Elmer Gantry (Themes)

Themes

Anti-Clericalism

Throughout the novel, clergymen and the church are presented in an extremely unflattering light. For the most part they are hypocrites, not even believing the doctrines they preach to their congregations every week. Judson Roberts, the enthusiastic, apparently confident evangelist who converts Elmer, admits to himself that his preaching is dishonest. He plans to quit the church and get a good job selling real estate.

The attack on the hypocrisy of Protestant ministers continues throughout the novel. At Mizpah Theological Seminary, Elmer and his fellow students all smoke in their dormitory, even though smoking is practically forbidden. When the pious Eddie leaves the room, all they want to talk about is sex. Harry Zenz does not believe a word of what he is taught at the seminary. He also thinks that Baptist leaders are “word-splitting, text-twisting, applause-hungry, job-hunting, medieval-minded second-raters .” Horace Carp hates the Baptists and wants to switch to the more upscale Episcopalians as soon as possible because this will give him a better social position in which he will “ be able to marry a nice rich girl.” Brother Karkis only wants his divinity degree so he can get a better paying job.

The evangelist Sharon Falconer, although she is not attached to any particular church, is no exception to the anti-religion theme. She turns to healing the sick not because she has a gift or a calling for it but because it is more profitable than mere evangelizing: “ the whole evangelist business was limited, since even the most ardent were not likely to be saved more than three or four times. But they could be healed constantly, and of the same disease.”

In Zenith, when a group of local clergymen meet as the Committee on Public Morals, they reveal a distinct lack of brotherly love amongst themselves:

They all detested one another. Every one knew of some case in which each of the others had stolen, or was said to have tried to steal, some parishioner, to have corrupted his faith and appropriated his contributions.

In many ways, of course, Elmer is the worst of them all. He possesses none of the cardinal virtues and many of the cardinal sins. He uses the church to further his own ambitions for power and fame. He is a social climber and a publicity seeker. He feels little desire to practice what he preaches. He does not really hate sin, because it is useful to him: the more vice he can discover and denounce, the more his reputation as a man of God grows.

Liberalism Versus Literalism

Within the Protestant church, a battle rages between the traditionalists, or fundamentalists, who believe in the literal truth of the Bible, and the liberals, who believe that some parts of the Bible may be understood in a symbolic sense. The fundamentalists also have to deal with outright skeptics, like Jim Lefferts, and covert atheists like Dr. Zechlin.

Terwillinger College and Mizpah Theological Seminary are both fundamentalist institutions. When Lefferts asks Reverend Quarles, the college president, an awkward question about some passages in the Bible, Quarles tells him not to question the ways of the Lord. Quarles has no time for “ vain arguments that lead nowhere!” Quarles is hostile to the kind of free intellectual inquiry that the liberals advocate, and he relies instead on prayer and faith.

The fundamentalists believe that if even one thing in the Bible is questioned it is only a matter of time before faith is undermined completely. This is indeed what happened to Dr. Bruno Zechlin, one of the faculty at Mizpah, who lost his fundamentalist faith even before he received his theological doctorate. He survived for a while by interpreting some of the Biblical stories as symbols that revealed the glory of God and the leadership of Christ. But not long after that he lost his faith in God altogether and became an atheist.

The debate between fundamentalists and liberals is conducted amongst the students at Mizpah. The pious but stupid Eddie complains that “ [E]verything we Baptists stand for is threatened by those darn so-called liberals .” He is referring to the practice of open communion, which is favored by liberals, as opposed to the closed communion of the fundamentalists, according to which only Baptists are allowed to participate in the rite. Harry Zenz vehemently disagrees with Eddie.

Of the other characters, Frank Shallard and Dr. Philip McGarry are examples of the liberal tendency in the church. McGarry is accused by the fundamentalists of heresy, and he does not seem to accept the traditional dogmas of the Methodist Church: “ [T]he only dogma he was known to give out positively was the leadership of Jesus — as to whose divinity he was indefinite.”

The clash between fundamentalists and liberals comes to a dramatic and violent climax in the final incident involving Shallard. When he at last finds the courage, now that he is out of the church, to speak his mind, he is viciously attacked and blinded by fundamentalist fanatics.

Topics for Further Study

• Discuss the issue of creationism and evolution. Should creationism be taught in public schools? Is there really a conflict between science and religion, between reason and faith, or can the two live in harmony?
• Watch the 1960 film version of Elmer Gantry. Is Elmer the same in the movie as he is in the novel, or have the filmmakers altered his character? What are the major differences between the film and the novel?
• Write a brief character sketch of Frank Shallard and describe his role in the novel. Why does Lewis include him in the book?
• Consider the character of Jim Lefferts, as revealed in the first three chapters. What sort of a man is Jim? What are his leading characteristics? Then read chapter 30, section 5, where Jim reappears. How would you describe his demeanor? Is he successful? Which man seems to have the more vitality? This short scene is written from Elmer’s point of view. Rewrite it from Jim’s point of view. Think about how Jim would view Elmer, and how he might react to what Elmer says.