Introduction: Fiction as a mirror of culture -- Exposing the divine : 1790s-1850s -- Faltering fathers and devious divines : popular images. Misfits in America ; Harsh Puritans and fanatical Calvinists ; Scoundrels in collars -- Clerics in contention : church images. Liberal challengers ; Faithful Calvinists ; Precarious pastors -- Vulnerable divines : radical images. Victims of their believing ; Perpetrators of oppression ; Exposing the divine -- Discrediting the divine : 1860s-1920s -- Compulsives and accommodators : popular images (1). Compelled believers ; Compulsive believers ; Accommodating believers ; Prudent believers -- Con men in collars and heroes of the cloth : popular images (2). Phony preachers ; Muscular ministers ; Gallant parsons -- Activist preachers and their detractors : popular images (3). Social ministers ; Entrenched reactionaries ; Social activists ; Utopian idealists -- Champions of the faith : church images. Muscular believers ; Social evangelicals -- Foundering divines : radical images. Inept contenders ; Anachronisms -- Flawed divines : radical images. Weak and impotent men ; Pretenders, deceivers, and commercial preachers -- The legacy : 1930s-2000s -- Fallen divines : some contemporary images. Deprived preachers : a radical image ; Comic Calvinists : a popular and church image ; Human divines : a popular image -- Conclusion: The legacy of the displaced divine. The displacing : a summary ; The legacy.