a little glamour, theatrical thrills, mystery, a touch of sex,...to draw the faithful.” (The 1920s 5). In this light the marketing of religion is not seen in the positive light attributed to it in Barton’s novel. Elmer expressed this sentiment best when he says that Sharon, his revivalist girlfriend, should “advertise herself...in a manner befitting a circus, and Elks’ convention, or a new messiah.” (Lewis 189). In the name of upholding tradition, fundamental religion became a spectacle to draw attention to itself. Promotion and business and political connections seemed to be the largest concern of ministers like Elmer Gantry. The important thing to Elmer Gantry, the saver of souls, was not the religion he preached, but the publicity and finance that religion brought him. Truly Lewis’s novel insinuates that religion is just another commodity sold to the highest bidder: “Oh, I’m not buying-I’m just selling-selling the gospel!” (Lewis 309). True faith was no longer a prerequisite, as long as “one should use every method that, in the vernacular, will sell the goods.” (Lewis 208).
Clearly, the reader is presented with conflicting views of the relationship between business and religion in these two novels. Yet both novels resulted from the divergent course of mainstream Protestantism and are insightful into the way that Americans viewed Protestantism in the 1920s. The complexity of society could no longer be explained by the teachings of traditional religion. As already mentioned, Protestants were forced to redefine themselves to conform to the values of modern culture. This would include the notion of Protestantism as a emasculated religion. By the 1920s the idea of a ’rugged’ Christianity produced an exaggerated Christian masculinity that became a well established pattern in popular culture. “Billy Sunday had been selling rugged Christianity for at least two decades” (Morey 79) when Elmer Gantry was published. The novel took up the theme with the main character Elmer, whose “black hair and venturesome black eyes” and “heavy good looks” made “the girls to breathe more quickly.” (Lewis 49). Elmer’s conversion at the beginning of the novel is all the more significant because of his masculinity. “Oh, Brother Elmer, that was a brave thing you did!...For a great strong man of your gladiator powers to not be afraid to humble himself.” (Lewis 53). Elmer’s conversion stood as an example that “it takes a sure-enough dyed-in-the-wool brave man to be big enough to give Jesus a shot at him, and to admit he’s licked when he tries to fight God!” (Lewis 39).
This kind of Christian ministerial virility displayed the Protestant concern “with the recruitment of believers,” and the worry “that young men do not go to church because the minister is not virile enough.” (Morey 79). The Man Nobody Knows picked up on the theme of masculinity by subjecting the Savior himself to sensual renovation. Barton assures us that Jesus was not the frail man that theology had portrayed him to be. Jesus had been misrepresented as a man “soft and gentle to the point of weakness.” He was not simply “the lamb” of the narratives, and was in fact, physically strong. Not only did he have “muscles hard as iron”, but he also made aware to any “who watched him in action...that he was fully capable of taking care of himself.” (Barton 37). Barton’s Jesus was a man’s man, and moreover he possessed the type of personality that appealed to women. The proof of this assertion was provided by the fact that “women worshiped him” and “the important, and too often forgotten, fact in these relationships is that women are not drawn by weakness.” Jesus could have been a ladies man had he chosen to do so because of his power to secure the fondness of women and ‘no power has fastened the affection of women upon a man like manliness.” (Barton 47-48).
Certainly Barton’s novel imparts the reader with a view of liberal Protestantism which was breaking from confining traditions. He imparts the idea the his novel is for everyone, indicating a religious pluralism. “You who read these pages have your own creed concerning him; I have mine”, Barton writes. Yet he asks that we “forget all creed for the time being” (Barton 8), and listen to his story which will help us discover the real Jesus. There can be no doubt that Barton is taking the position of liberal Protestantism in that his novel suggests that the Biblical narratives should not be read literally. Whereas the fundamentals would insist that the miracles of the Bible should be believed as fact, Barton’s novel tells us that we may “either accept them or reject them according to the make-up of our minds.” (65). Indeed, the novel openly condemns traditional theology’s lack of humanizing elements. By concentrating on the divinity of Jesus, religion had failed to evoke a his humanity. “Books and books and books have been written about his as the Con of god; surely we have a reverent right too remember that his favorite title for himself was the Son of Man.” (Barton 9). The point of Barton’s novel was to paint a different picture of Jesus. His Jesus was someone that modern Americans could identify with, someone that they could be friends with. Theology had deprived the world of this smiling, friendly Jesus. “The friendliest man who ever lived has been shut off by a black wall of tradition from those whose friendship he would most enjoy. Theology has reared a graven image, and robbed the world of the joy and laughter of the great companion.” (Barton 58). In a decade where liberal Protestants sought “some vision of an ethical world built around a ’new humanism’”(Hawley 120), The Man Nobody Knows presented Jesus in terms they could understand and appreciate.
Unquestionably The Man Nobody Knows dealt with a side of Protestantism that was arising in the Twenties in response to modernization. In the wake of all the changes and controversies of the decade, liberals emerged as a group willing to reconcile their religious beliefs with the secularizing culture. Barton’s novel displays the renovation that this accommodation entailed. Religious modernizers realized that scientific modernism, the growth of consumerism, and other modern revolutions required restructuring of traditional religious beliefs. On the other side of the issue, Fundamentalists who defended traditional religious practices thought that the liberals “were subversives and heretics, denying God’s dominion over human affairs, rejecting revealed truths, and undermining the foundations on which moral behavior rested.” (Hawley 120). Yet increasingly the Fundamentals and the traditional values they promoted were seen as irrelevant to modern American society. “Conservative religious figures such as William Jennings Bryan...and Billy Sunday served as critics but not cultural and moral leaders on a national scale.” (Blodgett 35). Lewis’s portrayal of small-town Protestantism in Elmer Gantry highlighted “the barren cultural life of the average fundamentalists” (Moray 84), that resulted in a church essentially flawed.
Elmer Gantry depicted Fundamentalism as a hypocritical system more disturbed with the loss of societal influence than religious tradition. They were willing to go to extreme means to secure tyrannical authority over American culture. Lewis expresses this sentiment in his narrative:
They were mild enough now; they spoke in the name of virtue; but give them rope, and there would be a new Inquisition, a new hunting of witches. We might live to see men burned to death for refusing to attend Protestant churches. Frank quoted the Fundamentalist who asserted that evolutionists were literally murders, because they killed orthodox faith, and ought therefore to be lynched; William Jennings Bryan, with his proposal that any American who took a drink outside the country should be exiled for life. (391)

