God's Rascal

"Originally published in 1996, this thoroughly revised edition of Barry Hankins's seminal study reveals the person sometimes described as America's first fundamentalist in all of his contradictory facets. J. Frank Norris (1877-1952) was a firebrand evangelical who, with his militancy, often caused as much trouble for his friends as his enemies. Reaching high tide in the fight against evolution in the 1920s, Norris headed two large congregations and was at the center of an anti-intellectual attack that would have echoes in the Baptist wars of the late 1970s and 1980s. While Norris was never dissuaded from his own rectitude, he was a thoroughly worldly and controversial leader. He was involved in notable arson cases at his church, and was acquitted of the murder of an unarmed man in 1926"--