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Thanks, I liked this one in The Century that showed up earlier this week. I appreciate you struggling openly with this aspect of Christian life.

Sad but true. If we are to be truly inclusive I'm not sure what we can do about it, except be extra vigilant against false preachers who preach a self-seeking, exclusive gospel. Being vehement does not mean a person is in step with God. In fact if they are not humble, loving and gentle they are out of step with God.

Ya know, I don't hear sermons on power enough. I figure the Gospel is as much about power as anything. The disciples sure had to learn the hard way. While they were asking at which hand they would sit in the Kingdom, Jesus was preparing to die. Jesus was always showing us what power is, turning the world upside down even as he came to us as an helpless infant. I'm not preaching (or maybe I am). It is just ironic and sad maybe that we are always having to fight those inner struggles to appear more outwardly powerful. I suppose I am as guilty as Perry though my struggle with power would manifest itself in very different ways. Thanks Preach! Good essay that has me thinking.

Good one, Gordon. I have never thought of God's power in the church as a temptation. It makes sense, and God forgive me for the times I have taken out my anger on non-Christians who mistook me for them.

I'm thinking of a time in New York at a bar. My friend introduced me to the bartender as a writer. (The bartender was also a writer, of course. Isn't everyone in New York?) Before I knew it, I was telling the bartender that I worked in Christian publishing.

To which he replied:
Right, you mean like "See Dick and Jane. See Dick do Jane. See Dick burn in eternal hellfire and damnation."

Needless to say, his prejudice ticked me off. Thanks for helping me see that my anger at this bartender was misdirected. I should have been angry at the Christians who gave him this picture of the church! It would have given us common ground, you know.

Mark Goodyear

I think this is one of my favorite pieces of your writing in several months - you really wrapped up several important issues beautifully.

Thank you for writing like this. Thank you.

I wonder if there's a secular market for a companion piece.

"But his own needs are so great and so poorly attended to that he is always seeking the affirmation he desperately needs and the power he craves."

oh yeah.

and it's scary. Also for each of us I think. Church does give us affirmation, and power. And it can be misused -sometimes unwittingly.

Keith above asks if there might be a secular market for this story. I don't know - but I think that what Mark Goodyear wrote about his experience in NY is important. WE Christians are what have given Christianity and Church a bad name - but the remedy only starts with each of us, being helped by our brothers and sisters in Christ - being firm with correction and in love.

Well, I'd suggest that in the case of the NY story, the best response would have been to laugh and then top the joke.

I mean... it was kind of funny--and not exactly unfounded: LEFT BEHIND is the second-most-famous Christian publishing success story in history.

Ever the voice of opposing views, I just want to make a point that our Christian doors are open to both extremes and both are poisonous. The hate filled, self-serving, judgmental conservative Bible-beater (or Perry's of the world) are well balanced by the Biblically-watered-down, mystical, extreme liberal sect.

Having said that, I would likely want to sock ole Perry in the jaw. I wonder if he would turn the other cheek?

I have known lots of Perry's and too many dark tales of what people do in the name of Jesus than can possibly be good for me. And I've said far worse than that bartender on more than one occasion.

I've had lots of discussions about this, but it's mostly with people comparing our scars from growing up fundy or in Catholic school. I rarely hear a preacher talk about the ways we twist religion to gain power and affirmation at the expense of others. So thank you for this.

Christy

This is outstanding, Gordon.

Thank you for this...

Brad
www.brokenmessenger.com

OldPoet
Your best work in a long time.
Cynthia

As a second-career pastor - church planter at that - who didn't exactly set the world on fire in his first career, I am challenged by your piece. Could it be that my quest for power is behind it all? Damn Nietzche ... and now damn RLP(!).

Thank you for your writing.
Peace
Wayne

This piece really spoke to me. I went to church and lived with people like Perry for most of my childhood. It's so hard not to be angry with them.

I have since moved into what I believed to be a more equitable sect of Christianity, Quakerism. But even here I find the Perry's who are afraid or unclear of what it means to be in right relation with God and the world - people with good intentions who get lost in egos, personal power and the need to be something greater than we are at the expense of another human being.

It's amazing to me that when I surrender to the Holy Spirit, I do become something greater and I have a power that fills me. It's not a power that forces but one that invites, loves and calls out to the greatness in another. This is not passive acceptance. It's a lot of work. But on the few and rare opportunities that I get my own power grabbing ego out the way the experience is truly Divine.