Furthermore, Lewis exposes the severity of the methods which fundamentalists employed to project their religion. In reply to Frank’s sermon “Are the Fundamentalist Witch Hunters” he is abducted and beaten by crusaders claiming to be defenders of the true faith. In an incident that brings to mind the radical actions of the KKK, Frank is tortured and ordered to “tell his atheist friends it ain’t healthy for ’em in real Christian parts.” (Lewis 393).
Moreover, the novel comments on the manifestation of the correlating ideologies of KKK and Fundamentalists during the Twenties. It would seem that even the “most worthy...of clergy men” (Lewis 365) supported the KKK. Lewis uses the forum of his narrative to comment on the mutual respect that both organizations had for one another. As previously discussed, many Klan members were Fundamentalists, and while not all Fundamentalists were Klan members, the shared many of the same values. The Klan’s overt objective was identical to the goal of traditionalist. Both attempted to retain Protestant control by keeping “all foreigners, Jews, Catholics, and negroes in their place” so that America could “be led by native Protestants, like Elmer Gantry.” (Lewis 366).
Additionally, besides their behavior as bigots, fundamentalist ministers were portrayed by Lewis as actors rather than true believers. Underneath their appearance of righteousness, ministers often could not live up to their own ideals. In effect it seemed that a “preacher” could “be a scoundrel or a hypocrite and still be accepted by his congregation.” (Lewis 236). Elmer Gantry’s ministerial career was based rather on making money and attaining success than saving souls. Though he worked hard to “establish himself as a spiritual leader” he did so in the name of money not religion, for his intent was that his congregation would “pay suitable for the spiritual leadership.” (Lewis 277). Elmer figures that it “wouldn’t be so bad to be a preacher if you had a big church” (Lewis 52) suggesting that influence and popularity were the chief allures of the ministry. Undeniably, Elmer conceitedly perceives that he deserves his position not because of his convictions, but because of his talent. “Voice, sureness, presence, training, power, he had them all. Never had he so well liked his role; never had he acted so well; never had he know such sincerity of histrionic instinct.” (Lewis 272). Elmer’s own words say it all in that he refers to his preaching as an ’act’. His moralizing skills are based not on his own moral behavior, but on his ability for theatrics.
Lewis’s novel picks up on the argument that the errant clergy developed from the cultural deficits of fundamental Protestantism. Elmer himself declares “God he couldn’t stand it! Having to be so righteous every Sunday at Schoenheim-Deacon Bains everlastingly asking these fools questions about predestination or some doggone thing.” (Lewis 143). Repeatedly Elmer finds himself bored with his work and tired of preaching what he himself hardly believed. “It was not easy to keep urging the unsaved to come forward as though...he really cared a hang whether they did or not.” (Lewis 322). It would seem that for all the success he has as a minister, Elmer was not satisfied and certainly not authentic.
Perhaps it was his unhappiness that led Elmer to the various vices that the narrative expresses. Whether it be excessive drinking or sexual licentiousness, Elmer continually finds himself breaking the ethical codes of Fundamentalism. Even at the end of the novel when Elmer has miraculously made it through yet another scandal with his reputation in tact, he can not keep his promise to live morally and “never look at a girl again.” (Lewis 431). The first thing he notices at his sermon after his supposed redemption is “that there was a new singer, a girl with charming ankles and lively eyes, with whom he would certainly have to become acquainted.” (Lewis 432). The novel focuses on these inconsistencies evident in the practices of many ministers. Elmer points out this fact; “Preachers can cuss and make love just like anybody else. I know! What they get away with pretending to be different...would make you gentlemen tired if you knew.” (Lewis 147).
Though Elmer acknowledges his own hypocrisy, he remains the ’different’ fundamentalist, actively combating the general lack of principles in the modern world. Elmer’s main undertaking is tackling the vice that was discernible in the “growing madness and worldliness and materialism of the age” which “could be cured only by returning to the simple old-time religion.” (Lewis 342). Like a proper Fundamentalist Elmer attacks the issues of concern such as prostitution, gambling, and bootlegging. He even condemned the movie theatres defilement of the Sabbath, and the evil movies they showed in which “movie actors...danced ‘suggestive steps which would bring the blush of shame to the cheeks of any decent woman,” (Lewis 316). Armed with his Bible and accompanied by the police, Elmer takes his religious crusade to the streets of Zenith where “blind pigs”, “dope-peddlers,” and “strange lecheries” resided. (316).
