The Allure of the Ring

One of my recent devotionals posed this question: Which of the temptations that Jesus endured the desert in Luke 4:1–13 would you personally find most difficult to resist? Going off a standard interpretation, would it be the need to satisfy a desire which can compete and override your desire for God Himself, whether it be food or sex? Would it be the promise of power and glory? Or would it be the fundamental inclination to doubt God's goodness and promises, which leads us to test God?

I'd probably answer "yes" to the question - of course I struggle with all three at different times. Interestingly, the struggle of trusting God's goodness and promises tends to, at least for me, leads me less to "testing God" as opposed to not relying upon Him enough. Or put another way, my lack of faith manifests itself in failing to pray, trying desperately to get out of bad situations using my own wit and effort, and assuming a humanist rationalist mindset. Often, the struggle isn't that I test God, it's more that I fail to appreciate His power, His strength, and His power to deliver me and others from very bad situations.

But while that might be the biggest temptation I struggle with, I find the temptation of power and glory most pervasive in the world at large. There's something about power which is not just seductive, but it seems to change the very attitudes and ethics of those who have it. The aspiration of gaining power and the fear of losing it causes people to do strange things.

I remember catching a glimpse on television an interview of David Kuo (no relation), who was formerly George W. Bush's Deputy Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives before in the spirit of a whistleblower (or turncoat, depending on your political perspective) wrote a book called "Tempting Faith", portraying the Bush Administration in a negative and cynical light, essentially accusing the administration for using the faith initiative as a thinly-veiled political tool to manipulate Christians into voting Republican without caring one iota about them or their causes. In the interview, Bill Maher (okay, maybe this wasn't exactly a politically unbiased setting) asked what changed between the sincere, righteous and genuine Bush who had personally recruited Kuo to help build the faith initiative and the man who was hell-bent on exploiting Christians to win elections, and Kuo answered along the lines of, "It's about power, and like in the 'Lord of the Rings', the power changed him and the need to stay in power changed him."

Regardless of whether you buy into Kuo's specific hypothesis about W, it's fair to say that we've all experienced or witnessed this phenomena, whether it be the elementary school classmate who becomes drunk with power after he's appointed hall monitor, the former peer at work whose crap doesn't stink anymore once he'd promoted ahead of you, or even the changing behaviors of people within churches as they're thrust into leadership.

As Uncle Ben said in Spider-Man: With great power comes great responsibility. I frankly think it's surprising that more superheroes don't go rogue.