{ "item_title" : "Elmer Gantry", "item_author" : [" Sinclair Lewis "], "item_description" : "A commanding voice can turn conviction into spectacle, and spectacle into power. Elmer Gantry, a physically imposing former football player, possesses the charm, appetite and instinct for performance needed to thrive as a religious professional. As his ambition carries him through Protestant institutions and evangelistic campaigns, the language of salvation becomes inseparable from the pursuit of congregations, money, prestige and influence. Mock sermons and revival rhetoric expose the machinery behind public fervour: music, publicity, fear and hope are deployed to stir belief and secure attention. Yet the satire does not reduce religion to a single motive. Sincere faith exists beside calculated emotional manipulation, while theological debate collides with anti-intellectualism and denominational rivalry. From rural appointments to the competitive religious world of Zenith, clerical respectability repeatedly confronts private appetite, revealing the distance between what is preached and what is desired. Comic, ironic and psychologically observant, this preacher novel listens closely to the cadences of persuasion and the evasions hidden within respectable speech. Its sharpest tensions arise not simply from evangelical hypocrisy, but from institutions in which faith, commerce and performance continually overlap. Public declarations and private motives answer one another across pulpits, campaigns and professional rivalries, creating a sustained satire of commercialised religion without losing sight of belief's genuine force. This book was out of print for decades and is now republished by Alpha Editions. It has been restored for today's and future generations. This edition is not just a reprint - it's a collector's item and a cultural treasure.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/9/37/841/980/9378419801_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "34.99", "online_price" : "34.99", "our_price" : "34.99", "club_price" : "34.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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