Yet although Lewis’s novel portrays the militant anti-modernist Protestant Fundamentalism that arose in the Twenties, his characterization of Elmer and the narrative he includes suggest that the concern lie with advantages that these issues supplied to defenders of the faith. Rather than appreciating prohibition as good for society, Elmer sees prohibition as affording “high-colored opportunities for public-orators,” (Lewis 306). He recognizes the publicity that can be attained through a thorough assault on vice. What is more, his sole intention is to make a name for himself. After winning his bout with crime in the town of Zenith, “Elmer knew that he would be the hero of Zenith...that he was now the Sir Lancelot as well as the William Jennings Bryan of the Methodist Church.” (Lewis 356). Elmer’s success was not his defense of ’true religion’. His true victory was that after his stint with crime enforcement not only did his congregation increase, but he also received a raise. It was the spectacle of his actions and his ability to attract publicity that made Elmer the model Fundamentalist minister.
It is the focus on spectacle that clearer exposes Lewis’s indictment of Protestantism. Elmer Gantry was written at a time when fundamental evangelists such as Billy Sunday and Aimee McPherson promoted religion with “spectacles worthy of the Bible itself.” (The 1920s 5). The depiction of Sharon Falcon in Elmer Gantry evokes images of the real-life McPherson, both of whom were women revivalists whose “sermons were staged with a theatrical elan worthy of nearby Hollywood.” (The 1920s 6). Elmer, who certainly possessed characteristics of the famous Sunday, joins with Sharon to build the headquarters for her ministry. They create the “Heroic spectacle” (Lewis 220) the Waters of Jordan Tabernacle where on opening night Sharon would die in a flame of sensationalism. As the tabernacle burned, Sharon held her ground demanding “Who will trust the Lord God of Hosts? Now we’ll try our faith! Who will follow me?” (Lewis 225). And when Elmer found her body the next morning “in her charred hand was still the charred cross.” (Lewis 226). The narrative repetitively returns to the idea that fundamentalism had turned to sensationalism and spectacle to bring people to the church. “Nothing like a good juicy sermon to bring in the crowds. Yes, sir! Fearless attack on all this drinking and this awful sex immorality that’s getting so prevalent.” (Lewis 315). Certainly throughout the novel Elmer utilizes these promotional techniques to gain sympathy, publicity, contributions, and overall, success.
Though Elmer Gantry is fictional, Lewis’s inspiration for the novel came from “several real-life evangelists with whom readers of the time would have been familiar” (Hutchisson 140). His portrait of fundamentalism expresses the impression of the tradition in the American mindset. For the many Americans who found modernization to be the natural progression of society, the Fundamentals were promoting a moral lifestyle that they themselves could not achieve. By exposing the hypocrisies of the religious crusaders, Lewis was expressing the sentiments of a number of his readers. Nevertheless, for the number of American who felt that Lewis had accurately depicted fundamental evangelism almost as large a number found his depiction offensive. Shortly after publication the novel was banned in some cities and Billy Sunday announced publicly “that if he had been God, he ‘would have soaked Mr. Lewis so hard that there would have been nothing left for the devil to levy on.’”(Hutchisson 160). Of course, various clergymen in America were also outraged by Lewis’s rendering of Fundamentalism. The controversy that the novel induced is in and of itself instructive of the crisis of American society during the Twenties. America was clearly divided about how to deal with the rapid modernization of the era. While some clung to traditional ideals, some to the point of fanaticism, others rejected these ideals as irrelevant in a scientific society. Still others attempted a religious renovation, as The Man Nobody Knows articulated.
Barton’s novel exemplified the attitudes of liberal Protestants who “saw themselves as both liberators and orderers.” (Hawley 120). They sought to rectify the religious crisis in modern society through a modernization of religious culture. The Man Nobody Knows supports the average American whose goal was economic success in the modern world. Barton redefines Jesus as not just a spiritual mentor, but as a worldly one as well. The novel stresses the idea that “one could function and rise in the modern world without losing one’s soul,” (Hawley 151). With the religiosity of the successful advertiser and modern business man that he was, Barton creates, better yet, advertises a Jesus that reconciled the modern American culture with the religious realm.
The popular culture of the 1920s, as exemplified by both The Man Nobody Knows and Elmer Gantry, imparts the reader with insights into American’s religious situation. Both novels expose the alterations of a religious culture forced to deal with modernization. Prohibition, evolution, and immigration were important issues in American society during the Twenties. The novels pick up on these themes in a discussion of American religiosity, and through a fictional narrative both novels impart the complexity of religious culture in the 1920s. In order to understand the growing secularization of American culture that is evident even today, the reader must closely examine these novels. In addition, the novels paint a picture of both the liberal and fundamental camps of Protestantism by divulging the transformations of American religious culture in the Twenties.

