Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America

Lyle Dorsett's fresh biography offers a careful and frank assessment of Billy Sunday and his ministry. Quick to note Sunday's sincerity, dedication, and evangelistic success, Dorsett does not shrink from describing the more troublesome side of his career: how fame, financial success, and political influence worked to corrupt the evangelist and his family. The story of Billy Sunday is laced with contradictory elements: sacrifice and self-delusion, high purpose and triumphalism, identification with the poor and hobnobbing with the rich. The great value of Dorsett's account is his depiction of Billy Sunday as neither hero nor villain. Instead, Dorsett introduces a human figure whose struggle to redeem urban America in God's name involved both achievement and tragedy. - Foreword by Nathan O. Hatch.