By MIKE JONES Associate Editor on Jun 26, 2009, at 12:40 PM Updated on 6/26 at 12:40 PM
JONEZIN
Well, if at first you don’t succeed …
Last week, Rep. Dennis Johnson, R-Duncan, uttered an ethnic slur on the floor ...
When NBC airs its exclusive interview with convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky next week I hope time is taken to also ...
All together now, awwwwwww.
Poor (not financially poor) Mark Zuckerberg is $7.2 billion less wealthy.
That’s billion ...
CONTACT THE BLOGGER
918-581-8332
Email
This might be a good time to re-read, or read for the first time, the novel "Elmer Gantry" by Sinclair Lewis.
With all the political sexual scandals in the news, the most recent being South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's tryst with a woman in Argentina, Lewis' biting satire on religion reminds us that the ways of sin are nothing new.
Gantry was a reluctant convert to religion and eventually attended seminary before being kicked out for, again, the wages of sin. But he liked the attention that preaching brought and his dubious love of religion was overshadowed by the lure of the spotlight.
He finally winds up managing and seducing a true believer, Sister Sharon Falconer. That relationship ends in a tent fire that Gantry escapes, at the fatal expense of other attendees at the revival, including Sister Sharon.
In the end Gantry ends up as minister of a fine church, only to be caught again in a sexual trap and again to wheedle out of it. The last page of the novel reveals Gantry sitting in his church admiring the ankle of a young choir member.
Lewis wrote the novel in 1927. It is relevant still today. The ones who proclaim their purity and condemn the sinners the loudest are often found to be the biggest hypocrites.
Things really never change.
Only active print or digital subscribers of the Tulsa World are allowed to post comments on stories posted to Tulsaworld.com. After you fill out the form below and click submit, your comment will be published instantly online along with your screen name.
By clicking "Submit" you are agreeing to our terms and conditions.
