pUrity vs. pOwer

I was reading a commentary on the New York Times Sunday Magazine piece on megachurches, and came across a good insight.

Jeff Sharlet,writing for "The Revealer," says that evangelicals are not "like fundamentalists of old, more concerned with purity than power."

Instead, he says, "What's striking about megachurch evangelicaldom is that it combines the passion of separatism -- purity -- with the ambition of assimilation -- ubiquity."

Setting aside whether Sharlett's conclusion is actually correct, I like the juxtaposition of those two words: purity and power. That does seem to be the tension between the Christians who were saved during the Jesus movement and their offspring.