Once again you have hit the nail on the head an exposed a truth that I am ashamed to admit once was a large part of my life. In many ways I used to be Perry.I want to beleive however that unlike Perry my call to the ministry has been validated by God and the church.I woke up to my slothfulness and have since been working my butt off to make up for all the wasted time. It has taken years though to come to grips with who I was in my Perry-like mentality. In fact, I am not certain that I am still not going through the initial awakening process that began nearly ten years ago.

One thing I observed is that in your article you did not mention a whole lot of on one one discipling with Perry. Instead I perceived there to have been a lot a toleration on your part and on the part of other church members. While I am sure that there were attemps made to educate him according to the Bible and even according to some standard norms, I get the feeling that this guy ultimately had to be left up to his vices to just let God deal with him.

Wow, great post on a subject seldom discussed. As the administrative head of a singles ministry I once found myself on the receiving end the power you write about--simply because could I dream up and organize big events, some people assumed I had some sort of spiritual pipeline. I was/am acutely aware that my feet are made of solid clay, but I can certainly see the danger. I attended a "spirit-filled" church as a young christian. I think I was attracted to the idea that I had a better connection to God than those other stuffy old churches. I started to change however, when once while reading my bible I came across a passage I thought spoke particularly well to how an aquaintence of mine could improve herself. I almost told her I "had a word from the Lord" for her. In my heart of hearts, I realized my word from the Lord was really MY words, hiding behind the Lord. She might have told me to bug off, but who can argue with the Lord? That incident scared the dickens out of me. As I read the Word, when God really speaks to someone, it is always life altering and often devastating for the one spoken to. It frightened me to death to know how easily I might have counterfeited His words.
mamaworecombatboots

Yours is an excellent piece on topic that is problematic in most every local church. Perhaps unfortunately now, my problem is that I have a Perry-like reaction to anyone who speaks Christianese (fluently or otherwise) or even hints at language that suggests he or she understands "the will of God." Having attained an MDIV degree at an evangelical seminary, served as a pastor, and read every book of theology I could get my hands on ... I now am repelled by many (most?) expressions of the faith. I am saddened and sickened by the way so many use their faith (Christianity, Islam, et al.) as a means to their ends. I am saddened and discouraged too by the way so many use their faith as a means to no ends at all. I have become surprisingly sympathetic to those who suggest that an atheistic world would be a better place than what we now have. Yet I still believe in a God that emboldens and empowers love and mercy.

Thank you for providing a place of sanity for so many.
Lauren

Thank you for that preacher. The thing that always amazes me about these people is how absolutely sure they are that they have got it right and everyone else should just listen to them. In some ways I'd love to be that absolutely certain about such things. I am a member of the Anglican communion and I just get so tired of listening to the two extremes just going back and forth on the same two subjects of homosexuality and women bishops with such absolute certainty their view is right, and absolutely no chance of even admitting that they may, in fact, be wrong. They never seem to realise that neither these issues or any others of a similar nature are important when God's children are suffering from poverty, famine, war etc. etc. ect.

At the risk of sounding like a copycat - Thanks for touching on such a tough subject. I just wanted to give a slightly different view. I'm a fairly new missionary in S.E. Asia and when I first arrived on the field, my mentor (a missionary of 17 years) spoke to me about the devastating number of "Perrys" in missions.
Thousands of miles away from the accountablity of the U.S. Church (and healthy mature Christians willing approach them about inappropriate & self-seeking behavior at a bible study), the mission field can be a dangerous breeding ground for those wishing to use Christianity to build thier own kingdoms. We hear too many stories of missionaries who live in luxury while thier ministry suffers, or live in sexual sin, all the while writing glowing monthly newsletters home to their supporters in the United States.
They sully the name of Christ (and the title "missionary" as well). But I am reminded of Philippians 1:18, "But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice." Although I have a seriously hard time rejoicing in the Perrys of this world, I have faith that God uses all things for His glory, even Perry.

Gordon, thanks for a wonderful piece! Sister Junior writes:
The thing that always amazes me about these people is how absolutely sure they are that they have got it right and everyone else should just listen to them. In some ways I'd love to be that absolutely certain about such things.
I am a scientist (a 'Christian scientist'!) and can't help noticing that there are a lot of people who are absolutely sure about things like evolution or the age of the planet (or its location or topology). Let me suggest that it is arrogant of them to claim to know the mind of God. I remember a wonderful piece you wrote a while back Gordon about the spiritual value of listening. Being open to the possibilities, the beauty, the work that needs to be done for Christ. The ceiling of the church is very high; there oughtta be room for the idea that God in his infinite beauty was just able to figure out how to work with the relatively crude tools of the Big Bang and natural selection.