Item 1787 - The 3 temptations

2 p. of textual records

This item is a 2-page article by Henri Nouwen entitled, ‘The Three Temptations: # 3,The temptation to be powerful’, published in Goodnews by the Catholic Charismatic Renewal In England, No. 105, May/June 1993. This is part 3 of a three part series of which the archives has only this. It is however, a slightly revised version of an article originally published in Sojourners, July 1981 and it seems likely that parts 1 and 2 will be as published in Sojourners (box 295, # 1637). Nouwen refers in the opening to this being the most seductive temptation of the 3 Jesus was faced with in the desert. Nouwen goes on to say that ‘there is probably no culture in which people are so unabashedly encouraged to seek power as ours’. Nouwen points out how we cannot believe that any good comes from powerlessness but that the call of Jesus was to just that. But that ‘only undivided attention to God can make a powerless ministry possible’. Nouwen concludes by stating, ‘Only when all of our service finds its source and goal in God can we be free from the desire for power and proceed to serve our neighbours for their sake and not our own’.

Published in Goodnews no. 105 (May - June 1993): 4-5.

Added by L Joson, 21 November 2017