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Book Review
Canada and the United States
| Robert F. Martin. Hero of the Heartland: Billy Sunday and the Transformation of American Society, 18621935. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 2002. Pp. xv, 163. $27.95.
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| Billy Sunday was the Billy Graham of his day, drawing large crowds to revival meetings, upholding a few clear moral ideals, and calling on sinners to repent and become converted Christians. This book presents the evangelist as an embodiment of some of the most important tensions of his times. Often sympathetic to his topic, Robert F. Martin's work gives us a detailed life story of an important character in American religious life. |
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The author speculates that Sunday's childhood left him with feelings of insecurity he could never overcome. Born in Iowa during the Civil War, Sunday never knew his soldier father, suffered through his mother's unfortunate marriages to men who drank heavily and failed economically, and had to spend time in orphanages. Martin argues that the maturing Sunday, who started earning his own living in his mid-teens, seemed to idealize a high standard for family life and personal behavior that his own family never met. |
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