WORKS CITED:
Barton, Bruce. The Man Nobody Knows. New York. Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1924.

Blodgett, Jan. Protestant Evangelical Literary Culture and Contemporary Society. London. Greenwood Press, 1997.

Carpenter, Joel, ed. Fundamentalist-Modernist: Opposing views on Major Issues. New York. Garland Pub: 1988.

Coben, Stanley. “Ordinary White Protestants: The KKK of the 1920s.” Journal of Social History. 28.1. Fall 1994. 155- 164.

Goldberg, David J. Discontented America: The United Sates in the 1920s. Baltimore. John Hopkins University Press, 1999.

Hawley, Ellis W. The Great War and the Search for a Modern Order. Illinois. Waveland Press, 1992.

Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum: The Roaring Twenties. 1999. National Archives and Records Administration. 13 March 2001.


Hutchisson, James M. The Rise and Fall of Sinclair Lewis 1920- 1930. Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.

Lewis, Sinclair. Elmer Gantry. New York. Grosset & Dunlap, 1927.

Marty, Martin E, ed. Accounting for Fundamentalist: the Dynamic Characteristics of Movements. Chicago. University of Chicago Press: 1994.

Morey, Ann-Janine. Religion and Sexuality in American Literature. New York. Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Numbers, Dr. Ron, contributor. The Antievolution Crusade of the 1920s. 26 March 2001.


Scopes Trial Transcripts. UMKC Law. 14 March 2001.


The 1920s, Society, Fads, Daily Life. Copyright by Kevin Rayburn. 2000. Louisville University. 13 March 2001.