Preacher: Billy Sunday and Big-Time American Evangelism - Softcover

Bruns, Roger A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0252070755 ISBN 13: 9780252070754

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2002

Synopsis

Born in Iowa during the Civil War, Billy Sunday rose to fame as the fastest man in baseball during his career with the Chicago White Stockings in the 1880s. In this account of Billy Sunday's life, the author unfolds the story of modern evangelism.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

Enthusiastic biography of wildly successful evangelist Sunday (1863-1935), by Bruns (The Damndest Radical, 1986; Knights of the Road, 1980). This is a pre-Freudian version of what must have been at least a fairly complex life, including severe poverty, loss of a father, an alcoholic stepfather, a mother-fixation, and several kinds of salvation. The combative Sunday (``Billy'' to Bruns) was saved from poverty by athletic talent and became a good-field, no-hit outfielder for the Chicago White Stockings; socially, he saved himself by marrying into the upper middle class. When his soul was saved, he became the most remarkable preacher of his day--a ``frothing, howling huckster'' in Emma Goldman's words--tireless, violent, and charismatic, ranting, leaping about, breaking chairs, staging imaginary fistfights with the devil. Bruns's Sunday is a Horatio Alger character who frequented bars apparently without drinking to excess, and red-light districts without doing much of anything. A kid who ran around with the notorious King Kelly (style-setter for Babe Ruth) had to experience something, but what it was is not revealed here--and so missing from the core of this whitewashed account is a classic ingredient of conversion: the ascent from evil ways. Not that research is stinted in other areas; there is a great deal on the White Stockings and Sunday's subsequent athletic career, including his reaction to a player's strike: he was a scab. The tone is saccharine (``at prayer meetings he always positioned himself so he could keep one eye on [fianc‚e] Nell and one on the preacher''), and the reader's believability suffers. Interesting turn-of-the-century Americana, though offering no glimpse of the real Sunday--his life, marriage, relationships--but only uncritical images of a frontier-style poor-boy who preached and made money until called out by the Great Umpire by way of a heart attack. (Photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

In this detailed, diverting study of the life and work of evangelist Sunday (1862-1935), Bruns ( Knights of the Road: A Hobo History ) tells how the son of a poor Iowa family bettered himself by becoming a successful professional baseball player until turning to revivalist preaching after a religious conversion. With his wife Nell as business manager, Sunday then crisscrossed the U.S. for 40 years, energetically preaching a fire-and-brimstone message that promised damnation to anyone who did not accept Jesus Christ and reject sin, alcohol and Communism. A creationist, he also publicly denounced Clarence Darrow and H. L. Mencken from the pulpit. As the author points out, Sunday, though sincere and not personally corrupt, found the business of saving souls to be financially rewarding and so served as inspiration for today's televangelists. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0252070755
• ISBN 13: 9780252070754
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 360