The Power and the Glory

A tremendous book about the nature of suffering, bravery, responsibility, and humility.

Set in 1930s Mexico during a period of intense anti-Christian persecution by the government, the book follows a nameless priest who is the only remaining minister in his state after the others have been hunted down and shot. But he's not a heroic figure, or at least not really; he's called a “whiskey priest” because he's a drunk, it's unclear if his younger self was more focused on his congregation or rising up the clergy ranks to get promoted, and he fathered a child years ago. For all that, he's remained to try and minister to the Christians in the area when he could have easily fled the region or renounced the faith and joined the government, like others have. But there's his dilemma: is he doing more damage to the faith by staying and being such a mediocre role model of the priesthood, or is he doing his duty by at least providing the sacraments sometimes? With no support from the Church, and a zealously secular police lieutenant hunting him down to kill him, the whiskey priest's moral dilemma is compelling.

Perhaps more than any book I've read, The Power and the Glory shows how suffering can - if not quite be seen as a gift by God - then at least be something that we try to learn from. That's a message with very little traction in today's world, and mostly for good reason. But the whiskey priest demonstrates something about the necessity of humility, and that a true reckoning of our own sins ought to make us incapable of looking down on anyone. In his life during the good times, the trappings of power overwhelmed his better nature. But when he is brought low by being on the run for years and confronting his own failures, he's able to enter into a much deeper solidarity with all the people around him, not just the most pious ones.

There are a few particularly striking scenes of him interacting with a peasant who wants to turn him in for the reward money. The priest's interactions with the man have such moral weight they feel straight out of scripture.

There's also a scene featuring the priest in a jail cell with a whole swathe of petty criminals that feels shot through with the Christ figure. It's beautiful.

This book and Silence, by Shusaku Endo (about the Christian persecutions in 1600s Japan) strike me as required seminary texts and some of the best possible entryways into a Christian conversation about the nature of suffering and the Christ figure. Highly recommended.



While hearing a confession, “The man had an immense self-importance; he was unable to picture a world of which he was only a typical part – a world of violence, treachery, and lust in which his shame was altogether insignificant. How often the priest had heard the same confession - Man was so limited he hadn't even the ingenuity to invent a new vice: the animals knew as much. It was for this world that Christ had died; the more evil you saw and heard about you, the greater glory lay around the death. It was too easy to die for what was good and beautiful, for home or children or a civilization - it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and corrupt.”