How to Spot a Narcissistic Pastor
Prevalence of Abuse
With the advent of the #churchtoo movement and the popularity of recent documentaries like Shiny Happy People, The Secrets of Hillsong, and For Our Daughters, the prevalence of abuse in our nation’s churches is on display more than ever before. It seems that every week brings the downfall of a yet another religious leader. Though those of us who have experienced spiritual abuse know that such practices are even more common than the current media landscape may let on, the increasing awareness has brought hope for many people inside and outside the church. Yet, while this particular trend might lead an outsider to conclude that shepherds abusing their own flocks is a relatively new phenomenon, such figures have been present in American life for centuries. In fact, satirist Sinclair Lewis created a veritable blueprint for the narcissistic pastor of the present day with his novel Elmer Gantry.
History Repeating Itself
Despite the fact that it first appeared in print nearly a century ago (1927), the story of the eponymous Gantry and his rise to religious and political power is one with resounding similarities to those of real religious leaders of the present day. With the raging successes of Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), and Arrowsmith (1925), Lewis was already known for satirizing numerous aspects of life in middle America. His skepticism toward religion became national news in 1926 when, invited to give a sermon at Linwood Boulevard Christian Church in Kansas City, he dared God to prove his existence by giving the Almighty ten minutes to strike him dead at the rostrum, noting calmly, “Here’s a lovely chance for God to show what he can do.” It seemed only natural that the author would eventually compose his own satirical take on the American clergy, and his stint in Kansas City, where he spent as much time as he could attending church services, researching church history, and making friends with a denominationally diverse group of clergy who provided the basis for his characterization of Elmer.
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Origin Story
With the novel’s opening phrase , “Elmer Gantry was drunk,” Lewis immediately subverts expectations of a preacher, especially during the Prohibition era. When we first meet Elmer, he is an average student at a small Baptist college, a football player whose main strengths are his charisma and his commanding voice. After an evening of drinking and carousing, he finds himself loudly defending a classmate who was attempting to preach on a street corner, and the classmate becomes convinced that Elmer will finally allow God back into his heart. Such intentions are soon shared by other members of the college community, culminating in a raucous confession of faith at the institution’s Annual Prayer Week. This confession is so well received that young Elmer becomes almost immediately addicted to the attention: “He was certain that he would never again want to guzzle, to follow loose women, to blaspheme; he knew the rapture of salvation—yes, and of being the center of interest in the crowd” (53). His testimony is so convincing that he is soon asked to give a sermon for the students, a sermon that he cobbles together by, ironically enough, plagiarizing the work of famed freethinker Robert Ingersoll. (When asked where he got all of the “fine ideas and metaphors” in his speech, Elmer responds that he just “’got them by praying’”)(65).
Enter the Patriarchy
The success of this sermon leads some on the campus to think that Gantry’s logical step is the ministry, although Elmer himself is not sure that he has “gotten the call” until a night of drinking makes it ironically clear to him. This leads to a stint in a Baptist seminary, where he and his classmates work as supply pastors on Sunday mornings and spend their evenings smoking tobacco and talking about sex. Elmer’s first official pastorship is in a tiny country church, where he immediately sets his eye on Lulu Bains, the deacon’s daughter. He pursues her aggressively behind the scenes, and after they finally have sex, Elmer, realizing that she is not the kind of pastor’s wife he had envisioned, swears Lulu to secrecy. In the aftermath, he reasons that his actions were understandable because she didn’t “resist more,” and continues to gaslight Lulu into guilt and shame whenever she acts the least bit familiar to him in front of others. When she confides in him about her fears of pregnancy, he forces her to apologize for lying about the very possibility. Deacon Bains finds out about their relationship and commands Elmer to agree to marry his daughter, but Elmer soon encourages Floyd Naylor, a local farmer with his own designs on Lulu, to pursue her further. At one point, he leaves the two of them alone together, and when he returns to find Floyd kissing her, he convinces her father that they cannot be married because of her behavior, which he labels an “abomination” (140). He then leaves the church behind, and Lulu is forced to marry Floyd.
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Systemic Abuse
What happens with Lulu is just the beginning of a pattern of abuse that emerges as Elmer rises in the ranks of the pastorate, from small-town Baptist preacher to rising star on the tent-revival circuit to big-city pastor of a mainline Protestant denomination with significant national political connections. And while the story is worth the read for the familiarity of his actions, and his similarities to narcissistic pastors in the twenty-first century, what makes the novel even more compelling is the unfolding analysis of how and why Elmer behaves the way he does. The text frequently refers to him as a “Professional Good Man,” and the more people look to him as a moral exemplar, the more he justifies covering up his sins. After all, in a line of work where one is rewarded for increasing church attendance and, in turn, bringing in more money, knowledge of the foibles of the moral exemplar could be bad for business. As is the case with many abusers, Elmer’s behavior becomes more odious as time progresses and he gradually realizes the extent of what he can get away with. Ironically, it is Elmer’s dedication to his reputation that fuels his making life worse for numerous people (except for himself, of course) as he lies and shifts blames to others in order to continue to hold himself up as a moral leader. While Elmer's journey is satirical and even outright humorous in places, the damage he causes is palpable, and it makes one wonder if hierarchical churches can ever evolve into something humbler and more servile. This book helped me process some of my own experiences and realize just how common spiritual abuse is and how accommodating the pulpit can be for those already prone to narcissistic behavior. The often humorous tone also helped me to laugh at such behaviors from a knowing but safe distance—kind of like watching a 1920s version of The Righteous Gemstones. Lewis’s novel shows us that, if there is one thing we can be certain of, it is that the circumstances that draw narcissists to the pulpit have, sadly, not changed much in the last century.
Rachael Price teaches English at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. Her work has appeared in The Middle West Review, MidAmerica, The North Carolina Literary Review, Contemporary Literary Criticism, Transitions Abroad, and elsewhere. She spends a good portion of her free time thinking of ways to have less free time.